Anger against politicians comes from an angry bourgeois self-righteousness, and that is exactly what makes it commonplace. Only counseling services can help.
Destroyed window of an SPD civilian office in Karlshorst in 2020 Photo: Fabian Sommer/photo alliance
In Germany, volunteer mayors, local politicians, department heads and mayors are insulted, threatened and attacked almost every day. The spectrum ranges from hate mail and threats to broken windows and physical attacks. This has been known for years. The attack on Saxon SPD politician Matthias Ecke has highlighted this aggressive disregard for democracy.
What are we dealing with? Some people invoke the Weimar conditions. But that is a dramatic phrase that explains little. The Nazi criminals left hundreds dead even before 1933. The terror was not spontaneous, but orchestrated from above to plunge democracy into chaos. In 2024 there will also be targeted fascist actions and right-wing radicals who fantasize about a civil war. But the picture is different.
This aggression is not an echo of the past, but of the present. The phenomenon fits corona deniers, lateral thinkers and limitless, radical individualism. The perpetrators are often ‘offended people’ (Oliver Nachtwey and Carolin Amlinger), who believe they are entitled to anger and resistance. To hate the state or the mayor, the unrepaired lantern in front of the door is enough, not to mention the asylum seekers’ house in the neighboring town.
We are dealing with angry citizens who feel personally offended when everything does not go according to plan. So more with militant narcissism and less with a return of Nazism. Social media has dramatically lowered the threshold between frustration and aggression, but it is the catalyst and not the cause.
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Simulated energy doesn’t help
What must we do? There is active political activism. There are knee-jerk calls for stricter criminal laws against ‘political stalking’. Attacks against elected officials can already be punished particularly severely. It is doubtful whether special laws will help politicians.
Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser wants to give “a clear stop signal” to the police and the judiciary. That just sounds good. There will be less money in the traffic light savings budget for faster criminal cases and more police, not more.
Studies show, that local politicians report only one in seven threats. The reason is probably fear: being seen as a victim and thus inviting even more hatred. More useful than rapid-fire laws that only simulate action or general hand-wringing is on-the-spot advice on how to defend yourself and respond appropriately. That sounds unspectacular, almost trivial. This is necessary because the attacks are so common.