Everyone acts as if Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg had already fallen to the AfD. Perhaps it would be better to give less importance to polls.
Culinary ruin is also close Photo: Wolfgang Kumm/dpa
Eight years ago today it was said: “Donald Trump wins again. The Republican, who was unpopular in his party, achieved important victories in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii.”
A few weeks later I was sitting in a bar with a friend and, as is so often the case in bar conversations, “everything was clear”: “The election has long since been decided. It will happen anyway.” The friend, like most people, was of the opinion that Hillary Clinton would become President of the USA.
It was inconceivable to him that after the likeable Obamas, a rowdy crowd would move into the White House. I also like to be right and that’s why, after my classic overture “I have no idea, but…”, I replied to my friend: “I don’t like cursing the evening before the next morning.”
I pointed out that the world laughed at the shouting bully Adolf Hitler – no German bar conversation without him – for a long time before he entered the Reichstag. Until he got serious. But I also remembered Ronald Reagan. He was also elected, even though he carried out his duties in the West Wing like a drunken cowboy in a Wild West dive bar. But the world didn’t end because of it.
Eight years later, everyone knows that a President Trump is possible and many are already reacting to the election forecasts even before anything is clear: it will happen anyway.
The desire to predict, especially the bet on the downfall, is of course one of humanity’s greatest passions and I have already lost a bet about the half-life of the traffic light.
Regulars’ table forecasts and election surveys
Fortunately, regular table forecasts are less influential than professional election polls. The meaning of these is becoming more and more suspicious to me. Since Brexit and Trump, they have been seen as insecure cantonists. Nevertheless, politicians, the media and regular discussions have been acting for months as if Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg had already fallen to the AfD and that the very worst could only be prevented.
A colleague from Croatia recently interviewed me and wanted to know what would happen if the AfD became chancellor. I had to make it clear to him several times that this year we have a European election and regional elections in three federal states and that there is really no reason at all to act as if the AfD would be the next chancellor.
And I also told him – as did my German colleagues – that I think it’s crazy to stare at the polls after every demonstration against the right and, when they don’t show at least half a percent less than the AfD bar, to believe: That was it it. He (Hitler) is back.
For the journalist and activist Arne Semsrott, like his colleagues from abroad, the matter seems to be clear. Semsrott’s book entitled “Taking Power” will be published in June. The Publisher announces, the author will explain what happens when right-wing extremists rule and provide “concrete strategies” to defend democratic society, including a “ban on the AfD.” Of course, this book in no way plays with the desire to predict doom and is only intended to be a constructive contribution.
In the coming months, Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg will hardly disappear from the news; the media, clubs, civil society and politics will organize countless events in order to thwart the AfD’s event. We don’t know whether even a single line will be created. Nor whether it would be more effective to simply leave the polls alone and see what the work of politics and the media would look like without poll numbers.
2024-03-09 20:13:50
#AfD #Trump #desire #predictions #doom
