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France's national symbol Marianne on the Place de la Republique in Paris, enveloped in the tear gas mist during a yellow vest demonstration (archive image)
Photo: Davide Weber / Hans Lucas / IMAGO
2022 will be a decisive year, that is already becoming apparent. It is about the self-assertion of the West - internally and externally. The pandemic has shown how torn Western societies have become, and how deep the distrust in their institutions has become. Elections will be held in two key countries, France and the USA, in the new year, which will be a gauge of the state of the West. If inflation solidifies, distrust is likely to increase further. Whether the most recent rapid inflation will abate again in 2022 is therefore a question whose importance goes far beyond pure economic policy.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of a geostrategic system competition.
China's propaganda feeds on the cracks in our societies and interprets them as evidence of the decline of the ideals of civil liberty.
At the same time, Russia's Vladimir Putin is threatening quite blatantly with military force and is testing the West's ability to act.
A conflict is brewing on the eastern border of NATO and the EU for which the Europeans are not prepared.
Troubled times
A year ago the outlook was rosier. At the turn of the year 2020/21, the western model seemed to be experiencing a renaissance. In the first phase of the pandemic, the economic and social systems had proven to be extremely efficient and capable of acting. Science and venture capitalism impressively demonstrated their potential by developing highly effective corona vaccines within a short period of time. Where in the world has there been anything like it?
What is more, a new era of reason seemed to be approaching. The majority of US voters opted for the reliable political veteran Joe Biden as president and retired the unpredictable Donald Trump to Florida. The EU had committed itself to a historic act of solidarity and launched a € 750 billion crisis package against the consequences of the pandemic. Shortly before Christmas 2020, a last-minute deal between the EU and Great Britain was achieved, which prevented the worst Brexit chaos. In Germany an election year was approaching, which gave hope for an orderly change of government.
At the turn of the year 2020/21 a bad phase seemed to come to an end: pandemic, lockdowns, populist bullshit politics with the election of Trump and the Brexit referendum as the most serious manifestations.
Now the West was on the way to recovery, or so it looked.
The golden 2020s could start late, a decade of new beginnings, innovation, climate protection.
Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way.
Adventurous myths
2021 has shown how deep the rifts are that now run through Western societies. A sometimes noisy minority has become so alienated from state and social institutions that they are prone to slide into parallel worlds: Corona deniers, vaccine conspirators or QAnon followers move in secondary realities that are not quite right with the present of high-tech modernity want to fit in with all of their scientific breakthroughs. Purely private matters, one could argue, should make people believe what they want. But it's not that simple, especially when a refusal to study science undermines epidemiological efforts by leaving a significant portion of the population unvaccinated.
The western model is under pressure.
What is true and what is wrong is no longer so easily recognizable in the era of social media with its secondary and counter-publics, in which unchecked claims and adventurous myths spread.
We are experiencing a structural change in democracy, triggered by a disintegration of the publics.
The shock of the pandemic only slowed this process briefly in its first phase in 2020.
Trumpism is not finished
Trump is by no means retired in Florida, but is still an influential figure in US politics.
He may run for the next presidential election again.
The fact that he is the only US president to date to have provoked two impeachment proceedings, and that he encouraged an angry mob to storm the parliament building in early 2021 - all of his failures and missteps evidently did not harm him.
They may even be of use to him because they allow him to take advantage of the widespread rejection of state institutions.
more on the subject
Minimum wage, pension, taxes: 22 things that will make you financially better in 2022A column by Hermann-Josef Tenhagen
Economic Outlook: The Golden 2020sA column by Henrik Müller
Changes in 2022: higher wages, higher taxes
Now, in the mid-term elections to Congress in November, the right-wing populist arm of his Republican Party threatens to become even stronger and to overturn Biden's narrow parliamentary majority. Washington's complex power machine would be blocked again. The western world power would be a chilling picture.
In France, presidential elections are due in April. In recent months, alongside Marine Le Pen, the demagogically gifted Eric Zemmour has established himself as the second extreme right-wing candidate. It is by no means certain that in the end one of the two mainstream candidates, President Emmanuel Macron or the conservative Valérie Pécresse, will win the election. Regardless of how the race ends, the entire political spectrum in France is shifting to the margins, especially to the right. What consequences this will have for the European Union's ability to act is an open question.
This much is clear: Even to the left of the Rhine, in the second largest EU country, there is strong distrust of state institutions, as the Eurobarometer surveys have shown for years.
At the same time, a large majority of citizens have the feeling that they are constantly confronted with fake news, while they distrust traditional media, especially television.
Public disintegration is well advanced in France.
The potential for sudden political eruptions is correspondingly high, as the yellow vest demos showed a few years ago.
Overdriving echo chambers
And Germany? The official Federal Republic presented itself as a remarkably stable democracy in the past year. In the elections in September, voters strengthened the middle and decimated the populists in parliament. Despite an increasingly fragmented spectrum, a three-party coalition was formed, which was able to agree on an ambitious program. The change of government was civil and professional. So far, so reassuring.
Beyond the institutionalized politics, however, the situation remains restless, fueled in particular by frustration at the restrictions caused by the pandemic, as demonstrated by "lateral thinkers" demos and attacks against law enforcement officers or medical staff.
Significant sections of society feel that they are poorly represented by this state and its institutions or that they distrust them outright.
The echo chambers of social media are filled with screaming to the point of oversteer.
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Henrik Muller
Short-circuit policy: How permanent outrage destroys our democracy
Publisher: Piper
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Piper
Number of pages: 256
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A feeling of being at the mercy has spread, which forms the breeding ground on which all sorts of conspiracy myths grow in this country too.
The topics change - refugee influx, Corona, next possibly inflation - the arousal mechanisms remain intact.
Government-managed money that is losing purchasing power can easily erode confidence.
Many German citizens have suspected a conspiracy against (German) savers for years anyway, spurred on by some bourgeois media.
A recently published study from the USA, in which German and Scandinavian economists were involved, shows that aversion to monetary devaluation is not a specific German attitude, as is often claimed. In November, the research team asked citizens, company managers and experts what explanations they had for the increased inflation rates. The results are extremely interesting because they show that citizens are not satisfied with technocratic explanations for rising inflation rates - broken supply chains, temporary production bottlenecks - but are looking for specific culprits. However, the suspects vary widely depending on the political camp: Republicans typically blamed Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as the main culprit;Democratic supporters, on the other hand, named large corporations rather than those responsible for driving up prices.
The study clearly shows that inflation is poisoning the social climate.
Accordingly, the central banks should take decisive action in the coming year to prevent the price dynamics from solidifying.
It is really time for the West to regain the trust of its citizens and the respect of its opponents.
But as things stand, something would have been achieved if further social rifts could be prevented in 2022.
Because of the holidays, Müller's memo appears this week without an appointment preview.