Politics is currently performing a sad lesson in crisis communication, the FDP gets lost in the “I, I, I” – and the Chancellor has to settle the matter one last time.
Actually, at this point I wanted to finally write about something beautiful, namely Norbert Röttgen. But now it’s time for a third booster abuse: Because the powerful of the republic are unsettling an already feared population. Crisis communication has to be present, unanimous and not promise anything. Three laws, please write down: Presence, Unanimity, No Promises. We are not seeing any of this at the moment.
Presence? Soon-to-be-Chancellor Olaf Scholz was only to be seen when he was led in handcuffs and with the barrel of a pistol in front of the microphones. For example on Thursday, when there was really no other way. In flagrant ignorance of all distance rules, he stated that Germany had now “hooked up”. How nice! It is a role reversal with Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He has meanwhile taken over the linguistic leadership role in the republic, but Steinmeier is actually only Federal President. Yes, “only”: The main task of this office is to straighten memorial wreaths and stamp laws, but it does not lead the country.
In perhaps the most elementary question of the pandemic, whether there should be a partial compulsory vaccination, the traffic light in the form of Green parliamentary leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt only happily announced “yes”. A few hours later she rowed back to a “no”, but added that she herself was definitely for a “yes”. Yes, no, I mean: yes and no. It’s a menacing vulture. The traffic light sounds like a mountain guide pointing the way to the left, but quietly mumbling “right is safer”.
Communication like a recorder concert
The sound of German corona policy is not unanimous, it sounds like the committed recorder quartet of a first class. The Union is throwing sand in the eyes of the public to hide its own failures. Markus Söder, Minister PR President in Bavaria, makes this particularly unscrupulous and skillful. The laws of the media are only loosely linked to reality, as the former journalist knows. Otherwise he would not be able to deal against the RKI and science, as he did in the past few days. After all, there were plenty of warning calls from “science”, as was the case with columnist Samira El Ouassil with the colleagues from “Spiegel Online”. Only the tone of the scientists was possibly not shrill enough, admitted the head of the Standing Vaccination Commission, Thomas Mertens Markus Lanz meekly.
But Söder, the professional, knows that the anger of citizens overwhelmed by Corona and amateurism is directed against everyone – rightly or not. That is his starting point: That is why he burdens the scientists. In this way, the end of the “epidemic situation of national importance” can be politically castigated, although it was not over yet. Other representatives of different party colors are also stepping into the cynical “Black Peter” game with corona dead a.
Do you remember the third law of crisis communication? “No Promises”! But many promises made in the pandemic: For example Lindner’s “no lockdown with us”. Health insurance chief Andreas Gassen wanted to nail a “freedom day” into the calendar. However, emergencies mean that they do not go according to plan. Pandemics are notoriously unreliable and in this one we are still practicing as you can see. A loss of trust outweighs disappointed expectations.
Parties play “Black Peter” with corona dead
The result of all these mistakes is a republic lost in communication and a badly damaged traffic light. Angela Merkel, of all people, is going to get the cow off the ice for the coming government. Rolling her eyes, she makes one last sacrifice, after all she is still Chancellor, and agrees with the Prime Minister on the unpopular partial vaccination requirement – before which the traffic lights avoided.
The Chancellor is also planning 27 million booster cans by Christmas. That, too, is a daring promise: Currently, remarked a FAZ colleague rightly, appointments for the booster vaccination are rare, like tickets for concerts by the band Coldplay – whose music is known to be worse than any side effects of the vaccination. And she warns, in her typical short main clauses. Doubts are growing as to whether this traffic light will work without Merkel.
An analysis of the botched traffic light start on a mere communication level falls short, as always. The fact that red-green-yellow suddenly communicates so unprofessionally is probably mainly due to the FDP: They resisted measures such as mandatory vaccination, they insisted on the end of the epidemic situation.
Freedom, that means “I, I, I”
The party had to struggle for a long time that it could not keep its economic policy promises in the black-yellow coalition. According to her reading, Angela Merkel had let the party bleed to death in power. That shouldn’t happen again: Freedom is promised, freedom is delivered – the SPD and the Greens also showed understanding for this compulsion. The traffic light lives from harmony. And it’s time: four years there was no free voice in parliament, eight years it was missing in the federal government.
But some liberals have subscribed to a primitive concept of freedom that is spelled in three instead of two syllables: I, I, I. Such a childlike concept of freedom extends both hands to the oaths to dance, which is currently demonstrated like no other by Wolfgang Kubicki. “It’s no longer about avoiding the spread of a virus, but about educating people to be supposedly better people,” suspects Kubicki on Facebook. One should not make unvaccinated people worse off, he said to the “mirror”. And right: for some, freedom cannot be radical enough: “The FDP has saved itself in the Bundestag with big slogans for freedom, only to act out authoritarian fantasies under the guise of the 4th wave” suspects a “world” journalist and earns considerable applause from the Internet.
Should “I, I, I” be the FDP’s concept of freedom? Lateral thinker instead of Mövenpick, a tube of horse worming treatment instead of champagne? In 2013 the party was kicked out of the Bundestag. Almost all other parties rushed to the “freedom” at that time, tried it on like a badly fitting suit – even the Greens. Meanwhile, party leader Christian Lindner used the term “compassionate liberalism” to attract new followers. He wanted to cast off the image of coldness and clientele politics. How much compassion does the FDP have for people who work or die in intensive care units? Lindner puts the scientific consensus on contact restrictions in front of the camera into perspective, his General Volker Wissing proclaims: “Our health system is stable”. Both correct each other later. Are they flirting with oaths?
The disciplining force of power
The disciplining power of possible government participation alone prevents other voices of the liberals, often those of the younger ones, from protesting loudly against the simple freedom marketing. After all: the domestic politician Konstantin Kuhle recently advertised in one Guest contribution for the FAZ a little hidden for compulsory vaccination. “Freedom is not a dirty word” is written above the text. And yet: “Anyone who wants to protect the freedoms that were laboriously achieved over many months of the pandemic, including through vaccinations, will not ignore a careful discussion and consideration with a view to vaccination requirements for certain areas,” he writes tentatively.
The longer the sentence, the greater the stomach ache, that’s also a law of communication. But this concept of freedom is certainly more intelligent than “I, I, I”.