How are you today? Are you feeling good? Enjoying the weather with your family or friends? Good! Same here. I like the small little bubble that I´m living in. This bubble of people where race, the color of skin, and who you love does not matter. Everyone in my little bubble seems to have this general understanding that we are humans no need for conflict or discrimination. I love my bubble. But outside of my little bubble, this world gets more and more into a direction that I more and more lose the understanding of what is going on.
There is a raging war not 1.000 km away from my apartment where I’m sitting at my desk writing this blog post because some Russian Guy called Putin decided that he wants to re-install the great Russian Empire. We just came out of a pandemic that cost millions of lives and hit the global economy pretty hard. And at the moment when we seem to have this global crisis under control, this moron started the next one. We were not even done dealing with this health crisis he put the world straight into the next one. No words. It´s amazing (in a negative meaning…just FYI, when I say “amazing” then usually I’m trying to avoid stronger words or foul language). I mean…this is already a shadow global conflict on the territory of Ukraine because the Western Nations support Ukraine with weapons and technology while China supports Russia. It´s already this scenario that was to be expected when it comes to global interests. Russia and China vs. Nato. What a nightmare. And no one seems to be able to step down to de-escalate this. Putin can not step back, because otherwise he would be done politically. Selensky can not step back because any treaty that does not include that he gets all back that Russia occupies will be seen as breaking the promise and he´s done. Next to the fact that Putin has a mindset that is fixed on this idea to re-establish a “Russian Empire”, so any treaty that will be settled in any way is not worth the paper it is written on. So as long as he is in power he will never let go of the idea that the Ukraine is part of Russia.
But it´s not only this conflict and the idea that worries me. If I take a look at the other side of the world in the direction of the country with the “land of the free, home of the brave” aka the United States of America, I’m baffled as well. There is an election coming and Donald Trump will likely win this election. A guy who is a convicted felon. He is, no matter with his cultists say. A guy who gives an sh***t about democratic values is so dumb that I’m amazed to this day that such a joker is even able to sum up such a huge crowd of people. He broke every promise he made to get elected the first time. A guy that is so manipulative and so successful with this dump, homophobic, racist ideas that I’m out of words. I am not able to find the right words to describe it. He can undermine the basics of democracy (like free speech, the Rule of Law, common sense) and people buy it. Not a few crazy ones, but millions. You sit there and watch what he’s doing and you ask yourself “No, he didn´t say that. Did he?”But he did. It´s no fake, no “misinterpreted” Tweet…it´s on camera. I have to this day this speech by him in front of the United Nations where he stood and told the crowd that his administration did more in 2 years than ANY former administration of the US. And you can hear the laughter of the representatives of the nations. It was a moment of global “Hu???? WTF is he talking about?!?!”. But still, the whole world can laugh at him, you can see those pictures of the boxes of national security documents that he didn´t return or the way he posed with them in front of some people. NO MATTER what kind of failure or crime he committed, he still has this crowd of millions of followers who simply ignore it. Or even worse: They lost their faith in the core institutions like as the law system. AND THIS is what scares me. A person that can undermine the law system can do whatever they want. They have not to be concerned about receiving any punishment because all they have to say is: “This system is corrupt.” Any allegation brought up against you is a “witch hunt” supported by a corrupt law system. I lost count of how many times Trump said that. And his “Believers” believe that. So people who have no trust in a law system and who blindly follow a “big leader” are a perfect base for a dictatorship. And Trump loves the idea of being in power, doing whatever he wants no matter the consequences that every other person had to fear because, again, it would be a “witch hunt”. When did Americans in such a large mass become so stupid? I am German. In my younger history, we had this already. We all know what happens if you blindly follow someone who makes big promises and easy solutions for complex problems. We all know that. It seems like Americans have lost that skill. Or why can an elected representative in US politics seriously ask in a session the question “What did the Nazis do wrong?” … I saw this clip and was stunned. It´s like this person had zero history knowledge. ZERO….ZERO! This is amazing. It´s like millions and millions of Americans have zero education in history and/or politics. And this is a serious problem. That quote “People, that can´t remember history are doubted to repeat it.” is more real than ever.
But not only the United States is struggling with people lacking history knowledge. Here in Germany, it´s the same. It´s the same bullshit that seems to repeat itself in the same way as back in 1933. In economic struggles, a party / a group comes around with easy solutions to complex problems and is usually there to criticize not to help find a solution. It’s not as bad as in the US but they are on the rise. And every democratic person with a basic understanding of politics sees it. And this German political party (I DON’T WRITE THEIR NAME, because I don´t give them the attention they seek for. But this is my understanding of this political party: FUCK YOU!) has openly extreme right-wing people within their leadership team. We all saw the videos. We all saw their Messages on Social Media. They are undermining our democracy. Piece by piece, message by message. And every time they crossed a red line they made a “fake apology” knowing that the purpose, to get the message out into the heads of their followers, was already done. Nobody cares if an apology comes later. Protected by democratic laws they undermine these piece by piece. And people seem to be fine with it. Of course, our current government´s politics is not perfect and there is a lot of room for improvement, but going into a direction that we all know what happened back in the 1930s can not nor will be a solution.
And this pattern I see in so many countries: the UK, France, Italy, Hungary to name a few….it´s a global thing. As soon as people had this idea that “someone can take away some of my “rich” they turned to anyone that promised to stop it. No matter the costs.
So are we on the edge of a new time of nationalism? Where are people instead of moving together to solve the big problems of today’s time moving away again? I don t know, but for me, I have this feeling. That’s why I like my bubble. Maybe I hide in it. Maybe I like to be in a bubble where people can be themselves, and think globally and not locally.