The traffic lights are to blame
The strong result for the AfD in the European elections is a shock and a disgrace for our democracy. Established parties and their fans find dozens of excuses and explanations for the enormous growth of right-wing populists - but they don't want to clean up their own backyard.
By Bent-Erik Scholz
By Bent-Erik Scholz
If 16 percent of German voters are willing to accept that the party they are voting for is suspected of collaborating with Russian and Chinese secret services - that the leading candidate they are voting for casually trivializes the SS in a subordinate clause - if Germany's second largest group of voters is willing to accept this, then it is no longer enough to assume that they are all idiots or neo-Nazis. Something seems to be going fundamentally wrong here - and the fact that pretty much all of the traffic light parties were given a major beating in these elections should be more than enough reason to engage in critical self-reflection.
You might think so. But unfortunately, a moral hubris has taken hold that seems to make it impossible to question one's own actions. The "good people" are trapped by their own intoxication and resort to the most absurd phrases without realizing that they are only driving themselves deeper into misery. The division of society is progressing in leaps and bounds, and the slogans of perseverance for like-minded people that come from the mouths of those who consider themselves to be the "right" ones will not be able to hide this for much longer.
Opinions are divided as to who is to blame for the misery: the fact that the AfD is so popular among first-time voters and young people can only be linked to TikTok and the party's very successful strategy there. Disinformation is the keyword that one often reads in this context - a term that has now been misused politically to such an extent that it has lost all relevance. The federal government has recently produced an internet format "against disinformation" in collaboration with Rezo and various celebrity guests. Since when is it the federal government's job to act like a journalistic institution? Why should the federal government of all people be granted the power to decide what should be branded as fake news?
The theory that young voters lack the abstract thinking to classify TikTok content politically is of course not without a certain arrogance. It is the same arrogance with which politicians admit mistakes - they don't say "The idea was bad", they say "You have to explain politics better to people". In plain language, that means: "People were just too stupid to understand my politics".
The same crude argumentation scheme is brought to light when statistics are dug out that show that academics voted primarily for the Greens. One commentator writes: "Anyone who understands the world around them would never vote for the AfD." Here, the value of the voting decision is made dependent on the level of education. It couldn't be more elitist. Given the fact that the AfD did particularly well in the working class and among low earners, such an argument always essentially means "proletariat = stupid".
The truth is: the traffic light government's record so far has been disastrous. Since the war in Ukraine, we have been in a never-ending downward spiral, the economy has collapsed, inflation is robbing people of flexibility, opportunities to survive, and their common sense. We boycott the purchase of gas from Russia for moral reasons, only to then find that we cannot simply do without gas. So we knock on the doors of countries like Qatar, while at the same time publicly condemning them for political inadequacies at the World Cup, only to then buy the same Russian gas from third countries - at significantly higher prices.
The Greens, who still had posters saying "No weapons in war zones" during the 2021 election campaign, are now standing side by side with the FDP in the fight for the ever-increasing rearmament of Ukraine. The Chancellor's party's resistance to this is only moderate: the SPD Defense Minister is already lustfully talking about a remilitarized, war-ready Germany - a state in which young people had to fight for the right not to be senselessly sent to war for their own country. What is that supposed to be, a country that is seriously worth dying for? In an interview with Gabor Steingart, political scientist Herfried Münkler recently argued that Ukrainian refugees, who would currently prefer to stay on "German motorways," should be sent to the front in Ukraine. Deportation to a war zone. Not with the aim of protecting Ukraine, but to harm Putin. The man is a member of the SPD.
How can it be that workers and less well-off people in particular are voting for a national libertarian party that wants to help the higher income and wealth classes in particular to get significant tax breaks? Are they really that stupid? Or does that not actually say something else, namely that they have no Hopenness to benefit from the loud social policy promises of the major parties? The AfD's social policy is not social policy - the social policy of the so-called "established parties" claims to be everything, and in many places is just a bureaucratic monster that regularly reaches the limits of human dignity.
