The Election Of A Satirical Party To The European Parliament Speaks Volumes
Amanda Macias/Business Insider
The Party mimics the grandiosity of the Nazi and East German communist parties. Its much longer official name mentions animal rights and the "promotion of elites". Mr Sonneborn is its GröVaZ (an acronym for "greatest chairman of all time"). The Party, he proclaims, is "always right".
Its platform has evolved since its founding in 2004. Early on it advocated a war of aggression against Liechtenstein and the rebuilding of the Berlin Wall. Lately it has become less bellicose. It wants to get rid of daylight-saving time while continuing to set the clocks back every autumn, giving Germans an extra hour of sleep. As a member of the European Parliament Mr Sonneborn plans to revive the EU's infamous cucumber-curvature law (scrapped, after much ridicule, in 2009). But now it will apply to weapons exports and will promote curviness rather than discouraging it: every 10cm of gun or tank barrel will have to curve by 2cm.
The Party's big theme, though, is "the transcendence of Inhalte", a word which translates as "issues" or "content". Mr Sonneborn campaigns for contentlessness before standing-room-only crowds at cabaret-style book launches and at rallies of faux-fanatical supporters.
That message has a particular resonance now, with Germany's two biggest parties--Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party--governing together in a "grand coalition". One calls itself centre-right, the other centre-left. Normally they are fierce rivals. But in moments of honesty and inebriation even their members admit they can no longer tell the difference. Mr Sonneborn celebrates this ideological and stylistic sameness. "We do modern turbo politics, by going in no direction much faster" than the mainstream parties, he says.
Mr Sonneborn's American equivalent is Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report", a mock-news show on a comedy channel. Both assume a political persona and rarely step out of it. Unlike Mr Sonneborn's turbo-centrist, Mr Colbert's on-screen character is a lovably deranged right-winger who would do well with the real-life audience of Fox News if he traded his irony for earnestness. "Satire is not comedy," says Mr Sonneborn. "It has aggressive momentum." In America, that means mocking partisanship. In Germany, the target is the featureless blob that passes for party politics.
Click here to subscribe to The Economist
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- 9 health benefits of drinking sugarcane juice in summer
- 10 benefits of incorporating almond oil into your daily diet
- From heart health to detoxification: 10 reasons to eat beetroot
- Why did a NASA spacecraft suddenly start talking gibberish after more than 45 years of operation? What fixed it?
- ICICI Bank shares climb nearly 5% after Q4 earnings; mcap soars by ₹36,555.4 crore
- Nothing Phone (2a) blue edition launched
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market