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.
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.
That was beautiful man, thanks for writing it all down so eloquently :germany-cool:
This is the best description of Helmut Kohl I have ever experienced. And yes, it was an experience.
ngl it felt cathartic writing that out.