As if everything wasn’t difficult enough. There is still a hint of summer tranquility over the country, at least here and there. If it weren’t for the tremors that indicate the world could be thrown out of joint. And right now the one who is supposed to do it ex officio before everyone else is coming under pressure: Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The Big Picture: Russia’s war against Ukraine is one that is spreading, is one against the West, and has implications with no end in sight. Then new crises are coming at us from everywhere, with threats of war, in keywords: Kosovo, Serbia, Taiwan. The economy fears for its supply chains, we citizens fear for the affordability of daily life. Prices are already rising and rising, not only for gas, but also for food.
The other, new situation: Scholz’s Hamburg past can be dangerous in the Berlin office. The Cum-Ex affair can still have consequences. A committee of inquiry is trying to clarify whether he or others influenced decisions during his time as mayor to waive additional tax payments at the Warburg Bank involved in the scandal. In this case it’s millions, Cum-Ex is billions. So far, Scholz has always said that he can’t remember the most important points – on August 19, the committee in Hamburg wants to help his memory. The case is not yet closed.
The chancellor in crisis – that will be an ambiguous term. The requirement is enormous anyway, and it’s only getting bigger. His party, the SPD, loses trust, falling to 17 percent; in the state elections in Lower Saxony on October 9, it could lose the next area state; a former social democratic chancellor becomes a worldwide pariah. And then Scholz suddenly appears as a trickster, as arrogant, ignorant?
It’s all about giving the worried people in their fears of decline and existential fears the feeling that they are in good hands. According to the motto: We are doing everything to get through this world crisis, and even if it is painful, illusions have to be conceded – we are with you.
You’ll never walk alone, says the Chancellor. He comes from the Allgäu, completes performances that in retrospect seem strangely lost, almost clownesque, one to save a gas company, the next in front of a gas turbine – and then he leaves. leave us alone At least with the pictures of these days and their interpretation: What does Scholz want to tell us? Does the Chancellor want to bring the Kremlin ruler and warlord Vladimir Putin to his knees by visiting the turbine for one of the Russian gas pipelines? Unexplained and inexplicable.
Almost every day it becomes more important to penetrate what is happening and then to make understandable what needs to happen. It’s one thing that Scholz knows better than anyone else. It’s just about all the others who need to know better. Such a speech by the Chancellor is still missing today.
The Greek philosopher Epictetus knew that it is not deeds that move people, but words about deeds. By the way, a stoic, that should please the stoic Scholz. Moving through words through deeds: The task is to strengthen people’s resilience, their psychological resilience, their ability to survive difficult life situations without lasting impairment; The task is to create optimism, to counteract the feeling of being a victim. It is important to address the many in the country in order to activate their staying power.
Olaf Scholz in crisis: Success comes through acceptance, trust goes hand in hand with credibility. After all, people should bear and endure high loads. A federal chancellor is not allowed to count among them.
