The German Government Thought the Virus Had Killed off Populism. It Thought Wrong

Now on top of the AfD, it also has the anti-lockdown Querdenker movement to contend with

On the surface, 2020 seemed like a unique year in Germany (as in much of the world). A dangerous novel virus arrived and a new political experiment – the lockdown – was born. But the German government’s gloomy miserablism and politics of fear were sadly nothing new.

In theory, 2020 should have been a successful year for Germany’s governing elites, despite the great challenges posed by the pandemic. Back in August, polls showed record-breaking approval ratings for chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition government.

At first, it even seemed as if the fight against the virus had granted the government and its supporters some respite in their ongoing battle with the populists. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has found it difficult to develop a coherent response to Covid and has been mired in infighting. Populism was on the back foot, many seemed to think.

Though deaths from the virus, tragically, began to rise rapidly in autumn (at the time of writing over 21,000 Germans have died), around the same time we received the brilliant news of a vaccine. BioNTech, which developed one of the first successful vaccines, is based in Mainz. The quick development of this highly effective mRNA technique might have been seen as an expression of Germany’s innovative power and ingenuity. But that’s not how the German government liked to present the news. In the absence of any clear strategy for dealing with the virus, it has instead been keen to uphold a climate of fear and passivity.

Of course, neither Merkel – the ‘crisis chancellor’, or Krisenkanzlerin, as she is known in Germany – nor her government have ever been particularly inspiring. But her emotional, almost teary warnings of ‘a last Christmas with the grandparents’, just before announcing a new hard lockdown, marked a new low.

Merkel was not the only doom-monger this year, however. The German media insisted that there was ‘no reason for euphoria’ at the arrival of the vaccine. Few journalists made any demands of the EU authorities to approve its use, despite the UK, the US and Canada declaring it safe.

Another absurd example of this culture of fear was the media attention given to virologist Christian Drosten – a staunch lockdown supporter and one of the government’s top medical advisers. In November, he warned that a new, potentially even more deadly pandemic from the MERS virus could be around the corner.

Though Covid was certainly a challenge, the pandemic has largely just made many of our government’s underlying problems more visible. At a recent press conference, Markus Söder, the Bavarian state premier (often tipped as a successor to Merkel in the CDU), spoke of a society in a state of ‘semi-consciousness’. He was referring to the ‘lockdown lite’ Germany was living under until a full lockdown was introduced in December. But he could have just as easily been talking about what has happened to his party.

Although there will be federal elections next year, voters still don’t know who the CDU will nominate to replace Merkel as chancellor. And because there hasn’t even been a party conference this year, the hapless Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK), who was meant to step down in February, is still the CDU’s acting chair. This sad state of affairs has nothing to do with Covid, but rather speaks to the party’s inability to handle its inner power struggles and deal with its long-term decay.

It will not have escaped the notice of the German voters, who are much more awake than Söder and Co would like them to be, that the AfD was perfectly capable of holding a party conference – live, with masks and social distancing.

For the government, 2020 will be the year of missed opportunities. It failed to take advantage of the public’s initial confidence in facing the new threat. It ignored people’s willingness to help their communities, which could have strengthened our social bonds in these testing times. It failed to develop a unifying strategy against the virus. Public debates about how the most vulnerable could be protected were avoided. In fact, it took months before parliament took any involvement in the virus strategy at all. Even positive actions, such as those of the city of Tübingen – where the mayor had some success in shielding the elderly and care homes from the worst of the pandemic – were largely ignored.

But not everyone was half-asleep. On top of the AfD – which has been at the core of two major internal CDU conflicts, first in Thuringia in February and then in Saxony Anhalt in December – a new opposition has emerged. The ‘Querdenker’ (German for ‘lateral thinkers’) have brought many thousands on to the streets in protest against the lockdowns. Despite its initial high approval ratings, the government has had a rude awakening.

Yes, 2020 has been a unique year, but not much has changed for Germany’s ruling elite. The government has now, in its deep defensiveness, banned anti-lockdown protests and is even having the Querdenker monitored by the secret service. Similarly, the courts have never before been so involved in politics.

The idea that politics would stand still because of a virus was always an illusion. Things are moving fast in Germany. And given the many unresolved tensions, the federal elections in 2021 could be full of surprises.

Source: Spiked

31 Comments
  1. Padre says

    Highly effective vaccine?Where did you get this?It hasn’t even be used, and it is “highly effective”?

    1. Albert Mesrine says

      Well, if it isn’t then a lot of people are going to look rather stupid, as well as having a lot to explain…just reduce the PCR to 25 cycles and the Covid problem with just simply disappear over night.

      1. voza0db says

        They won’t even go with that… When a sufficient number of moron slaves is already artificially infected with the MIRACLE VACCINE they will just declare, via WHO, that the “pandemic is over” and all this will cease. No more tests, no more charts, no more daily news of moron animals with colds or even with anything!

        1. Albert Mesrine says

          I can’t see this lunacy ending for a long time(if ever)

    2. voza0db says

      The author of this article is a scoundrel.

