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Photo: Marcus Brandt / picture alliance / dpa
It was a while ago that I had an editor-in-chief who said I was a typical representative of the so-called capital city bubble, which constantly meets in this celebrity restaurant called Borchardt, where Angela Merkel also often went to eat.
I found the accusation unfair because – with the exception of one person I played football with at university – I don’t address any politicians on first terms and only very rarely sit at the Borchardt, whereas the editor-in-chief (when he was still one) really very often.
Nevertheless, I am of course part of the capital's political and media system, because I have been working here for twenty years.
Maybe that's why I'm in favor of not always denying "politics" and this Berlin business, but also granting the benefit of the doubt for once.
I think that the fact that so many reject it with self-proud refusal is a central defect of present-day Germany.
These days, of course, no benefit of the doubt helps either, so you have to say very clearly: As much as the government tries to relieve the citizens, and it does, the extremely annoying contrasts with how much it violates the law of the Berliner Politbetrieb obeys.
According to this, the federal government will only make it clear after the Lower Saxony elections (October 9th) and after the party conference of the Greens (October 14th to 16th) that two (or three) nuclear power plants will of course continue to produce electricity next year.
Everyone in Berlin knows that, everyone talks about it, nobody denies it, it's just obvious.
The Federal Chancellor, when asked about it, is silent, but he can hardly contain himself and he smiles his friendliest smirk: It would be obvious nonsense to only put the nuclear power plants with all the risks in reserve, but not to let them produce electricity.
And he will not give up this weakness, while everyone is supposed to save electricity, the inner cities are darkened or the network collapses because all Germans switch on their newly purchased fan heaters at the same time.
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The law of the bubble doesn't prevent that either, but it makes everything much more complicated in times that are actually complicated enough.
First of all, the geographic location of certain forms of insanity matters.
And it is extremely unfortunate that the Greens of Lower Saxony are in the state election campaign, because they are traditionally very left-wing and very ideological.
They're dying in the polls, but that doesn't teach them anything, instead making their rejection of nuclear power all the more stubborn.
The most modern of the last three power plants, the one in Emsland, was not even allowed to go into reserve because of them, but had to be completely disconnected from the grid.
If the slowest ship sets the pace in a convoy of ships, then in the case of the Green regional associations, that means that the craziest ones set the course for at least a while.
You have to deal with that, instead of blowing them up, the law of the bubble demands.
But also if Putin goes to war?
In addition, consideration must be given to the founding cadres of the Greens, who would do without nuclear power even if their own mother was on a ventilator.
You meet in mid-October for the party conference, you can't get in the way of them beforehand, because otherwise they'll agree on some nonsense like leaving NATO, making national globules compulsory or gendering all Winnetou books.
Interestingly, the FDP or CDU/CSU in Berlin show a procedural understanding of honoring certain founding myths at party conferences under all circumstances.
Perhaps because they themselves cultivate fetishes that would crumble to dust like mummies when the grave is opened if critically addressed.
So everyone in Berlin knows how things will turn out with the last nuclear power plants, but they have to pretend by the deadline that things will turn out differently or that things are still open.
It is a high Mass of maximum self-hypnosis, unfortunately in a phase that requires the greatest possible alertness.
Furthermore, everyone acts as if the citizens and the Green Party members do not know how things will continue with the nuclear power plants.
But most of them know or suspect it, and the fascinating, perhaps also disturbing, thing about it is that the audience joins in.
Some let themselves be deceived, and others pretend to be deceived.
As a result, parts of the public obey the law of the bubble, even though they are not part of the capital's operations.
As I said: I've been doing this for 20 years, I can explain how something like this works.
After all, for everyone who enjoys it, it is always interesting how language paves the way out.
Robert Habeck, for example, now points to the possible production weaknesses of French nuclear power plants.
Although this was exactly what the Greens used as an argument against the lifetime extension, in the end the minister will use it to explain why two (or three) German nuclear power plants will continue to produce electricity next year.
In this way he achieves his goal without violating the laws of capital city politics.
Whom he doesn't reach, but rather teases, are 80 million Germans: if normal people don't understand what politicians are doing with the best will in the world, it's not badly explained, it's badly thought out and badly done.