Of course, the voter is responsible for his or her own voting decision. But in a world that divides people into black and white, people feel too comfortable in their own cozy, warm corridor of opinion to ask about the causes. A core reason is that in many places, obvious problems have simply not been addressed for ideological reasons. Yes, the municipalities were and are overwhelmed by the number of refugees arriving in the last ten years. No, it does not automatically have to do with xenophobia to state this - it is above all an acknowledgement of a policy that knowingly and against better judgment did not adequately prepare for the arrival of such a considerable number of people. Unfortunately, concern always leads to resentment in the long term when the innocent addressing of concern is framed as suspicious, offensive, potentially dangerous. And of course, people with resentment are susceptible to populism that serves this resentment.
So what is the solution? It is evidently pointless to banish the AfD and all its voters to the yucky corner and to accuse them of Nazism. Nor is it helpful to fish in the same cheap pool as Weidel and co. - this pandering, as we recently heard especially from Olaf Scholz, who suddenly talks about deportation "on a large scale", does not lead to AfD voters turning back to the established parties that have disappointed them. Voters recognize the trick - and opt for the original.
The most effective tool against right-wing populism is good politics. Turning against the power of the simple solution means offering better solutions - if not preventing problems altogether. This is where our last governments, and above all the traffic light coalition, have their biggest deficit: in their lack of theory. Anyone who describes their botched heating law as an "experiment" a year and a half later is completely unsuitable as an economics minister. Federal politics is not a blank canvas on which you can scribble something for a test and then erase it again. Every decision leaves traces in the sand that may have an impact on some individuals for decades. Anyone who, as a vice-chancellor and minister, still has to experiment on eighty million people obviously has no system.
Persistently appealing to goodwill alone cannot conceal the missteps if there is a lack of a culture of error. And anyone who, as an observer, names the obvious error in implementation as such, only to then see themselves portrayed as an opponent of the idea, will at some point lose the courage to try to participate productively. And of course you can insult these people from the ivory tower - portray them as Nazis, enemies of democracy, idiots. You are unlikely to convince them that way. Who would voluntarily join a clique that slanders them?
We have been talking about a division in society for years. The real effects of this division are becoming more visible with every election, with every stubborn discourse, with every broken contact - each one a small capitulation in itself. Those who consider themselves enlightened, thoughtful and informed are now more than ever called upon to live up to this reputation. This can only be achieved by those of us who consider ourselves centrists, left of center - or simply opponents of what we call the right - asking the following question:
If we have drifted so far apart, shouldn't we at least consider that we ourselves have taken one or two strange turns?
06/13/24
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
You might think so. But unfortunately, a moral hubris has taken hold that seems to make it impossible to question one's own actions. The "good people" are trapped by their own intoxication and resort to the most absurd phrases without realizing that they are only driving themselves deeper into misery. The division of society is progressing in leaps and bounds, and the slogans of perseverance for like-minded people that come from the mouths of those who consider themselves to be the "right" ones will not be able to hide this for much longer.
Opinions are divided as to who is to blame for the misery: the fact that the AfD is so popular among first-time voters and young people can only be linked to TikTok and the party's very successful strategy there. Disinformation is the keyword that one often reads in this context - a term that has now been misused politically to such an extent that it has lost all relevance. The federal government has recently produced an internet format "against disinformation" in collaboration with Rezo and various celebrity guests. Since when is it the federal government's job to act like a journalistic institution? Why should the federal government of all people be granted the power to decide what should be branded as fake news?
The theory that young voters lack the abstract thinking to classify TikTok content politically is of course not without a certain arrogance. It is the same arrogance with which politicians admit mistakes - they don't say "The idea was bad", they say "You have to explain politics better to people". In plain language, that means: "People were just too stupid to understand my politics".
The same crude argumentation scheme is brought to light when statistics are dug out that show that academics voted primarily for the Greens. One commentator writes: "Anyone who understands the world around them would never vote for the AfD." Here, the value of the voting decision is made dependent on the level of education. It couldn't be more elitist. Given the fact that the AfD did particularly well in the working class and among low earners, such an argument always essentially means "proletariat = stupid".
