Gender, identity politics, climate: there are issues that lead to unrelenting arguments between reactionaries and avant-gardists. This woke war is gripping half the globe. But you can stay out - with Helmut Schmidt.
Perhaps a gender-equitable outhouse will bring about the change of power in Berlin. "Bääm, there's the thing," said the Greens politician and district mayor Clara Herrmann, pleased about an identity-politically correct little shithouse on the "Kotti", a Berlin hotspot that may be plagued by more urgent things than a lack of toilets. A "pissoir" and a "missoir" stood there, and little embodied the whimsy of the Greens as much as the joy at these shacks painted with advertising text. Now a grand coalition is coming together in Berlin and the city is threatened with the unimaginable: factual politics.
There are many confessions by actually progressives in the capital who, in the face of the Berlin Senate's ideology-foaming policies, have made their cross with the conservatives. Is Berlin a signal? Is a growing majority simply losing interest in ideological cramps of any kind?
In view of the current tasks, many voters did not want fervent struggles for the toilet needs of tiny minorities, but also not petrol-sweating inertia fanaticism. The Berliners have voted out red-green-red, but have also not been able to make friends with the FDP's car fetish. Their top candidate in Berlin got excited about the almost mystically charged calming down of Friedrichstrasse, towed away roadblocks and demonstrated for, yes really, "Freedrichstrasse". As a reward, the FDP was kicked out of the House of Representatives.
That should be a warning signal for the Liberals: Those who stand at 5 percent cannot risk a split. But the FDP is on the way there. An incredible 26 percent of liberal voters would vote for a Wagenknecht party, according to a survey. And whenever Wolfgang Kubicki appears in the media, you can hear plucking noises in Berlin - it's the progressive liberals who are tearing their hair out. Currywurst policy is ill-suited to a progressive party. Is it really "German courage" if you fight with "E-Fuels" for the combustion engines?
You can definitely overdo it when it comes to culture wars; no other nation demonstrates this as stridently as the United States. "We fight the woken in the legislature. We fight the woken in the schools. We fight the woken in the corporations. We will never capitulate to the awake mob." That said Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida and possibly the next US President. It sounds like war and that's no coincidence.
To some, Russia's aggression seems to be on par with woken - or are the latter even worse? Foxnews bully Tucker Carlson once asked, putting the Russian in perspective: "Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to fire me because I disagree with him?"
Warlord Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, received the greatest applause in his anti-woker speech during his weak speech: Not when it came to Russia's social issues or the alleged Nazis in Ukraine - but when the Russian blood president emphasized that marriage was a matter between man and woman and that will also be defended against the West. So is that the point? Is the Russian afraid that the progressive West will send Leopard 2 tanks to muddy up the former Tsardom in the guise of NATO expansion?
The fight against Woke knows no borders, but it is not always successful. DeSantis has even declared "ESG" a political issue, i.e. new criteria for investments - it's about the environment, social issues and good corporate governance. Now the step is flying in his face: the banks won't let politicians talk into their ratings. Despite all the suspicion of woke, ESG can lead to something that banks like very much: money. They argue "that it makes financial sense to factor climate risk and other societal concerns into investment strategies," reports the Washington Post.
In the Scottish election campaign, too, the Conservatives were overwhelmed by the anti-Woke course, because the candidate from the Conservative National Party suddenly regretted "marriage for all" - and in doing so was apparently going too far even for her own people. Former Tory boss William Hague, a conservative, reprimanded her with that, even in a conservative party. A survey now shows what is important to people: 5 percent named religion and personal beliefs, most of them said the cost of living was the most important.
Against this background, the anti-culture course of the CDU and CSU (and parts of the FDP) is difficult. The CDU is currently enjoying a continuous upswing, but not because of the musty attitude of its top culture fighter - Merz's values are not increasing. The reason for the desire for black is different: people simply trust the big parties more, the INSA boss recently speculated in the "Bild" newspaper.
So the woke war doesn't go any further. It's time to get over it - dare more Helmut Schmidt! "Anyone who has visions should go to the doctor," he is said to have said. In any case, many people love this quote and the Hanseatic man's grumbling manner. Smoking around in television studios and still standing slightly to the left of center, but, very importantly, without being chic - Schmidt would never have applauded a women's toilet at the Kotti.
One that Helmut Schmidt is quite good at is Ricarda Lang. The Green co-boss avoids shrill woke topics and is doing well with it. She could have staged herself as a fighter against body shaming when she was repeatedly attacked because of her corpulence at the beginning - she decided against it. Even today, when there is a debate about whether a character in old children's books can be called "extremely fat", she remains silent. She doesn't smoke in studios, but she does allow herself confetti.
The woke war refusal is actually not difficult. Firstly, avoid knee-jerk attacks. "Feminist foreign policy," for example, sounds funny if you don't know anything about it, but it really isn't. One can see in Afghanistan where male democracies are leading. Second: Don't puff up every sensibility as a social problem. The future depends neither on "Freedrichstrasse" nor on gender-equitable toilet blocks.
Third: Back to business! Let's discuss the really important issues - for example housing, shortage of skilled workers, public finances, integration, old-age provision and care. The audience, meaning you, dear readers, can have a say in that. Not every anti-woke punch line needs to be applauded. And not every objection to climate action or identity politics is reactionary.
Kai Wegner, the capital's prospective mayor, put it this way: "Berlin should remain Berlin, but it should function." Not a bad slogan.
