Klaus Brinkbäumer was most recently editor-in-chief of “Spiegel” and now works as an author for “Die Zeit”, among others. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Brinkbaeumer. In his weekly column “Spiegelstrich” he is currently writing a coronavirus diary with brief observations from everyday life and reflections on the crisis.
The city is proud, nine weeks of isolation are worth it: the famous curve is flat. C. and all doctors have understood which symptom is to be treated and how, have found certainty. If we got sick now, it would no longer be apocalyptic: There are beds, ventilators.
Blooming city, May was always the shining month in Manhattan. This time we New Yorkers, most of us, take care, keep our distance, wear masks, but we go to the parks, meet each other in amazement, you can only smile with your eyes.
Before Corona, I would have thought it impossible that I would ever stop my son when he was screeching joyfully, swinging the shovel, walking towards a waving Wendy. Policemen disperse picnic groups in Washington Square; Twenty-year-olds consider themselves invulnerable. I still remember how it felt.
What I’m missing: the horns, the screams of rage, the beating, the claustrophobia of the subway. Are we experiencing transition days? The Zero Hour? Only when I read the obituaries, I still feel what has happened here and is still happening.
The White House does not mention the dead, wants to ignore the virus, wants to unlock the country, although the criteria that were formulated six weeks ago are nowhere met. It is rare in democracies that a government tries to replace a terrible reality with an alternate reality, namely the invention of victory and triumph, while the terrible reality is still happening; It is also rare that a government in a crisis does not want to unite but rather divide.
Trump tweeted “Obamagate” and could not explain his predecessor’s crime, which was said to be “the worst in US history”; but in 2016 there was no child prostitution ring run by Hillary Clinton from a pizzeria, and anyway Trump tweeted “Pizzagate”.
Right-wing America took up the term, and when Clinton’s campaign leader John Podesta ordered something to eat, it was a confirmation: “Hot dog” had to be the code word for “boy”, “sauce” had to mean “orgy”, what else? . It was denunciation, it was a lie – nun also „Obamagate“.
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The Republicans go along with this, as they justify any abomination of their own team with morally higher goals. Party politics has been a matter of identity in the US for 55 years, when polarization began: the Democrats supported the civil rights movement; the conservative Southern Democrats, the Dixie-Dems, switched to the Republicans; the Republicans became White America’s party.
Today every question is a “us or the” question, and Trump is “our man” to Republicans. Contradiction would mean leaving the team, losing your home, and who would like to lose the network and friends all those years? (Tip from the specialist: Dear Republicans, life goes on and may even get better.)
Fang Fang, writer, lives in central Wuhan and her diary of the crisis comforts millions. In “Wuhan Diary”, the English edition, it says: “There must be a way into the future that nobody has found yet.”
Almost twelve years ago, on election night in a meadow in Chicago, I thought the future belonged to a global community that would tackle global issues together. God, how naive.
Fang Fang is a traitor, weakens the party and nation, strengthens the enemy called America, that is in hundreds of comments on her texts; the censors take action. Identity politics, demarcation, polarization: here, there, where not?
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