Being a professional politician is particularly difficult today because people now believe that the whole pandemic is just a big administrative act that can slowly be brought to a close. Stop it! One can certainly demand that from one’s representatives. The Administrative Court will soon have to judge whether the government is to blame for catching Corona, even though you always left the tavern punctually at 10 p.m. and were vaccinated three times. After all, you pay your taxes so that you stay healthy if you please.
Unfortunately, politics contributes to such expectations. Nobody ever says: “We’re just trying to prevent the worst. We don’t know whether it’s going to help.” Instead, everyone talks cleverly about everything, even if no one asks them anymore. One thinks of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who puts his two cents into everything, from currywurst to the Ukraine crisis. Even in one’s own family, the SPD, one looks embarrassed when he speaks out. He is reminiscent of the quirky grandfather from the peasant theater who, to the amusement of the audience, can no longer control his flatulence and talks nonsense. Sad. It’s not even 17 years since Schröder was decommissioned.
This raises the question of what connects Markus Söder with Schröder. Assuming that the wildest dreams of Florian von Brunn, the SPD head of state, come true and he replaces Söder as Prime Minister in 2024: 17 years later, in 2041, the former Prime Minister Söder is 74 years old. So what? Will he warm up the old pods, as he once confidently burned two candidates for chancellor, first Laschet, then himself? How he elegantly switched from team caution to team indulgence? Probably neither. As we know Söder, in 2041 he will casually turn up at the ceremony to mark the completion of the 25th apartment of the state-owned Bayernheim GmbH to give the event its own special shine. Or he will be the first to be publicly boosted with the Sputnik vaccine from Bavarian production, maybe even put the first lightsaber from the Bavaria One space program into operation. Whatever the case, the same applies to Schröder and Söder: old white men are to be expected!