【讀者分享🇺🇸🇩🇪】 一個政治寓言（A Parable）

【註：百花齊放，理性討論。】

In 2029, a masterful conservative influencer won the German election. Germany has been experiencing economic hardship and a great divide between the “haves” and “have-nots” in recent years. This new chancellor tells his fellow Germans that Germany has lost its way. It has long been taken advantage of by other EU countries. There is too much bureaucracy, it has lost its manufacturing edge and is too dependent on China, all of which seems true. He is going to fix these problems by putting Germany’s interest first ahead of the EU, and let other countries worry about their own problems. Naturally this protectionist mindset has won him a lot of support.

Accidentally through a court ruling, the new chancellor obtained immunity on virtually all his actions while on duty, no matter they are criminal or not. This includes assassinating political rivals and not being held responsible. Suddenly his eyes brighten, he does not believe this is true. With this new-found power, he began exercising them like no one has seen before.

The first thing he does is he threatens all his political opponents for retribution if anyone dare to defy his orders, soon enough everyone in the Parliament falls in line. He then threatens the civil servants, but there are too many of them, it is difficult to tell who are his enemies. To solve this problem, he noticed that his enemies all support DIE (stands for Don’t Implement Euthanasia, that is, killing people who are very sick and old and have no prospect of having a decent life), while his supporters all hated it. So, he asks his lieutenants to interview all the civil servants, and get rid of anyone who is supportive of DIE. He then does the same to business leaders, make sure no one supports DIE as a way of pledging their allegiance to him. And sure enough, fearing retribution, they all turned around and removed anything to do with DIE. How many people are really involved in euthanasia each year? Between 0-4%. But it has become the center of the political storm.

Then he does the same to media organisations, threatening those who say bad things about him and only allow selected media organisations to interview him. Then he does the same to law firms, threatening those who have had lawsuits against him. Then he does the same to universities, as he knows wherever there is trouble it always starts with young university students. One by one they fall like dominos.

Like many other countries in Europe, Germany also have a migrant problem, so he uses the distrust of other tribes deep in human nature to drive division in an already divided country. On the one hand he will use very graphic images to drive outrage in the locals, and on the other he will display cruelty in every chance of law enforcement to drive anger on the other side. Where there is violence, he does not try to de-escalate, but subtly encourages confrontation with more use of force.

Without fear of criminal consequences, he openly engages in bribery by promising political favours to anyone who gives money directly to him. In turn the stock market has become his favourite way of buying loyalty from people who does his bidding. Naturally bribery and fraud has become legal in the country.

Being so disillusioned by the past generation of leaders that has has done nothing for them, the Germans that have been left behind in the country’s success find this a breath of fresh air. And being so successful and powerful a leader that he is, he has inspired a generation of young Germans with no prospect of living the life they want to become just like him. Slowly but surely he has won over the whole nation.