The rude awakening
What many in the public broadcasting editorial offices and Berlin-Prenzelberg hipster cafes suspected has seemed to be proven since the beginning of the year: Elon Musk is beyond the firewall. The "double whammy" from the Welt article and the conversation with Alice Weidel on X makes it clear: the much-celebrated "Tesla genius" does not want to leave any doubts open. This puts the left-liberal cultural hegemons in a fatal dilemma: on the one hand, the Tesla plant in Brandenburg is the most important flagship of a supposedly progressive green economy, and on the other hand, its boss is playing with the dirty kids.
by Wätzold Plaum
by Wätzold Plaum
But if we look beyond Germany and the western world, we see that much of what the ruling political class sees as being beyond the firewall has now reached the mainstream. Italy is governed by the post-fascist Meloni. In the most recent parliamentary election in France, the Rassemblement National became the strongest political force in terms of votes. Contrary to the expectations of our "political experts" sparked by the media, Donald Trump was elected US President for the second time with an overwhelming majority.
And what does the simple-minded German Michel do? He seeks out his favorite place - the pulpit - and begins with what he does best: with puffed-out cheeks and a lot of moralizing in his timbre, he laments the "world". In doing so, he gives unambiguous testimony to his unsurpassable Nibelung loyalty. Ideas may have changed over the centuries - but the fanaticism with which the "German idealist" indulges in exaggerated concepts until nothing can be saved is unbroken. Almost as if failure were the unmistakable proof of having remained true to the "good". With all due respect to Kant's ethics of duty, but that led our ancestors to Westphalia, Versailles and Stalingrad. The persistence of this habitus also currently demonstrates a self-destructive climate ambition that China and the USA - together responsible for more than half of global CO2 emissions - will certainly not be impressed by, let alone educated by.
And so it is difficult to find any useful interpretations of the latest "casus Musk" in German journalism. But this, along with so-called "right-wing populism", must be called what it is: a rebellion against a globalization in which the number of losers in the West far exceeds that of the winners. While the profits of the major global corporations are through the roof, highly qualified German jobs are being moved to low-wage countries at a breathtaking pace. Germany believed itself to be on the winning side for too long, first of all economically. German car manufacturers have made a lot of money in China over the last few decades - and at the same time built up their own competition. And even more so morally, in which the German, suffering from chronic self-torture, hoped for redemption in the general brotherhood of humanity. Beethoven already sang about it.
The rude awakening came in recent years, when even the most simpleton had to realize that the dream of globalization was over. With dogged persistence, however, the intellectual followers of the traffic light government chained themselves to the illusion that the 1990s would last forever. But this is increasingly proving to be a fatal German special path. The spookily synchronous collapse of the traffic light with Trump's election triumph is ultimately a consistent admission of complete ideological failure.
What follows from this? That Elon Musk is right - as with everything, according to the opinion of young libertarian yuppies? How bad are things for us when billionaires like Trump and Musk supposedly turn into class representatives of the "little people"? Replacing the short-sightedness of the left-liberal cultural hegemons of the past decades with the complementary, opposite short-sightedness does little to help. Because the fact is: Trump and Musk represent the problematic trend of a re-feudalization of Western democracies. The moneyed aristocracy is taking over the political stage. This is more than just a metaphor, because the billions of dollars in assets also function as a basis for legitimacy, according to the motto: He knows what he is talking about because he has achieved something. The fact that Germany is not free from this trend is demonstrated - admittedly on a smaller scale - by the fact that our next Chancellor will in all probability be a former servant of the billionaires.
To return to the firewall rhetoric: it is nothing other than a refusal to think. Regressive left-liberalism is burying its head in the sand with virtuoso fanaticism. A conservative black-blue government in Saxony, which with over two-thirds of the parliamentary seats would correspond with the will of the voters with uncontested clarity.
We, would not let the country go under. It would mean that the ruling political class would have to deal with the vehement objection to globalization. And it would also help to de-radicalize the AfD. Because many a pithy saying would probably stick in the throat when faced with government responsibility. Incidentally, in Switzerland, the AfD's sister party has been part of the government for years without concentration camps being built and SA hordes attacking kebab shops. That doesn't mean you have to like the AfD and the SVP. But the rifts that now run through the "Western community of values" are evidence of an inability to have real discourse, diversity of opinion and enlightenment.
