44
Yeah, title is perhaps not correct. It's of 24 surveyed democratic countries.
Ah, so the US wasn't even in the running.
US President Donald Trump ranked just ahead of Erdoğan in 10th place from the bottom, despite launching military operations in Iran. Some 38% of Americans said they were satisfied with his work, while 57% were dissatisfied.
If the survey was to indicate anything, it'd be that Germans, unlike Americans, are not absolute tools.
Tools are useful.
Nobody approves of Merz, but few people disapprove of him as much as reasonable people disapprove of figures like Modi and Trump.
This is measured as the percentage of the population in the country who disapproves of the leader. So Trump comes out alright because a bunch of Americans still approve of him. That doesn't really reflect badly on Merz. It reflects badly on America.
That said, if Merz started saying he would deport non-ethnic Germans or some shit like that his approval might grow by this standard because he would at least have some sort of base. Right now he appeals to nobody.
So in short, it's a bit of a shit indicator.
The survey is conducted by Morning Consult, who received $31 million in funding from James Murdoch in 2020 and another $60 million from some group named Advance Venture Partners in 2021. I don't think they do bullshit research by accident.
I mean its a good indicator though, because it clearly shows that threatening the entire working class will make you lose elections. But that also means the inverse should be true and going hard on pro working class politics is a winning position.
It fails to capture the difference between a conservative German not approving of Merz because he's a bit of a dull bore and a marginalized American disapproving of Trump because his rule is literally threatening their life. You won't see no king protests against Merz. He is not so unpopular that he might realistically put an end to Germany as we know it.
It doesn't show that threatening the entire working class will make you lose elections. It doesn't have a class dimension at all, it just says how many people actively like their leaders in a handful of countries. Neither Macron nor Merz were particularly popular when they were last elected, they are just strategically positioned within their political systems.
It measures what it measures. We have seen again and again that leaders can be democratically elected and re-elected while fucking over the working class.
"Most Unpopular" is such a meaningless metric.
If all politicians were generally good people, and all mostly liked, you'd still have a "most unpopular" one.
French President Emmanuel Macron ranked second-lowest, with 18% approval and 75% disapproval, in the survey, which tracks leaders' popularity across major democracies.
However, Merz recorded the highest disapproval rate at 76%, while 19% of respondents said they were satisfied with his work.
I'm going to call that a tie.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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