The situation in the morning - can voting be like washing?

Trump and the state of democracy

Expect

.

Slowly the mind turns back to him.

What if he

?

Nothing good anyway.

I was recently at a symposium on the state of democracy.

Some participants wondered why people for whom Trump had done little during his tenure should re-elect him.

A philosopher said that it's

: you know that

.

This quite outraged another participant.

This is exactly the

that drives some people to people like Trump, he said afterwards.

You shouldn't make the same mistake again.

He is right.

Trump is addressing his supporters in Florence, Arizona over the weekend.

• The "Oath Keepers" and the Capitol Storm: Trump's Toughest Warriors

anger at the angry

This will also be another weekend of

.

take to the streets, but so do

. My colleague Peter Maxwill has written a report worth reading in the current issue of SPIEGEL about the "anger at the angry," about citizens who don't want to give up the streets and squares to "lateral thinkers" and conspiracy ideologues. (Read the text here.)

My colleagues Maik Baumgärtner and Ann-Katrin Müller also show in the new SPIEGEL who is behind many demonstrations against the corona policy.

These are

who are

.

Rather, they want to use this path to carry their sentiments deeper into the bourgeoisie.

(You can find the link to this text here.)

Both texts are reasons to buy the new SPIEGEL, digitally or at the kiosk.

And of course there are many more interesting stories, the title story about the fight for compulsory vaccination or the portrait of Jens Spahn, who has to endure a deep fall.

• What reporters experience at Coronademos: "Oh my God, what's happening here right now?"

Beautiful frollains

On Sunday it was exactly 50 years ago that the

was removed from official language. The Interior Minister at the time, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, decreed this on January 16, 1972. One of the most important people for me at that time was Miss Gärtner, my class teacher at the 30th elementary school in Berlin. That day she didn't insist on being called only Frau Gärtner.

Nevertheless, the decree was of course a step forward, since it makes absolutely no difference whether someone is married or not, and there was no such linguistic distinction for men.

The term stuck around in my family for a while, as my sisters were bullied by our father as "Miss" when they had been naughty and threatened with punishment.

Later I sometimes heard the word in the USA when older men remembered their military days in Germany, the

.

There was usually something greasy about it.

All in all a really dispensable word.

• Gender Equality Strategy of the Federal Government: »There is still a lot to do«

View of ruins

»Deutscher Herbst«

by

has been my book of the year so far. The year is young, sure, but this book might as well take pride of place when it's over. Dagerman, a young writer from Sweden, traveled to Germany in the autumn of 1946 and wrote reports about it. They were recently published by Verlag Guggolz.

This reading experience was particularly shocking: I read about things I actually know, about the destruction of the cities, about the misery of their inhabitants, about hunger. But I never really became aware of them, never thought about them, and I think that's mainly because I didn't want to see Germans as victims. Neither did my parents, who lived in this terrible world as children. The book brought my parents to the ruins in a clearer way than ever before. Shamefully late.

When reading Dagerman, one never gets the idea of ​​seeing the Germans as victims. He strikes a fine balance between looking warmly at their misery and looking coolly at their unspeakable justifications and denying any blame for Nazi Germany's atrocious acts. Unfortunately, Dagerman took his own life at the age of 31.

• Children of War: »I became a soldier, a child soldier. I was fourteen"

The latest news from the night

• Djoković visa hearing on Sunday morning in Australia:

  Novak Djoković had his visa withdrawn a second time in Australia. The date for his hearing has now been set. Until then, it should be decided before how many judges the tennis star has to testify

• Sweden has tanks patrolling the Baltic Sea island because of "Russian activities":

  A few days ago, Russian Navy landing ships entered the Baltic Sea.

  As a signal of how seriously Sweden is taking the maneuver, the government in Stockholm is increasing the military presence on Gotland

• Woman in Brussels apparently pushed in front of an incoming subway:

  According to a report, a man is said to have pushed a woman from a platform onto the track bed – just before a subway arrived.

  The driver triggered an emergency brake so that the train came to a standstill in front of the victim

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• From Germany's corona manager to a marginal figure: Jens Spahn's unprecedented crash

• Corona protests in East Germany: why distrust of the state is rampant here

• How Sugar False Hunger: "The Fewer Carbohydrates, The Better For Weight Loss"

• Scorpions singer Klaus Meine: "How could we seriously wear these spandex pants in front of hundreds of thousands of fans?"

• Advice Column: How do I tell my ex-husband he needs to mend his relationship with our son?

I wish you a good start into the day.

Yours, Dirk Kurbjuweit