Der Mensch ist ein Unterschiedswesen, d. h. sein Bewusstsein wird durch den Unterschied des augenblicklichen Eindrucks gegen den vorhergehenden angeregt; beharrende Eindrücke, Geringfügigkeit ihrer Differenzen, gewohnte Regelmäßigkeit ihres Ablaufs und ihrer Gegensätze verbrauchen sozusagen weniger Bewusstsein, als die rasche Zusammendrängung wechselnder Bilder, der schroffe Abstand innerhalb dessen, was man mit einem Blick umfasst, die Unerwartetheit sich aufdrängender Impressionen. (Georg Simmel, “Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben,” 1903)
This is a quote from Georg Simmel’s famous essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” which he wrote over a century ago. Simmel, one of the grandfathers of modern Urban studies and the study of capitalist society, was apt in reflecting on the epochal changes happening at the dawn of the previous century. Partially inspired by the writings of Marx, he was acutely aware of the negative aspects brought about by the victory march of the steam engine. Many insights of sociology into how society works today stem in part from his studies on individualism, capitalism, and industrialization.
I would like to briefly focus on this particular statement. What he writes is that man is a “being of differences,” that is, a creature that is agitated by differences. In the essay, he argues that it was precisely the sensory overload of modern metropolis that brought about individualism and a certain narcissism to society. The human mind, he argues, was still used to the slow, rural lifestyle that dominated society until the mid of the 18th century.
This is not, however, how I instinctively interpreted this section. I read it more optimistic. When I first read the essay more than a decade ago, I was convinced that this was something good; that being exposed to constant stimulation was something humans would get inspired by. At least, this is how I felt — progress, learning something new, growing from experiences. Today, I am pretty sure that Simmel wasn’t that optimistic, but I think that something can be learned from my misunderstanding. Something about the condition of modern democracy.
The Rise and Fall of Liberal Democracy
Liberal democracy as we know it is a very recent phenomenon. After the fall of absolutism in Europe — which was only about five generations1 ago, mind you — first countries started experiencing Republicanism as the first, cautious start into an era of representation. It took another one and a half century until women were recognized as thinking human beings, too, with universal suffrage. It then took two world wars and immense destruction for society to realize that we need even more safeguards against authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies. This has then led to modern representative democracy as we know it. And indeed, we might approximate the stability of a democratic system by its constitution’s age.2 If we take this measurement seriously for a moment, the French are the harbingers of democracy, given they’re now at attempt number five in succeeding with this democracy-thing.3
What I’m saying is that the kind of democracy which my age group grew up with is a pretty modern phenomenon. Even our parents — the boomer generation — got to experience a less friendly age, with the Cold War commencing fully when they were born, and ending when we were born. My mother used to make the joke that she was born the day the Berlin Wall was raised, and I was born the day it was torn down. And it’s true: My grandfather was born just weeks before World War II started, my grandmother just weeks after the United States entered it, my mother when the Berlin Wall was built, and I … well, I was born the day all that was over. “History” was over.4 The “short 20th century”5 was over.
And now? Well, some of my friends are getting offspring now. And if we are not all collectively mistaken, it may once be known as the time liberal democracy died. What started as some fringe right-wing movements across the world has finally turned ugly. While Europe is somehow still managing its far-right threat, the U.S. appears to have engaged full throttle. Nobody really knows how the second Trump presidency will end. Will the U.S. Republic still stand in three years and 10 months?6 Or will it have devolved into a techno-fascist dystopia akin to what Margaret Atwood has described fourty years ago?7
It definitely doesn’t look good. The January 6 rioters have been pardoned as one of the first executive actions Trump signed; Elon Musk is busy dismantling the federal administration; and every week we hear of someone new who legally tried to enter the United States, just to get arrested by Customs and Border Protection. The YouTube channel Legal Eagle is uploading a new video almost every day now with something the Trump administration did — or didn’t — do that is legally at the very least doubtful, but often straight illegal. The Trump admin is very successful in exhausting public discourse, with stunts such as their constant oscillation between “Musk is in charge” (in which case it would be illegal, so they only say it when they speak to their voter base) and “Musk is not in charge” (which would not be illegal, but is not correct, because he is, in fact, in charge, but they say this to courts whenever they ask to hope that they can get through with it).
What Is Happening in the U.S. Is Happening Elsewhere, Too
What we can observe in the U.S. is an especially crass delegitimization of the very foundations of liberal democracy. Neither Congress nor the Judiciary have the power to stop whatever insanity the Trump administration is doing every day. The executive is going rampant, and the zookeeper has fled the confines of the tiger enclosure. More and more often do we hear that the administration straight out ignores court orders, and no longer cares about upholding even the appearance of common sense. It’s just about creating facts, and they do create facts very efficiently.
But the foundations of liberal democracy are more fragile than that. It doesn’t take some Donald Trump to erode a state. No, just a few weeks ago, wedged in between his inauguration and the German federal elections, something equally frightening happened in Germany. On Wednesday, the 29th of January 2025, for the first time since its inception, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was able to provide the necessary majority for an equally far-right resolution by the German conservatives (CDU) under the leadership of Friedrich Merz.
