![]() ![]() ![]() Marton writes that her obsession with privacy “verges on paranoia”. “Despite knowing little about their chancellor’s private life, other than that she comes across as leading a life not so different from their own, Germans thrice reelected her, each time by a comfortable margin.”įrom Marton’s US perspective, the contrast is especially glaring: while Donald Trump’s stint in the White House became a reality TV show, broadcast in real time through tweets and continual leaks, Merkel’s chancellory is famously gossip proof. “After several decades, Germans are not tired of her image, her voice, her looming persona – because Merkel does not loom,” Marton writes in her biography, in response to the German leader’s enduringly high popularity ratings. Hungarian-American author Kati Marton is especially fascinated by this aspect of Merkel’s tenure: the intense privacy of a woman who rose to power in an era of oversharing. Yet it’s also possible that Merkel may not be remembered as a pioneer, but as the last example of an idea that feels increasingly old-fashioned in an age where more and more political tribes are built around personal identity: leadership as an exercise in ego suppression, holding high office as tantamount to covering the very traits that make you unique. ![]()
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