Checking off the election debacle and waiting for the traffic light government to make mistakes is definitely not an option for the CDU.
With the clear decision of the party base for Friedrich Merz as the future chairman, the CDU has already learned one of the most important lessons from the bankruptcy, bad luck and breakdowns 2021 election campaign.
A lesson that sounds banal, but is surprisingly often ignored.
Only a party that appears to be united and that does not break up in open power struggles and dismantles its chancellor candidate is attractive to voters.
A lesson that was disciplined and heeded this time by the SPD, which had been at odds for years.
If the shrunken people's party CDU then also finds out what it stands for and programmatically renews its brand essence, its comeback could also succeed.
Laschet, who lost the election, took a step towards that.
With an error analysis that didn't go easy on him either, he had the worst election result in the history of the CDU worked up.
After the equally historic electoral defeat in 1998 and the painful departure of Helmut Kohl, this reappraisal was omitted.
However, it is too easy to attribute the blame for the gutting of the CDU solely to the four-time election winner Angela Merkel and her visionless political style.
It would also be a mistake to tamper with the brand name.
The SPD didn't do it.