I am the people
Alongside the Bundestag, the glass box of the Federal Press Conference in Berlin's government district is the most important stage for announcements in day-to-day political business. Performing a one-off theatre play here, a farce about a charismatic right-wing populist's attempt to seize power, is more than just a pretty alienating effect in front of a familiar television set.
The premiere of Nicola Hümpel's production of ‘Ein Volksbürger’ last Friday, exactly one day after the AfD used the constituent session of the Thuringian state parliament in Erfurt for a spectacle of contempt for democracy, seems like the apt response of political theatre to such excesses of the theatricalisation of politics. When uninhibited polarisation poisons and overlays the debate and the remnants of rational discourse, when parliaments are deliberately disparaged and misused as propaganda platforms, in this production theatre conversely becomes an instrument of analysis. It illuminates the manoeuvres of authoritarian national radicalism to destroy the democratic public sphere - for the purpose of political sobering up.
At the front of the hall, where politicians and their spokespeople normally answer questions, a right-wing populist virtuoso of power and manipulation by the name of Dominik Arndt now demonstrates how casually he knows how to undermine the rules of democracy. And because this self-declared ‘citizen of the people’ is played by Fabian Hinrichs, who is always super-sympathetic and at the same time tends to appear slightly insane, his performance develops considerable charisma: next to Hinrichs, average political routiners have at best the appeal of meeting minutes and the glamour factor of a draft bill.
Instead of answering the questions, the tribune of the people says: ‘I am here to offer you a new beginning’
The performance is a thought experiment on the resilience of the democratic constitutional state, a theatrical stress test that plays out how democratically elected democracy despisers could swiftly restructure and abuse state institutions - destroying the constitutional state with its own instruments. The script for this spooky stress test was written by an expert. Maximilian Steinbeis, a lawyer and journalist (occasionally a guest author for the SZ), is the founder and director of the influential Verfassungsblog and has worked with numerous experts in the ‘Thuringia Project’ to analyse the legal possibilities of an AfD participating in the government. The ‘Volksbürger’ scenario skilfully varies this: What happens if a right-wing populist head of government ignores laws and the break with the rule of law takes the form of administrative action?
The second thought experiment is a little more unpleasant: what if right-wing enemies of democracy do not disgrace themselves with SA slogans in the Höcke style, but instead present themselves as diffusely modern, preferring to talk about digitalisation while ignoring fundamental rights? What effect could it have on election results if right-wing demagoguery is not spread by behaviourally conspicuous figures and bizarre zealots as in the past, but by a TV-suitable charmer with the smooth manners of a showmaster?
Fabian Hinrichs appears as the newly elected Prime Minister of a federal state known only as ‘Free State’ with an absolute majority: An iron-willed, permanently smiling dazzler of the ‘Democratic Alliance’, who lets the questions of ZDF reporter Theo Koll (played by Theo Koll) roll off him like an unavoidable, but also completely unimportant nuisance. He immediately turns the Federal Press Conference into his stage and plays by his own rules right from the start. He confidently ignores the actual purpose of facing the journalists' critical questions. Instead, he fires off staccato phrases: ‘I am here to offer you a new beginning’, and of course with ‘passion for our country’.
The friendliness cast in reinforced concrete, the gestures that embrace everything and everyone are a single offer to replace politics as the resolution of conflicting interests with the elated feel-good delirium of a national community: We are us, and ‘we all need to talk to each other more’.
The well-rehearsed routines of the political establishment are failing in the face of the populist attack
The egoshooter programme of identity-political fundamentalism is enough for the postmodern tribune of the people to mark his political goals: ‘I am me’. That will have to do. As helplessly as the moderator of the Federal Press Conference (Klara Pfeiffer) reacts to the hijacking of her stage, the legal-formalistic statements of the overworked spokeswoman of the Federal Government (Annedore Kleist) seem tired and powerless in contrast to the turbo-charismatic. The well-rehearsed routines of the political business fail in the face of the populist attack. The district administrator from the deep provinces (Stefan Merki), whom the Minister President brings with him to report ‘here in Berlin’ on the imposition that the refugee centre in his district represents, is more pithy.
The political power behind the populist phrase machine is the abuse of the administration by undermining the rule of law. In the ‘Free State’, the offices for migration and refugees simply no longer process the files and people seeking protection end up homeless. Slightly exaggerated, these are probably the ‘well-dosed cruelties’ that the ‘remigration’ propagandist Höcke dreams of for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Populist government policy leads to discriminatory administrative behaviour, as has actually happened in Hungary, for example.
The performance plays out the attempt at a populist takeover in a federal state - right up to the intervention of the federal police - like a case study in a legal textbook. And that is exactly what this production is: instructive. Because the co-production with the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Staatstheater Karlsruhe is a game with the media public, it is only logical that ‘Ein Volksbürger’ will also be available in the Arte media library from 2 October.