That's it, that's the post
okay so my 1-minute explanation for non-Germans would be that basically 50% of Germany consists of kinda well-off boomers who just like the status quo, and Merkel offers that. You know, 50+ couples who own a decent house and drive the latest BMW SUV, life is good, why care about impoverished Italians and people drowning in the mediterranean? Everybody's working, we must be doing something right huh! Imagine if like 70s Ohio Republicans ruled over the US.
Then there's this weird deal that Merkel herself is seem as this sage physics lady that just has this knack for rational government. Kinda like what Hillary would have wanted to be in 2016 I guess. German MSMs pump this shit relentlessly and I sometimes lose hair wondering whether it's just these insane conservative boomer Germans who really believe that shit or were simply made to believe it by the united pro-Merkel media front, don't know.
Anyway, add these phenomenons and mechanisms together and you have my best explanation for why this country acts the way it does. Just to be clear, like 75% of the policy choices of the past 10 years have been terrible, but every time you point all these insane policy failures out to other Germans they just view them as kinda determined by fate or other, scheming non-Germans or something. Again, think Republicans normalizing all the horros of the Bush administration, or the Dems justifying the gig economy.
Am beyond caring at this point and just hoping for the EU to break up and everybody blaming it on the fucking Germans - which would be, you know, totally accurate. Probably gonna take some more years to happen though, because Germans are just as docile and obedient in taking economic pains as y'alls Americans. Don't know about the rest of Europe though.
Then there’s this weird deal that Merkel herself is seem as this sage physics lady that just has this knack for rational government.
She's the quintessential capitalist realist, a Thatcher that successfully hides how much she hates people. The infrastructure rot is unnoticeable to the boomers because she guts the public sector quietly. The catastrophic failure in tackling climate change, wholly intentional and executed on behalf of car manufacturers and energy corporations, gets coupled with a subsidy for electric cars, so the retired Oberstudienrat can affectionately think of his government while buying a Tesla (the next one will be made in Brandenburg!, he notes to himself while feeling a pleasantly tingling mix of Black, Red and Gold pride and Musk worship well up) and pretend that everything's fine and that he can look his grandchild in the eye without feeling like a monster for voting the party that has sacrificed that child's future for the stockholders of Mercedes-Benz and e.on.
And Merkel personifies this false consciousness that has reached levels of permanent self hypnosis perfectly. When we're doing a critique of ideology here, she has that sedative quality that many German conservatives crave. Helmut Kohl, who also governed for 16 unbearable years, wasn't just a racist, nazi tolerating, ultracorrupt shithead, he was a contagiously phlegmatic racist, nazi tolerating, ultracorrupt shithead who, through demeanor and sheer physical presence, provided his followers with the comfortable illusion of being protected by an absolutely immovable, stoic Palatinate monolith, a block of condensed Saumagen roughly in the shape of a very large adult son.
Merkel offers a similar collective sedation, she goes up on stage and does the Merkel hands and performs a capitalist realism while seeming harmless enough to take the edge off, allowing people to zone out in the comfort of believing that Angie will surely handle it in a way that is so rational and self-evident and alternativeless that it automatically must be fair to everyone (who deserves fairness to begin with, it's still conservatives we're talking about).
Same goes for Laschet, which is why it's absolutely logical that the CDU picked him as chairman.
This is the best description of Helmut Kohl I have ever experienced. And yes, it was an experience.
That was beautiful man, thanks for writing it all down so eloquently :germany-cool:
Not an expert on EU politics, but isn't Merkel leaving after serving her term? I don't know how fundamental she is to the function of the EU or if another European superpower like France can just seize the MSM attention and claim the "rational statesperson" knack. Either way the EU as described to me sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense with one side being all Lisa Simpsons and the other side of the EU being thinly vailed white nationalists the likes of Poland and Hungary.
Atleast from my end of the pond, Britain leaving the EU looks to have tarnished the liberal legitimacy of the union, and many of the members states are more so "tolerating" it's existence rather than participating in it to make the lives of you people, you know, somewhat better?
-7DeadlyFetishes
I don't understand German politics, Christian democrats are hemorrhaging voters everywhere in Europe but somehow they're stronger than ever in Germany
They are decidedly weaker than 10 years ago. In 2013 the CDU/CSU almost achieved a full majority in parliament, which is insane considering it was four parties represented. Germans are easily duped by the veneer of stability, which Merkel basically embodies.
Edit: Also, Covid saved their asses. Germans in a Crisis always rally around the ruling party, even if this ruling party significantly exacerbated said crisis.
Back around 2015/16 I remember there were these posts on reddit from haughty Deutsche about how, while the rest of the world was going to piss in a kettle vis-a-vis Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, Hufeisentheorie usw., they were content being consistent, stable, sensible Germans, electing High Chancellor Merkel, Her Indomitable Glory Everlasting Eternal for the 20th time, and that that's what the world needed right now - more of the same.
Couldn't help but laugh as I pulled up the graphs for global warming curves and Germany's coal usage side by side. (now that I look at it it's still the same, they've just built more wind turbines and solar panels)
