A few observations around the alleged German coup attempt

Until now, I have left the alleged coup attempt in Germany without comment—and, barring future revelations of note, I will likely continue to do so after this text. There simply is too much vagueness, too much speculation, too much governmental PR, and too much one-sidedness in the reporting, for me, as an outsider, to make a qualified statement about the details without very considerable prior research.*

*A particular complication is that the intentions, opinions, political positions, group belongings, whatnot of those unpopular-with-the-Left are regularly and often grossly misrepresented by media and Leftist politicians in Germany (just as in e.g. the U.S.). A consequence is that, for instance, the common claim that participants were “Reichsbürger” does not imply that they actually were, nor is it clear what the implications of “Reichsbürger” would be—as all descriptions of “Reichsbürger” that I have ever encountered have been written by their enemies. Even clarifying just these two points might cost me more or much more time than the entire writing of this text.

A few observations are called for on a more general level, however:

1. The extreme differences in numbers and resources between alleged participants and the involved law enforcement, the informing of journalists before the arrests/raids/whatnot, etc. give the impression that this was more of a PR-coup for the German government and/or the German Left than a real coup against the German government.

   Note, in a similar vein, the J6 situation in the U.S., where a comparatively minor event has been blown out of proportion, where punishments are far larger than any wrong-doings,* where the portrayal of behavior and intents is extremely misleading, where there are strong signs of an (at least partial) setup, etc.—allowing a Leftist PR-coup intended to trick the people into believing that the Right** is evil/dangerous/whatnot, while the truth, by any reasonable standard, is the opposite.

   *Up to and including Monopoly-style “Go directly to jail!” commands to some who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, with no proof of ill intentions, as if they had stepped on the wrong Monopoly square and happened to draw a bad card.

   **I consider the Left–Right scale inherently flawed, as the various parties/ideologies/whatnot usually classified as Rightwing are far too heterogeneous to be grouped together (especially, if the Leftist misdefinitions of “Racist equals Rightwing”, “Nationalist equals Rightwing”, etc. are accepted—which I do not). I note, in particular, that the far Left is an extremer version of the regular Left, while the same does not apply to the “far Right” and the “Right”. My use of the Left–Right scale in this text is solely to match the framing of the debate. I further note that some of my statements about the Right must be seen with implicit disclaimers like e.g. “the clear majority of the Right, but due to the extreme wideness of the term, exceptions exist”. More on these topics can be found in e.g. my lengthy and ongoing series on Nazis ([1] and countless later installments, notably [2]). Also note the issue of the Left constantly demanding tolkningsföreträde, including on issues like who is or is not a supporter of what ideology and how any given ideology is to be classified.

2. There is a strong push that this was explicitly a “Rightwing” (“far Right”, or similar) coup attempt.

   This is problematic in terms of classification, as the involved (in my superficial impression) seem more loony than political, and as the main two reasons for the classification seem to be (a) a wish for a king, (b) an origin among dissenters.

   However, to dissent is neither wrong nor inherently Rightwing,* and much of the dissent in question, notably against the failed, scientifically unfounded, and rights-violating COVID policies should have been politically neutral and is outright laudable. Moreover, as I have noted in the past,** if dissenters are driven out of “polite company”, they will naturally end up with each other, even when they have little in common; moreover, there is the issue of the fellow-traveler fallacy. In other words, making assumptions based on the participation of members of a certain “scene”*** is dubious.

   *It is true both that a Leftwing mentality tends to be more conforming/gullible and that the strong and absurd influence of the Left in today’s world makes Leftist dissent less likely, but dissent, per se, is not proof of anything Rightwing. (To the degree that dissent is Rightwing, it is usually either a matter of regular differences in opinion or directed at something negative, untruthful, oppressive, whatnot—and should be supported.)

   **Unfortunately, I failed to find a reference on short notice—a disadvantage of having published this many texts.

   ***As the German journalists, with their cliched “Szene”, like to formulate it—it is always Szene-this and Szene-that.

   Even the king-part is not Rightwing as such (in an even remotely modern sense): looking beneath the word used, there is very little difference between e.g. a traditional* king and someone like Stalin or Fidel Castro. More interesting questions involve who is in favor of democracy, Rechtsstaatlichkeit, the rights of the individual, etc., and here the Right tends to be more positive than the Left, which typically only uses democracy as a tool to gain power. Vice versa, who is in favor of a “strong leader”/“strong man”, extensive government control, whatnot, where the Left tends to be more positive than the Right.

   *To boot, if we look at most modern monarchies, e.g. the U.K. and Sweden, the role of the monarch is largely ceremonial and differs little in nature from that of e.g. the (ceremonial) German president. For a deeper discussion, we would need a very clear definition and understanding of what was actually intended. (Also note complications like historical kings often having been elected and presidents often grabbing power through military force; kingship sometimes being hereditary, sometimes not; presidentship sometimes being quasi-hereditary, sometimes not. Apart, possibly, from a shibbolethic aspect of the word “king”, there is nothing Rightwing about the idea.)

