radicalized
Conservatism has long since split into a classic and a dirty wing.
The latter is meeting today at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. Speakers include Donald Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
The publicist Natascha Strobl speaks a little more gently of "radicalized conservatism," which is also the title of her book on the subject.
What is characteristic of radicalized conservatism, she writes, is that it "has no reservations about the traditional extreme right."
Strobl: »Instead of talking at length, his actors simply act.
Instead of asking for permission or laboriously negotiating small-scale compromises, they give simple answers and full-bodied promises.
These do not have to be redeemed at all, because the blame can always be put on the shoes of ominous forces that oppose it.
Political competitors become opponents, the state is being rebuilt in an anti-democratic manner, the boundaries of reality are gradually shifting.«
In my eyes this is dirty.
And it pretty much describes Trump, Orbán, Bannon's understanding of politics.
Large parts of the AfD can confidently be included.
You can find more news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:
Selenskyj is looking for China's support, sharp criticism of Schröder - that happened in the night:
Will Beijing put pressure on Putin?
The Ukrainian President describes Gerhard Schröder's commitment to Russia as "disgusting".
And: The USA supports the NATO accession of Finland and Sweden.
The overview.
The police are said to have confiscated the palace architect's assets:
the Kremlin boss wants nothing to do with the magnificent building, but everyone knows the property as "Putin's palace".
Its architect is now apparently in trouble with the tax authorities.
“International NGOs are behaving in a similar way as in Afghanistan”:
short-term projects, a lack of coordination, hardly any contact with the population: political scientist Arthur Quesnay calls for a rethink in international crisis aid – and warns against repeating old mistakes.
faces of satisfaction
Today is a big date of having been right.
The leaders of the CDU and CSU, Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder, inspect the Isar 2 nuclear power plant in Bavaria.
It is a candidate for a longer duration to limit the looming energy gap.
The Union was the German nuclear party.
One of the main strands of the party's heroic narrative is that it defied the enormous, even violent, resistance in the 1970s and 1980s.
Anyone who fought back then is almost revered as a veteran.
It was all the more bitter for the Union that a Chancellor with the party book of the CDU, Angela Merkel, accelerated the phase-out of nuclear power.
It was once decided by the SPD and the Greens.
The possibility that the SPD and the Greens could decide with the FDP to extend the running times or even to reconnect discarded reactors to the grid is all the sweeter.
Expect faces of satisfaction today.
Fact check on the nuclear power plant debate:
What will a renaissance of nuclear power bring - and what alternatives are there?
Steer the ship
The meeting of the Southeast Asian group of states Asean continues today in Phnom Penh.
Members are countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand or Singapore.
The foreign ministers of the USA and China are also taking part this time, and Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan will certainly be a topic.
She herself is in South Korea today.
Even before Pelosi's trip, political scientist Kishore Mahbubani, one of Asia's brightest political thinkers, made an interesting suggestion: the EU and Asean should cooperate even more closely to counter Chinese-American rivalry.
He wrote in his newsletter: “If the two great powers are too fixated on their geopolitical competition to preserve the rules-based multilateral order, the EU and Asean should seize the opportunity and work together to steer the ship and jointly manage global affairs .«
China expert on Pacific tensions:
"Pelosi's visit is more likely to damage Taiwan's security"
aluminum foil
Admittedly, when I see flashes of aluminum foil in Berlin subway stations, I get angry.
Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more aluminum foil lately, at all times of the day, especially in the Kreuzberg train stations, where I often get on and off.
Drug addicts use aluminum foil to prepare the next hit.
I feel sorry for you, I see how sick and neglected you are.
But I don't think train stations are hard drug sites.
Here the state fails, fails the city of Berlin.
Drugs in Berlin:
"I can't be clean at all"
Here is the current quiz of the day
The starting question today: Where is Germany's only gemstone exchange located?
winner of the day
Machines usually become political when they are war machines.
It rarely happens that a civilian machine is the star of politics.
Now it has happened, with the turbine that is waiting in Mülheim an der Ruhr for delivery to Russia for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Visited by the Chancellor, patted by the Chancellor, checked for firmness by the Chancellor with an expert gesture.
Approved for use by the Federal Chancellor, the Foreign Minister in Canada gratefully addressed the issue, because Canadians serviced the turbine and sent it to Germany.
Disdained by Russia under pretexts, classified as a case of observation by sanctions experts and so on - more attention is hardly possible.
Should the turbine not make it to Russia, it is guaranteed a place in the Deutsches Museum in Munich and is therefore the winner of the day.
One turbine to take away, please!
The latest news from the night
The European Court of Human Rights does not want to get involved in the Archie case:
Twelve-year-old Archie is classified as brain dead and ventilation is to be stopped.
His parents appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
He now declared the parents' urgent application to be "inadmissible".
Where's the dragon when you need him?:
Third part of the "Ring des Nibelungen" on the green hill of Bayreuth - and the "Siegfried" did not go down well with the audience.
Is director Valentin Schwarz's production too unconventional?
Uri Geller against Putin's nuclear weapons:
TV magician Uri Geller usually bends spoons.
Now he would like to divert the course of nuclear missiles - if this became necessary.
He announced this in an open letter to Vladimir Putin.
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
How a trained chimney sweep buys gas for Germany in bulk:
One click and hundreds of thousands of euros change hands: Heiko Bock and his comrades-in-arms buy natural gas, whatever the cost.
On behalf of the Federal Republic - but no one should notice that.
The parasite that makes us entrepreneurs:
A study shows that people with toxoplasmosis set up more start-ups than other people.
What does the pathogen do to our brain?
"I'm too well educated":
As a child, Josie Schneider discovered her love for the accordion, today she teaches others to play the instrument.
Here she tells what she didn't learn during her studies - and when she lets her students meditate.
The big SPIEGEL season forecast:
The 60th season of the Bundesliga starts this Friday.
We prophesy: There will be no title fight again, but instead a sham, a new medium-sized company and all sorts of surprises.
I wish you a good start into the day.
Yours, Dirk Kurbjuweit
