Democracy was never truly one, and Corona shattered that illusion.

For many decades, the West was told that its democracy was a rock: grown, tested, unshakable. Then came a virus, and the rock turned out to be a cardboard cutout. No coup, no tanks, no burning Reichstag—a single television appearance with death curves was enough, and overnight, responsible citizens became block wardens, informers, and outcasts. Anyone who thinks that's an exaggeration has spent the last few years in a bunker or in a newsroom.

Diagnosis from a specialist for sick societies
These days, psychotherapist and long-time chief physician Hans-Joachim Maaz has been at Interview with Bastian Barucker Maaz finally delivered the finding that the political class has been avoiding like a reef for years: "The game of democracy practically dissolved overnight into a divided society." Into the ruling class and their henchmen in media, science, and culture on the one hand, and into the masses of the subjugated and the minority of those who resist on the other. A democracy imposed from above, Maaz argued, remains just a game as long as it is not anchored in the hearts of the people – and the pandemic has provided bitter proof that precisely this anchoring is lacking. The critics were essentially right, yet they were still used as a scapegoat against which the compliant could vent their uneasy consciences.

That hits home. Not because it's new, but because it comes from a man with firsthand experience of dictatorship, who has spent his entire career dissecting the difference between facade and foundation. Overnight, from neighbor to public enemy – how to run a society by the nose – was already covered here years ago, back when the quality press was still producing special reports on the dangers posed by pedestrians.

The files that nobody should read
The ironic part: The split wasn't even based on official conviction. The crisis management team minutes of the Robert Koch Institute had to be reviewed. to be acquitted by the magazine Multipolar And they came as a redaction frenzy – more than 200 documents, in some cases even obscuring the mere presence of the health minister. Only a leak in July 2024 brought the unredacted version to light, and the RKI later had to go to court. confirm that the leaked documents are unchanged and complete were. The document contained doubts, objections, and concerns from the authorities' own experts regarding measures that were presented to the public as having no alternative. The authorities knew better, yet the country was still divided into vaccinated and unvaccinated. Anyone who questioned this categorization was branded a conspiracy theorist – by people who today act as if they've never seen a playground barrier tape.

Processing in the waiting room
And the big reckoning? It's underway. Well, it's underway the way government oversight typically goes when those being investigated appoint the investigators. Instead of a parliamentary inquiry committee with mandatory witness testimony and the threat of criminal prosecution, the Bundestag is indulging itself in a rather convoluted process. An inquiry commission has been in place since summer 2025., whose meetings regularly end in heated exchanges – when Christian Drosten, the most prominent narrator of the pandemic, was invited in December 2025, the discussion devolved into personal accusations within three hours – while the invited legal scholars addressed the parliament to attest that his ability to work was always presentA committee comprised mostly of the same factions that rubber-stamped every measure is conducting its own internal review and – surprise, surprise – is finding primarily areas for improvement for the next pandemic. This isn't a reckoning, it's a dress rehearsal. Anyone expecting justice is waiting for a train whose tracks were never built.

New play, same stage, same extras
For while the past languishes in the waiting room, the present is already rehearsing its next production. The vocabulary has changed, but the choreography hasn't: once again an existential threat, once again a taboo against certain thoughts, once again an enemy image for all who don't applaud. Germany is bracing itself Defense spending for 2026 is projected to reach approximately 108 billion euros. – Highest level since the end of the Cold War. The core budget jumps within a year from around 62 billion to almost 83 billion, plus a good 25 billion from the credit-financed special fund. If one takes the Ukraine aid of over 11 billion Furthermore, the Federal Republic of Germany spends almost 120 billion euros on the military – in a country that is closing its bridges because they are in danger of collapsing. This is made possible by a constitutional amendment from spring 2025, which Defense spending was simply exempted from the debt brake. —the same debt brake that has always been considered a law of nature when it comes to schools, hospitals, and pensions. You, dear reader, will pay for this with your welfare state and your purchasing power. And anyone who wants to take to the streets to protest quickly realizes: the peace activist is the new unvaccinated. Same labels, same exclusion, same conspiracy of silence from the mainstream media. As is well known, whoever orders war sends foreign children..

The balance sheet of a sham democracy
This is precisely where the circle closes with Maaz: A society that has never come to terms with its divisions can be divided anew at will – one simply has to change the enemy image. Yesterday the unvaccinated person, today the Russian, tomorrow the climate sinner; the script is ready and waiting. A democracy that can be torn apart into camps overnight was never truly a democracy – it was a theatrical production with a constantly changing repertoire. The perpetrators of the past now sit on the commission tasked with investigating their actions and call this "coming to terms with the past"! The lesson has been learned, but unfortunately from the wrong side: Those in power now know that the citizens will go along with anything if the fear is great enough! And those who, during the next state of emergency, dutifully sort, denounce, and exclude again, will afterward claim to remember nothing – until one day there is no one left to speak out against them!