The liberal Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann disturbs with a Taurus saying on her clothing. But she has one advantage over the Chancellor: she says what she wants.
Politics has a bad reputation and its staff even more so. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but a particularly splendid flaw in them is the language of politics. Sometimes it is infantile, when the government announces a “good daycare law” or the “double oomph”, but often it is cumbersome and deliberately obscure, for example when it comes to a cruise missile named after a bull: the “Taurus”.
The Taurus is not difficult to understand: it looks like a giant green cone, flies far and there is a huge bang when it reaches its destination. Experts claim this device could make a significant contribution to hitting Russian supplies behind the lines. This, in turn, others claim, is necessary so that Russia doesn’t win. If Russia wins, then European freedom will also be threatened, say the strategists. If you had to think of a campaign, it would probably be “no freedom without Taurus”.
FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes “Strazi” Strack-Zimmermann, a politician who wore her core message on a T-shirt at the Munich Security Conference, said it even more simply: A cartoon bull’s head beamed on it (because: Mino-taurus, wink wink) , with clouds of anger shooting out of his nostrils, bright blue on bright yellow – and it’s supposed to be loud, ideally behind the front line. Slogan: “Taurus for Ukraine”, “together until victory”.
“Paragon of tastelessness”
On the one hand, that’s bad, because it looks a bit like Wacken Open Air or Coachella, like a colleague from “Welt” noted. In the “Weltwoche” Ulrike Guérot reports that the item of clothing is done “a paragon of tastelessness!”. The publicist asks what Genscher would say. Well, Genscher wore the FDP color on his sweater the whole time, and it seemed to me that he didn’t completely reject the concept of textile messages.
And at least it wasn’t clear whether the Strazi shirt also included the Taurus. That’s a key difference between a T-shirt and the Bundestag: When the latter voted on weapons for Ukraine, the matter was surprisingly opaque.
The traffic light’s successful application is wishy-washy where it could be about the supposedly most important weapon. The Chancellor’s spokesman says that Taurus is not included, that it is “obligatory” – which brings us back to political talk. The Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius from the SPD said in turn that he did not know whether Taurus was meant. The factions that he doesn’t belong to would have thought something of it. You can tell that these words make him feel like he’s wearing a clown’s nose at a funeral – incongruous.
Coherence in the flatbread
The communication psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun describes “coherence” when someone speaks in accordance with their own nature and the situation. Coherence leads to pure joy. My very Italian Turkish café, for example, where these columns are mainly written, has now switched the sucuk panini to sucuk flatbread. “Is it good?” the Turkish boss asks me cautiously and I say, oh yes, flatbread goes much better with sucuk. She beams: “That’s right!” Schulz von Thun couldn’t have put it more accurately.
You don’t have to be a psychology professor to recognize consistency. When politicians say what they don’t want to say, it also affects the audience: we are bored, repulsed, annoyed. But it also does something to the speakers, the politicians themselves: When they have to say what they themselves don’t understand, they sound – just like politicians often sound.
Disagreement has a direct impact on the way we express ourselves. I once had a discussion with a board member who, at the behest of her marketing department, was supposed to present her own store as a pioneer in digital sales. We went over her script again and again and again and again it was a really bad stammer. The woman had charisma and wit, but she knew to tell little lies: her company was not a pioneer, but a laggard. She became a speaking robot.
What happened to Laschet?
The failed Union candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet shows how much supposedly bad speakers thrive when they are coherent. He is currently enjoying great success with his speeches against right-wing extremism, the FAZ reports asked for the interview in surprise. Why can Laschet suddenly do this? Possibly because he now thinks what he says and says what he thinks – free from candidate speak. Now the public is listening to him. They are harmonious performances.
Which raises two questions: Did he possibly have to tell little lies during the election campaign because the CDU marketing wanted it that way? And: Is Olaf Scholz, the black hole of political rhetoric, possibly just suffering from inconsistency? At least there are the Chancellor’s good moments. He thrives when he is interrupted by disruptors or when the opposition provokes him, when he can shout back. Be Call for vaccinations at ProSieben was quite charismatic. In both cases, Scholz’s performance was consistent – because the goal was clear.
Is Scholz consistent with Ukraine? Nobody outside actually knows exactly what the Chancellor actually plans to do. The “victory” of the Ukrainians is not his goal – at least Scholz still doesn’t say that. Of course she shouldn’t lose either. Scholz is a bit like asking about St. Pauli or HSV: Both!
Is it really about everything right now?
It was up to an American to say something very poignant about the pan-European disagreement over Ukraine. US Senator JD Vance said at the Munich Security Conference, as reported by “Zeit” journalist Mariam Lau, that if Europe’s freedom were really threatened by a Putin victory – then our behavior does not correspond to this knowledge.
And so the Strack-Zimmermann T-shirt is incongruous and harmonious at the same time. Yes, it doesn’t fit with the dignified mood in the country, with the “German war-weariness”, as we sometimes gloss over our state of shock. It doesn’t fit with the German fear of sheer Russian violence, which we cloak in piety and therefore reprimand a politician for her textile language.
But the shirt definitely fits what the FDP woman is probably thinking: Without Taurus, there is no freedom. That in turn fits reality like sucuk fits flatbread.