Everyone is complaining about the so-called Debattenkultur (culture of debate). I claim, there is no culture of debate in our society anymore. And I also claim that todays assassination attempt on the Republican (almost) presidential candidate, Donald Trump, underlines my claim. Trump, who fueled, incited and turned us-American society, indeed international politics!, before, during and after his presidency into a place of poisoned hatred through lies and deceit, hostility and insults, has been shot today. Intuitively, he has made the most of this supposed defeat by seizing the momentum and creating an already iconic image.
Yes, I have to admit to him: He has nerve. But is that really a compliment? As us-American: would I want to be governed by someone who has no nerve? The so-called leader of the free world who reacts the way he does in a situation like this? I honestly don't know. I don't know how and if he wants to or can process the event. I also don't know whether he takes it personally at all or whether he is simply so out of touch that he doesn't even care.
All I think I know at the moment is that he won the election today.
He can only beat himself - perhaps by not taking the shots so easily after all. But I can no longer imagine anything else, a non-election.
And if everyone is now asking whether the election campaign will calm down, whether the event will bring people together, I ask myself, why should it?
Just like here in Germany, people who have a different opinion are vilified, silenced, not even listened to. People are stuck in their bubbles and they don't want anything other than confirmation of their own opinion. These missing qualities, which are actually totally human, namely listening to each other, talking to each other, exchanging views, have degenerated over the last few years into unreflected self-promotion, self-aggrandizement and the dictation of opinions. The unlearning of profoundly human skills (even at the campfire thousands of years before our time, people listened to each other and exchanged ideas) has been lost.
I very much hope that they are just buried in all the social media hysteria and egoism, but I'm afraid not. I fear that many people will have to learn all over again. As Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller wrote in an essay in the FAZ in June 2024 under the headline: "I can't imagine the world without Israel" https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/nobelpreistraegerin-herta-mueller-ueber-den-7-oktober-und-seine-folgen-19759496.html :
“In the meantime, the terms follower, influencer, activist are no longer harmless. These slick internet words are getting serious. They all existed before the Internet. I translate them back in time. And suddenly they become as rigid as sheet metal and overly clear. Because outside the Internet, they mean followership (Gefolgschaft), agent of influence (Einflussagent), activist (Aktivist). As if they were taken from the cadre of a fascist or communist dictatorship.”
I totally agree with her. But what can we do about? Are there any ideas how to come back to a culture of debate in a society where people call themselves followers? As in fascist and communist societies, such behaviour kills freedom of expression - even more, it kills thinking. At some point, other opinions will no longer need to be banned. They will simply die out - because anyone who is not in our favour is against us.
Violence against people who have a different opinion then becomes completely legitimate, indeed it is expected. And that is exactly what we have seen today. In a climate of lies and deception, of hatred and linguistic violence, which Trump himself has created, the step to other forms of violence is only a small one.
Something similar will happen if our elected representatives and our elected government now decide that US weapons are to be stationed in Germany again as a deterrent from 2026. The German Bundestag did not have to be consulted on this, as no German soldiers and their possible deployment are affected. Nevertheless, such a decision is being made without any debate or exchange. And, unlike in the 1980s, without any outcry from any kind of German peace movement. https://www.nato.int/docu/update/70-79/1979e.htm
And even our Chancellor does not want to debate or listen! As Scholz said in the so-called Summer Interview, ARD broadcasting, about the Ukraine: “We do know people don’t want this, but we don’t care. We do it nevertheless.” https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/bericht-aus-berlin/sommerinterview-olaf-scholz/ard/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL2JlcmljaHQgYXVzIGJlcmxpbi8yMDI0LTA2LTIzXzE4LTAwLU1FU1o
Means to me: People (the sovereign!) can think and expect whatever they want, we do it the way we want. Without debate. Without listening. Without consideration. - I can't tell you how much I want new elections!