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Photo: Matthew Spaulding / Matthew Spaulding / Stocksy United
Madeira.
Harbor panorama, 22 degrees, the sun is shining, the world does not yet know Corona.
I'm sitting on a sailing boat that we want to transfer to Tenerife.
The skipper opens the »anchor beer« for all five crew members, even though we haven't sailed a nautical mile yet.
Then a maneuver swallow!
To person
Christina Pohl
was born the year the US bombed Vietnam with napalm.
In her youth she sought peace in the hippie caves of Crete.
She has been working as an editor in the SPIEGEL Group since 1991.
Photo:
Lina Moreno / DER SPIEGEL
This is actually how a good story begins.
There's always one annoying when you're at sea together for a few days.
But this time I immediately feel at home in the company of unknown people.
You all seem very personable.
If I had known what was coming, I would have disembarked immediately.
But the first attack takes place on the high seas.
It's the nice, middle-aged glasses wearer with a three-day beard, SUV and family.
Somehow he found out where I work.
He wants to know if I know Matthias Matussek.
Sure, I say, and off we go.
Am I smiling away now, for the sake of the dear on-board peace?
Matussek, you have to know, is a former SPIEGEL author who went from being an avowed Marxist to an ardent Catholic.
And later publicly confessed to the AfD.
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It quickly turns out that my fellow sailor thinks "Matussek", as he calls it, smells good.
So I'm sitting across from a supporter of the new right.
SOS (Save Our Souls)!
So far I've managed to avoid this type of man in my private life.
So it has to be to be turned on stupidly from the right side by your uncle at a family celebration.
You can either sit at another table or just leave.
But now, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic: only water around us, 5000 meters below us only water.
What to do?
Am I smiling away now, for the sake of the dear on-board peace?
The skipper is an old buddy of mine.
The withdrawal - a mistake
Or do I oppose it?
This guy won't give up anytime soon, that's for sure, and he'll keep shooting at full broadside.
So I give my opinion.
He was just waiting for that.
There follows a brief battle of words, as a result of which I withdraw to my bunk.
Maybe he understands that I don't want to argue anymore.
The withdrawal - a mistake, as I realize the next day.
The second episode of the Atlantic rift is about weak women who are said to be unable to drive.
He's at the wrong address with me.
I go from 0 to 100 like an electric motor. If I can do one thing, then drive cars.
Parking on the left with two centimeters of space in front and behind is my specialty.
But unfortunately I jumped on the pure provocation far too quickly, now I'm angry with myself. Piston seizure, next topic.
Donald Trump - that's easy, I think, the president's lies are so easy to decipher.
But this is not about the truth, now he thinks "Trump" is good too!
When I recently, during the storm of the Capitol, saw the man occupying a chair in Nancy Pelosi's office in front of the entire world, I was involuntarily reminded of my fellow sailor: slim, jeans, fleece, cap and the same wide-legged posture.
Only the sailing jacket was replaced by a lumberjack shirt.
Both are great admirers of Donald Trump.
Fortunately, we're divided into shifts
The evolution of reverence, science has established, served one purpose: through reverence and fear of a person, people can better connect socially.
Internet plus Trump offers exactly this possibility: You are no longer alone, the many old white men.
So it is more about the practice of a religion and an age phenomenon, not a political debate.
You can come around the corner with as many facts as you want.
My fellow sailor has another topic: neoliberalism.
He looks over at me condescendingly and asks if I even know what the term means.
As if he had to mark his territory, his economic frustration and contempt for women slosh through the cockpit.
If he were the owner of a rapid fire rifle like the Pelosi chair occupier, he would have finished me.
And for a moment I understand how you can get the idea of pushing someone overboard and waiting a little with the "man overboard" rescue maneuver.
Luckily we're in shifts and I'll disappear below deck when his team takes over the helm.
After 500 kilometers at sea, land is finally in sight.
After the “anchor beer”, I'll dress up for the country as quickly as possible.
The Trump admirer has rented a car;
he still wants to explore Tenerife.
We can't help but grin when a woman at the rental company assigned him the last available car in the class he had booked: a Golf.
Brown.
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