      1. Hind Abyad says
      2. Hind Abyad says
  2. voza0db says

    Clearly Sabine Beppler-Spahl is just another moron slave helping to spread the PROPAGANDA of OPERATION COVIDIUS…

    Though Covid was certainly a challenge, the pandemic

    … around the same time we received the brilliant news of a vaccine. BioNTech, which developed one of the first successful vaccines, is based in Mainz. The quick development of this highly effective mRNA technique…

    This moron slave is just another piece of shit working for the establishment…

    1. ke4ram says

      The only thing successful with this magic virus is human intelligence dropping like a lead balloon.

      1. voza0db says

        The FUN part is the FACT that there has never been “human” intelligence…
        I wrote this on another site but it fits well in this conversation.

        Since I’ve spent the last year wasting words… Before 2020 I had the suspicion that I was living surrounded by Ignorant modern slaves. Today that suspicion exists no longer. I know now for a FACT that I indeed am surrounded by Ignorant modern slaves.

        So, in relation to this usual stupidity:
        It is a disease that is not at all threatening to the working class,…

        I can only write this:
        IT’S A SIMPLE FUCKING PNEUMONIA (at worst)… you dumb fucks!

        1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

          Since I’ve spent the last year wasting words… Before 2020 I had the suspicion that I was living surrounded by Ignorant modern slaves. Today that suspicion exists no longer. I know now for a FACT that I indeed am surrounded by Ignorant modern slaves.

          I’m with you. I came to that conclusion over a decade ago. I’m tired of trying to explain things to what are mostly programmed robots. Constantly riding uphill against the wind wears out the cowboy and his horse.

      2. voza0db says

        The realization that OPERATION COVIDIUS allowed to assert is that no matter the level of official “education” I now know for a FACT that a moron slave with a PhD is at the same level of Ignorance and Stupid Behaviour as the moron slave that can’t even read!

        1. Maxwell says

          Level of cognitive function is much lower for those with PhD’s.

          1. voza0db says

            No doubt… I’ve many direct evidence to support that FACT.

            1. Hind Abyad says

              Tell us your evidence to support that FACT

            2. Hind Abyad says

              I had pneumonia December 2019.

            3. voza0db says

              Too bad! If you had it in 2020 you would had “COVID-19” and if you were able to survive it, you could now pose as a HERO!

              You need to take better care of your Organism…

            4. Hind Abyad says

              Oh..I was in a snow storm had to walk a long way..;-)

  3. ke4ram says

    “The Alternative for Germany has found it difficult to develop a coherent response to Covid and has been mired in infighting”

    A coherent response to a virus! Man,,, that had me on the floor laughing my rear end off….

    We won the war against the Heart attacks, cancer, accidents, and Flu. We just relabel them as covid. Piece of cake!

    Darwin’s theory in reverse happening right before our eyes.

  4. Maxwell says

    Complete delusion

    How deluded do you have to be to believe all the brain-burned regime bullshit that is served up to us or even to stand by him as a vicarious agent or follower, to cover him, to support him? The arsenal of tyranny in the war against the peoples not only includes mask terror, PCR tests, compulsory vaccination programs and police-cordoned inner cities, but also the destruction of human dignity, the decomposition of any opposition and the human spirit. All of this and much more weakens the human immune system. Merkel tyranny and eager henchmen

    stress the people under the Covid-19 regime to the extreme,

    keep people in a state of fear and shock and trigger this fear with new horror messages every day,

    work in close collaboration with their media bullshit mafia,

    ensure through the unsanitary mask terror that the body and brain are not adequately supplied with oxygen,

    incite people against each other and call for denunciation,

    force people into isolation and into the digital home office (18),

    their distance regime disrupts the coexistence of people, including families,

    systematically destroy small and medium-sized enterprises and millions of jobs and livelihoods,

    destroy social togetherness and cultural exchange by banning meetings in restaurants, hotels, visiting museums and concerts, meetings, etc.

    forbid everything that is good for people, for example sport and socializing, undermine everything that promotes and strengthens togetherness,

    position the health authorities to execute the isolation torture,

    set up military-flanked vaccination centers to give people under-tested vaccines.

    Even with this stress you can murder people in the medium to long term. Corona is only the way to the goal. In essence, it is not about Corona, it is about the underlying agenda of the World Economic Forum with all its “future-oriented achievements”.

    Article here:

    https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-tyrannin

  5. Undecider says

    If the government wanted the approval of the people (I mean seriously), there would have been no [contrived] pandemic.

  6. Hind Abyad says

    https://twitter.com/Reeev0/status/1345509635525128193
    not one retweet people ar scared by Twitter and

  7. Undecider says

    If the government wanted the approval of the people (I mean seriously), there would have been no [contrived] pandemic.

  8. Hind Abyad says

    https://twitter.com/Reeev0/status/1345509635525128193
    not one retweet people ar scared by Twitter and

    1. voza0db says

      the moron slave is afraid to lose the Twatter account…

    2. voza0db says

      the moron slave is afraid to lose the Twatter account…

  9. L Garou says

    She’s a beast..

  10. L Garou says

    She’s a beast..

  11. 14th Troll says

    If last year’s election in the US proves anything it proves the voters don’t control who gets elected. So goes the elections in Germany. There are Forces at work the common people do not have a clue about.

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