The truth is: the traffic light government's record so far has been disastrous. Since the war in Ukraine, we have been in a never-ending downward spiral, the economy has collapsed, inflation is robbing people of flexibility, opportunities to survive, and their common sense. We boycott the purchase of gas from Russia for moral reasons, only to then find that we cannot simply do without gas. So we knock on the doors of countries like Qatar, while at the same time publicly condemning them for political inadequacies at the World Cup, only to then buy the same Russian gas from third countries - at significantly higher prices.
The Greens, who still had posters saying "No weapons in war zones" during the 2021 election campaign, are now standing side by side with the FDP in the fight for the ever-increasing rearmament of Ukraine. The Chancellor's party's resistance to this is only moderate: the SPD Defense Minister is already lustfully talking about a remilitarized, war-ready Germany - a state in which young people had to fight for the right not to be senselessly sent to war for their own country. What is that supposed to be, a country that is seriously worth dying for? In an interview with Gabor Steingart, political scientist Herfried Münkler recently argued that Ukrainian refugees, who would currently prefer to stay on "German motorways," should be sent to the front in Ukraine. Deportation to a war zone. Not with the aim of protecting Ukraine, but to harm Putin. The man is a member of the SPD.
How can it be that workers and less well-off people in particular are voting for a national libertarian party that wants to help the higher income and wealth classes in particular to get significant tax breaks? Are they really that stupid? Or does that not actually say something else, namely that they have no Hopenness to benefit from the loud social policy promises of the major parties? The AfD's social policy is not social policy - the social policy of the so-called "established parties" claims to be everything, and in many places is just a bureaucratic monster that regularly reaches the limits of human dignity.
Of course, the voter is responsible for his or her own voting decision. But in a world that divides people into black and white, people feel too comfortable in their own cozy, warm corridor of opinion to ask about the causes. A core reason is that in many places, obvious problems have simply not been addressed for ideological reasons. Yes, the municipalities were and are overwhelmed by the number of refugees arriving in the last ten years. No, it does not automatically have to do with xenophobia to state this - it is above all an acknowledgement of a policy that knowingly and against better judgment did not adequately prepare for the arrival of such a considerable number of people. Unfortunately, concern always leads to resentment in the long term when the innocent addressing of concern is framed as suspicious, offensive, potentially dangerous. And of course, people with resentment are susceptible to populism that serves this resentment.
So what is the solution? It is evidently pointless to banish the AfD and all its voters to the yucky corner and to accuse them of Nazism. Nor is it helpful to fish in the same cheap pool as Weidel and co. - this pandering, as we recently heard especially from Olaf Scholz, who suddenly talks about deportation "on a large scale", does not lead to AfD voters turning back to the established parties that have disappointed them. Voters recognize the trick - and opt for the original.
The most effective tool against right-wing populism is good politics. Turning against the power of the simple solution means offering better solutions - if not preventing problems altogether. This is where our last governments, and above all the traffic light coalition, have their biggest deficit: in their lack of theory. Anyone who describes their botched heating law as an "experiment" a year and a half later is completely unsuitable as an economics minister. Federal politics is not a blank canvas on which you can scribble something for a test and then erase it again. Every decision leaves traces in the sand that may have an impact on some individuals for decades. Anyone who, as a vice-chancellor and minister, still has to experiment on eighty million people obviously has no system.
Persistently appealing to goodwill alone cannot conceal the missteps if there is a lack of a culture of error. And anyone who, as an observer, names the obvious error in implementation as such, only to then see themselves portrayed as an opponent of the idea, will at some point lose the courage to try to participate productively. And of course you can insult these people from the ivory tower - portray them as Nazis, enemies of democracy, idiots. You are unlikely to convince them that way. Who would voluntarily join a clique that slanders them?
We have been talking about a division in society for years. The real effects of this division are becoming more visible with every election, with every stubborn discourse, with every broken contact - each one a small capitulation in itself. Those who consider themselves enlightened, thoughtful and informed are now more than ever called upon to live up to this reputation. This can only be achieved by those of us who consider ourselves centrists, left of center - or simply opponents of what we call the right - asking the following question:
If we have drifted so far apart, shouldn't we at least consider that we ourselves have taken one or two strange turns?
06/13/24
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
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