   Of course, even if we were to consider the coup-makers Rightwing, which might or might not be the case after a closer inspection, they would only represent a very small fraction of the Right—while e.g. terrorists from Antifa and the “autonomous”* movements represent a significantly larger portion of the Left. Recent sport from some Leftist groups seems to include the willful and nonsensical destruction of art “because global warming”.

   *These Leftwing groups have a long history of violence and anti-democratic attempts to enforce their will upon others in Germany. Other countries have other Leftist groups that are violent and otherwise problematic, e.g. the BLM movement in the U.S. and, more historically, various anarchist groupings. (Antifa seems to be a worldwide problem.)

   Notably, the German Left has long waged an all out of war of hate and distortion on anything branded or self-branded as “Right”, leading to e.g. CDU* cowardly hiding under the label of “Center”, instead of sticking to “Right”, which brings about a self-fulfilling not-quite-prophecy, as only those with extreme positions typically dare to refer to themselves as “Right”. There might also be no other country in the world where the distortion of “Right” to imply “Nazi”, “Fascist”, “Xenophobic”, whatnot (and vice versa) has gone further—an absurdity as these positions are largely irrelevant to the Left–Right scale and as the Nazis, by any reasonable standard, were Leftwing. (Cf. [1], [2], and follow ups.) As an example, cf. [3], Germany went through the trouble of instituting a law against explicitly Rightwing extremism—while Germany is buckling under Leftwing (!) extremism.**

   *Nominally, Conservative; at least since Merkel took over, “German RINO”.

   **The failure of so many to understand this, and with the same situation in e.g. the U.S., is a sign of how far the respective Overton windows and opinion corridors have been shifted. What is or is not extremist, normal, deviant, whatnot has often been turned on its head both in politics and in much of public perception.

   Also note an earlier text on the odd distortion of the Left–Right spectrum.

3. As I have noted repeatedly in the past, Germany is neither a functioning democracy nor a Rechtsstaat, currently having more in common with the 1980s’ GDR/DDR than the 1980s’ FRG/BRD.

   A coup under such circumstance is not a threat against, e.g., democracy, as democracy already has been reduced to a nominal existence. A time might well come where a coup is the only way to restore democracy within a reasonable time frame—as it would have been in Nazi-Germany and might* be in today’s Brazil.

   *My impressions are too superficial to make a definite statement, but there are strong signs that Lula (a) did take power through a mixture of judicial abuse and election cheating, and (b) is now abusing that power to remain in power. Indisputably, he is very far Left; with a very high degree of likelihood, he is criminally corrupt.

   This is not yet the case in today’s Germany, but the margins are thinning and a continuation of current trends could force that situation within the foreseeable future. (Consider e.g. that there is some risk that AfD, one of the largest German parties, might be banned for being-hated-by-the-Left, while the much more unsavory Die Linke, the rebranded SED, is growing ever more successful and the Social-Democrats, with their outdated and destructive ideas, currently have the run of the country.)

   Here I re-raise my warning that inexcusable acts by the Left can lead to violent resistance, and this resistance then be used to excuse further inexcusable acts by the Left (cf. [4]; also note other similarly themed texts, like [5]).

4. A repeated problem with actions like these, including several situations in the U.S., is that law enforcement does not clamp down at a time when good faith would demand it, namely, as soon as possible. In some cases, notably the Gretchen-Whitmer “kidnapping” plot, law enforcement is/was even the pushing force. The idea seems to be to wait as long as possible, to get as many fishes in the net as possible, to get as much publicity as possible, whatnot, before clamping down—this with no regard to any danger created and with no regard for the many fishes who might have remained entirely innocent with an earlier intervention. (To which must be added that the border for being “guilty” is often very lax, as with J6, and that the “guilt” is often caused by entrapment, as, again, with the Gretchen-Whitmer “kidnapping” plot and, according to many accounts, J6.)
5. A side-issue is that political violence tends to be Leftist, while German propaganda tries very hard to paint it as Rightist, to the point that use of violence is sometimes used as an ipso-fact proof of “Right”. (E.g. in that soccer hooligans are considered Rightwing for using violence, not for their political opinions—or, on the outside, for opinions that have nothing to do with Left and Right, notably regarding racism. E.g. in that any and all violence against immigrants by Germans is condemned as having a racist and, therefore, far Right motivation, even when the truth was e.g. a wish for money, a personal feud, or a drunk fight.) Ditto e.g., in a historical paradox, anti-establishment attitudes. Ditto resistance to government control of the individual.*

   *This with greater justification, but with a Leftist propaganda focus not on “wants respect for the rights of the individual” but on “dares defy the all-knowing and all-loving government”.

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