“If there is room for optimism, we can find it in Die Linke, which has surged in the polls.” Oh, look, they’re standing for a diverse society and against the migrant baiting and bashing of the “center” parties…

But populism is not good!! It is a popular movement, but one that corrupts democracy by delegitimizing alternatives. See, for example, this definition of @finchelsteinf.bsky.social:.

„Now begins something new“ says the AfD, after the CDU allied with it for today‘s votes. Or, you could say, "now begins something old indeed." Grim day in Germany. The Brandmauer is burning.

I despise so much about Isaiah Berlin (especially how he barred the way to academia for Isaac Deutscher), but I re-read this passage yesterday and it felt, sadly, all the more true now with a tech titan fascist saluting from the podium. The children of Bazarov, though, grants them too much grandeur…

SANCTA says culture is holy. Don’t dream it. Don’t cut it. Fund it.