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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former US President Donald Trump (archive image)
Photo: i-Images / Pool / IMAGO
When the first corona cases became known in Germany at the end of January 2020, Donald Trump was still in power in the USA.
The Brits were busy preparing their beautiful Brexit - and had recently chosen a suitable clown.
And in Germany, the rumbling AfD was ahead of the SPD in polls for the first time.
yes, before
Two years later, the virus is still there.
Trump has now been voted out of office for this, Boris Johnson is celebrating on the abyss, also because many Britons feel that Brexit was a pretty stupid idea.
And in Germany Olaf Scholz governs, not the AfD, which has shrunk from the largest to a relatively small opposition party since the pandemic began.
Has the plague brought about at least one good thing: that the heyday of the populists is over?
It almost seems so.
If you take a closer look, the all-clear could come too soon.
What drove populism before the Corona shock will not really be fixed when it ends.
And the longer the crisis lasts, it could still be of use to the populists.
It is possible that the really big disaster will only follow after the pandemic.
A systematic evaluation by a research group at the Center seems to confirm that the crisis of the past two years has led to those who rely on mean government instead of big tones, clumsy scolding of others and many seemingly simple solutions to strengthen themselves again for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge.
The silent ones are quite clearly in the majority
According to their calculations, pronounced populist governments have lost an average of ten percentage points in approval since the outbreak of the corona virus - while the Merkels, Macrons or Trudeaus were on average at the end of 2021 where they were at the beginning of 2020. According to the same evaluation, this was also due to the fact that the populists often came across as quite helpless in the fight against the pandemic: On average, approval for corona management has fallen to just over 50 percent in the countries where populists rule – with the others, despite all justified or less justified protests, approval remains at almost 70 percent.
Such survey values also put into perspective the impression created by the many pictures of demonstrations in Germany: the silent ones are then quite clearly in the majority. Which doesn't mean that they (and continue to) like everything, of course.
What speaks against an all-clear is something else.
According to current research, in recent years populists have been able to attract a conspicuous number of voters in places where people have been severely affected by economic shocks - and have lost control of their own destiny as a result.
This applies wherever globalization or technological innovations have wiped out old industries, whether in the so-called rust belt of the USA, in the old industrial regions of northern Great Britain such as France - or in eastern Germany.
And these phenomena will not be over with the pandemic.
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In a previously unpublished paper, populism researcher Robert Gold from Kiel writes that people think competition is fair if they feel they can improve their life prospects through their own efforts.
But when entire industries collapse, even the greatest personal will is of little help.
And at the latest, the perception that others can get by without any problems because they have a house and assets or are paid half a fortune for supposedly top jobs, makes one susceptible to resentment and extreme political reactions – against the elites or something else.
The studies confirm this almost unanimously.
If the deeper causes lie here, there is hope in the past few years.
In the USA, wages even in the regions that were believed to be lost rose more strongly again for the first time.
Global competitive pressure has, if anything, subsided.
As the researchers from Cambridge explain, the economically weak regions in particular came off comparatively well during the pandemic - which was also due to the fact that less economic output was lost there.
In addition, enormous economic stimulus packages were launched everywhere and many companies were rescued by the state - which also counteracted the impression from the times of hyperglobalization that governments no longer have any control anyway.
Also good.
Smart industrial policy is required
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The only question is whether all this is enough to eliminate the causes of resentment and loss of control.
According to Robert Gold's analysis, it would not only have to be easier to absorb the losers - which would require a better equipped welfare state with safeguards, especially in the USA and Great Britain.
It is crucial that people get the feeling that they can take care of themselves again on their own.
In case of doubt, the solution would require a lot more proactive politics to ensure that new economic sectors grow in foreseeable crisis regions - and are consciously created: smart industrial policy.
This would require politicians who repeatedly demonstrate that they still have control - whether over powerful internet corporations, tax-saving global companies or financial speculators who try to drive governments before them.
Or, if in doubt, about a virus.
Or the decay of schools and public infrastructure.
And the madness that thanks to all the beautiful liberalizations in the financial world, so much money can be made with aloof financial magic or sheer property ownership - and so scandalously little with things that people urgently need.
About health.
In short, to tackle everything that has contributed to eroding trust in those who are supposed to care for the people over the past few decades.
Then it's about more than just corona management that isn't that bad - or about loser regions getting through this crisis a little better and wages rising a little more.
Then, in case of doubt, a New Deal is needed, like the one Franklin D. Roosevelt put in place in a situation that was comparable in many respects, including the shock waves after the financial crisis in 1929.
And which Joe Biden definitely has in his program – or had;
as does the new government in Germany.
Whether through large infrastructure programs, the introduction of international minimum taxes for corporations, more impressive investments in climate protection, the strengthening of trade unions - or the increase in minimum wages.
Or a policy that tries much more actively to create new perspectives for people.
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The drama that is already looming in the USA after a year of Biden seems all the greater - where the President has to give up part of his noble plans in domestic political wrangling, while what has gone through will sometimes take years before the people see the good feel it: whether better roads and bridges or successes in the fight against climate change.
And where time is already running out in a dramatic way - for the President as well as for the attempt to stop the causes of populism (possibly only temporarily weakened).
Because the next elections are coming up in November – and Biden could no longer have a majority in Congress after that.
If the diagnosis of the deeper causes of the crisis in democracy is correct, then it will be the big fight against populists for the USA for the time being.
Risks for Germany
Not a good omen for the federal government and its quite ambitious program here. Especially since it cannot be completely ruled out that right-wing populists will win the presidential election in France in a few weeks. And it's not as if the next real shocks wouldn't be foreseeable after the pandemic, in which people would lose control of their own destiny again - whether regional or beyond: whether through financial crises, the necessary restructuring of the auto industry or artificial ones Intelligence. The same applies to all of this as to the globalization and technology shocks of recent years: on balance, much of it may be economically good - only that behind such a balance there are a lot of fates on the negative side, which will be receptive to populist stimuli,if you don't give them the prospect of a solution quickly.
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America is threatened with disaster at the latest in the next presidential election in 2024, writes MIT economist Daron Acemoglu.
If only because the Republicans have so far refused to see that a very big new deal is needed - and the big old party has instead "transformed into a right-wing populist fighting movement" under Trump's influence.
According to Acemoglu, if the Democrats lose in 2024, the US democratic system could be thrown out of joint: And the “shockwaves” would be felt all over the world.
Bitter.
And not even utopian.
Two years have passed since the outbreak of the Corona virus.
And there is still a lot to do with incidences and vaccination campaigns.
Which also seems sensible and necessary.
The pandemic is not over yet.
And it is quite possible that these escalating Omicron weeks will also decide whether non-populist governments can continue to convey the feeling that the situation can still be contained to some extent.
Or whether the corona crisis will be remembered as the next fatal proof that elected politicians have lost control anyway due to sheer globalization and a lack of investment.
It is all the more urgent to use at least as many Lauterbachs and energy to stop the coming catastrophe.
And to do everything to ensure that politicians solve the major upheavals beyond the pandemic - and that confused populists have no reason to be able to collect new supporters - whether you call it the New Deal or otherwise.
