SecondIn April and early May, there are a few weeks to look forward to the general election. The CDU and the Green Party have just clarified their K issue.And three prime minister candidates Armin Raschelt, Annalena Baerbock and Olaf Scholz have five months before election day to show off their national plans. It was a moment of optimism: after 16 years of Angela Merkel’s tenure, the new prime minister had the opportunity to address major issues: climate change, digitalization and national inertia, which have been exposed during the pandemic. Lashet immediately accepted this desire for change and promised a “decade of modernization.”
Since then, three months have passed. So now there are only two elections. After deducting the holidays, the remaining time has even shrunk. The opportunity to debate on Germany’s path to the future may have been missed.On the contrary, he felt political campaign In 2021, it seems that you made a mistake in a TV show: Unfortunately, the show you wanted did not run, so you skipped from one channel to another without planning. You watch people scold each other in their cramped kitchen.
At the next stop, a child fell into the swimming pool on his new bicycle. One station pays attention to the embarrassment of others, and the next pays attention to malicious happiness. The talk show cleverly evoked anger. Look at the clock at some point: Oh dear, it’s too late again. A feeling of emptiness. What a meaningless night.
Huge headlines, Twitter avalanche
The political counterpart of junk TV today is the so-called unresolved video clips of the debate. Armin Raschelt laughed in the flood zone. Incredibly, this person, reportedly, has the hashtag #Laschetverhäter.And have Annalena Balbok In fact, in the interview, almost no one would notice the N word? Huge headlines, Twitter avalanche.
Every Tuesday
Allegedly, when Laschet referred to the host as a “young woman” in the old-fashioned way, it reached the peak of previous stupidity. In fact, he only said “Tschuldijung Frau…” in Rhine, but the hashtag #Young Woman is already around the world. On the front lines, Friday’s future spokeswoman Luisa Neubauer was also involved, and her false accusations continue to this day. This process is important because it makes climate movement unnecessarily small. People did not always focus the discussion on climate change, but ignored it.
This behavior is part of the logic of social media, which is becoming a huge distraction machine. It’s too easy to blame AfD or Russian trolls. Because the veteran actors themselves are an important part of the problem: reporters who act like an axe. Politicians and their supporters unscrupulously vilified every distortion of other political parties.
As a result, the federal election campaign made the country even more stupid. Discussions fall into trivial matters, and more and more time is wasted on issues of identity politics. What characteristics does a person need to be able to comment on a particular issue? Then there is often a lack of attention to the problem itself.
Some plans are too vague to be verified
All parties seem to have adapted to this development. Tax expert Frank Hechtner (Frank Hechtner) reported in FAZ this week that the parties’ financial plans for the campaign were so vagueThe impact on citizens can no longer be calculated reliably. The professor lamented that his specific inquiry formed a “wall of silence” between all parties.
In this way, the two sides not only get through the tax policy.Example of pension policy: Legacy of the times Merkel In this field, it basically ignored demographics and mathematics for 16 years, and continued to rely on tools such as the now dead Riester pension. Although this development affects almost every citizen, there is hardly any discussion during the election campaign.
For climate policy, it just looks different at first glance. The climate target bid of both parties is higher than that of the other party. However, few specific challenges were discussed. For example, without new power lines like Südlink, the energy transition will be difficult to succeed. This line should be ready in time for the closure of the last nuclear power plants in 2022. To this day, it has not moved one kilometer. There is no label.