14.01.25
Wätzold Plaum is a trained physicist with a doctorate in mathematics and a second in philosophy. In 2012, the political non-fiction book "The Wiki Revolution. The Crash and Restart of Western Democracy" was published, and in 2022, the "Manifesto of the Radical Center" was published, a positive accentuation of political centrism. He runs the YouTube channel "Wätzolds Welt" and works as a musician.
Wätzold Plaum;
And what does the simple-minded German Michel do? He seeks out his favorite place - the pulpit - and begins with what he does best: with puffed-out cheeks and a lot of moralizing in his timbre, he laments the "world". In doing so, he gives unambiguous testimony to his unsurpassable Nibelung loyalty. Ideas may have changed over the centuries - but the fanaticism with which the "German idealist" indulges in exaggerated concepts until nothing can be saved is unbroken. Almost as if failure were the unmistakable proof of having remained true to the "good". With all due respect to Kant's ethics of duty, but that led our ancestors to Westphalia, Versailles and Stalingrad. The persistence of this habitus also currently demonstrates a self-destructive climate ambition that China and the USA - together responsible for more than half of global CO2 emissions - will certainly not be impressed by, let alone educated by.
And so it is difficult to find any useful interpretations of the latest "casus Musk" in German journalism. But this, along with so-called "right-wing populism", must be called what it is: a rebellion against a globalization in which the number of losers in the West far exceeds that of the winners. While the profits of the major global corporations are through the roof, highly qualified German jobs are being moved to low-wage countries at a breathtaking pace. Germany believed itself to be on the winning side for too long, first of all economically. German car manufacturers have made a lot of money in China over the last few decades - and at the same time built up their own competition. And even more so morally, in which the German, suffering from chronic self-torture, hoped for redemption in the general brotherhood of humanity. Beethoven already sang about it.
The rude awakening came in recent years, when even the most simpleton had to realize that the dream of globalization was over. With dogged persistence, however, the intellectual followers of the traffic light government chained themselves to the illusion that the 1990s would last forever. But this is increasingly proving to be a fatal German special path. The spookily synchronous collapse of the traffic light with Trump's election triumph is ultimately a consistent admission of complete ideological failure.
What follows from this? That Elon Musk is right - as with everything, according to the opinion of young libertarian yuppies? How bad are things for us when billionaires like Trump and Musk supposedly turn into class representatives of the "little people"? Replacing the short-sightedness of the left-liberal cultural hegemons of the past decades with the complementary, opposite short-sightedness does little to help. Because the fact is: Trump and Musk represent the problematic trend of a re-feudalization of Western democracies. The moneyed aristocracy is taking over the political stage. This is more than just a metaphor, because the billions of dollars in assets also function as a basis for legitimacy, according to the motto: He knows what he is talking about because he has achieved something. The fact that Germany is not free from this trend is demonstrated - admittedly on a smaller scale - by the fact that our next Chancellor will in all probability be a former servant of the billionaires.
To return to the firewall rhetoric: it is nothing other than a refusal to think. Regressive left-liberalism is burying its head in the sand with virtuoso fanaticism. A conservative black-blue government in Saxony, which with over two-thirds of the parliamentary seats would correspond with the will of the voters with uncontested clarity.
We, would not let the country go under. It would mean that the ruling political class would have to deal with the vehement objection to globalization. And it would also help to de-radicalize the AfD. Because many a pithy saying would probably stick in the throat when faced with government responsibility. Incidentally, in Switzerland, the AfD's sister party has been part of the government for years without concentration camps being built and SA hordes attacking kebab shops. That doesn't mean you have to like the AfD and the SVP. But the rifts that now run through the "Western community of values" are evidence of an inability to have real discourse, diversity of opinion and enlightenment.
14.01.25
Wätzold Plaum is a trained physicist with a doctorate in mathematics and a second in philosophy. In 2012, the political non-fiction book "The Wiki Revolution. The Crash and Restart of Western Democracy" was published, and in 2022, the "Manifesto of the Radical Center" was published, a positive accentuation of political centrism. He runs the YouTube channel "Wätzolds Welt" and works as a musician.
Wätzold Plaum;
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