Clemens Fuest is astonished, and this represents many citizens of this country: did the people of Berlin really expect that the farmers would accept without objection the austerity measures announced by the traffic light coalition? The president of the Munich Ifo Institute is surprised that “tractors are coming to the rally, you didn't have to be a prophet to foresee it”: “They are not beginners!”
Newbies in a high position? Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir initially denies the guilt of “Maybrit Illner”: he himself was not satisfied with the austerity measures from the beginning. They came “holterdipolter” without first consulting agriculture: “You really don't.” On the other hand: what would have happened if agriculture had been involved? Probably a new grant.
What people really want from politics
Green Party politician Özdemir expresses regret: the problem with this decision was “that people didn't think it through, that it didn't happen in a vacuum.” Rather, it came into contact with the society that was corona tired, shocked by two wars and overwhelmed by the climate crisis, “and then it's over.” However, one does not need to be a prophet or a psychiatrist to suspect and consider this. A little sense and tact would have been enough here.
Holterdipolter, hi and hott: “The traffic lights completely underestimated the situation when they tolerated it,” the involved NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) is also convinced of this. But it's not just about farmers. The writer Juli Zeh diagnoses that the feeling of being left behind has been developing for years not only in the countryside, but also on the outskirts of the cities: for all those who “have long felt that they are not heard”. In order to remain peaceful, people need a “fundamental policy that takes care of their existential concerns.” And not until after they've solved the really big world crises.
Economic expert Clemens Fuest takes this idea a little further: politics should not promise people so much that they then have to pay back in terms of financial reality. “Annoyance is often the difference between expectation and execution.” Politics must become more honest here. And trust the population more faithfully.
The Greens as a metaphor for everything that is boring
Illner rightly states that the frustration of the disaffected often ends up at the door of the Greens. Why so? At this point, Özdemir acknowledges that in recent years, perhaps too many have “moved on the landscape with a moralistic attitude”. “Green “has become a metaphor,” says Juli Zeh: a metaphor for “a certain attitude toward politics characterized by the fact that you don't listen, but have your own attitude and imbibe it as an alternative.”
But it's not just the Greens' fault, corrects Marie Fiedler, referring to Markus Söder, the head of the state of Bavaria, for example: Parts of the union certainly “feel that they can make a name for themselves in this polarization and benefit from it. .” It's generally more appropriate to complain about gender and blame the Greens for a food dictatorship than to make difficult connections for voters.
Even if Wüst and Özdemir often prefer to look back and argue rather than look forward with a solution-oriented approach: this Thursday round in “Maybrit Illner” puts into words a lot of things that have been fermenting and poisoning Germany for a long time. mood in the country. In conclusion, Hendrik Wüst suggests that the relations between the state and citizens must be “generally rearranged: “We should expect something from the citizens, but we should also expect the freedom and responsibility to decide for ourselves.” politicians whom the political caste should take to heart, regardless of party affiliation.