Merz and his party added two items to the German parliamentary calendar just weeks before the federal election: A resolution that was asking the Bundestag to recognize the “dangers” of “illegal migration,” and a bill that would’ve become law, which contained roughly the same. The resolution was under vote on Wednesday, the 29th, the law on Friday, January 31st. The (not legally binding) resolution did get the necessary majority with the help of the far-right, while the (legally binding) bill was rejected with a dangerously small margin. It all came down to a few representatives from the Conservatives falling over last-minute. It was a thriller — and painful to watch. For four hours we had to wait for the actual vote to happen.8
Now, why do I call this an “erosion of the foundations of liberal democracy”? After all, unlike some of Trump’s executive orders, this all followed correct procedure, right? Well, technically yes. But here’s the thing: Democracy is not just about technicalities. Democracy is also about values. One of these values is, for example, not to pass a change of the constitution after a new parliament has been voted for, but the old one still being in office. While the old parliament is still regularly in power, it was frowned upon just a few years ago to do anything too drastic without necessity. Do we have to reform the federal debt ceiling? Absolutely. But is it necessary to do it using a “lame duck” parliament? Debatable. Is tomorrow’s vote9 technically legal? Absolutely. As I said (and the German constitutional court verified some years back), the old parliament is still regularly in power. Is it clean and tidy? Not at all. Something very similar applies to what Merz did. While technically clean and orderly, it eroded one fundamental value of liberal democracy.
And that value is: Don’t reach for power as an end in itself.
Welcome To An Age Of Bullies
The reasoning behind the strategic move by Friedrich Merz was clever. I would almost be inclined to call it extraordinarily strategically smart. Because he successfully scared the entire parliament. There’s nothing the democratic parties are more afraid of than passing legislation with the votes of the far-right. We did learn this much from our own history. By placing a non-binding resolution on the agenda first, and then a legally binding law, winning the resolution with the votes of the AfD and then losing the bill vote by a slim margin, he sent an unmistaken message to the rest of the Bundestag: “I am not afraid of using the AfD if it suits my goals. So if you don’t want the AfD facilitating a majority, do as I say.” It was essentially a thinly veiled threat against democracy itself. Just believable enough, but not too dangerous to Merz himself. He made sure to be able to contain the ghosts he called — barely.
Merz is a politician of power. And so is Trump. And so is, to a degree, Emmanuel Macron in France.10 The reason we are somewhat okay with Macron using the technical powers of his office to the fullest extent is that he’s a democrat. But liberal democracy cannot survive on the good will of individuals alone. This is what I mean by “age of bullies”: We are entering an era in which politicians do what they want, by strategically using the technicalities of the rule of law. And more and more, the rule of law is being replaced with charismatic rulers.
The only reason Europe hasn’t fallen as deeply as the U.S. into this pit is because many of our current charismatic rulers are still democrats at heart. Macron is ruling with an iron fist, but at least he’s using his presidential powers for strengthening a democratic Europe. But it doesn’t have to stay like this. And this is what is deeply problematic about this style of government.
Democracy is not Self-Evident
If we think about it, this is all reminiscent of the old Greek cycle of government.11 Europe went from feudalism to absolutism, then to republicanism, democracy, and now we’re approaching authoritarianism. I often think about the way Max Weber’s forms of government12 fit into this cyclical structure. We start with the rule of law, which slowly turns into charismatic government, which turns into traditionalist government, and then… well, then what? We don’t know.
What we are living through is obviously not a cycle. History rarely repeats itself.13 Instead, it is a constant progression through forms of government. It looks very much like what Karl Marx once wrote: History is a march of constant innovation and governmental progression. However, unlike Marx, history doesn’t seem as optimistic that all would culminate in communism. Instead, history looks more like the angelus novus from Walter Benjamin; the “angel of history” which is doomed to unstoppably move towards the future while looking at humanity’s bloody and gruesome past. “It wishes to rest, awaken the dead and repair the destroyed. But a storm is pushing from Paradise, into its wings, and so strong that the angel cannot close them anymore. This storm is pushing him inevitably into the future, to which he turns his back, all the while the mountain of debris in front of him grows unstoppably. That, which we call progress, is this storm.”14
When I first read Georg Simmel’s essay, I was convinced that us humans needed difference in our lives, to stimulate our brains. And to a certain degree, I still believe that this is true: It is the constant questioning, the constant asking “Why is that?” which drives scientific, but also societal progression. It is this axiom that motivates me every day to continue my research, even if research on U.S. Congress seems futile nowadays. But just as how we crave difference to stimulate our minds, a lack of difference can be very dangerous. And I believe that the “end of history” has marked the loss of difference for democratic governments. When the Iron Curtain fell, so did the raison d´être for democracy. All the institutions that the democratic world had built — NATO, INF,15 and even democracy itself — weren’t self-evident anymore.
What was self-evident for the founding fathers of the U.S. was only self-evident in the difference, or comparison, to the colonial power of Great Britain. Protecting the “free West” was only self-evident in difference to the Warsaw Pact. And what was self-evident as a beacon of freedom was only until its lived counter-example fell. And when democracy is not self-evident anymore, people with a lust for power simply create new difference. Whether it be out of boredom or because others won’t stop them anymore is just a technicality at this point, only serving to illustrate the differences between Macron and Trump. This is the lesson of thinkers such as Karl Popper: In the grand scheme of things, democracy is not self-evident. It cannot guarantee its own fundamental preconditions.16 And this is why democracy is always one step from decay. To maintain a democracy, we need difference.
If the Trump administration gets its way, then this might create enough of a counter-example that Europe finds its way back to democracy in a sick twist of history. And Europe does appear to awaken again. Several countries have already started moving towards defensive self-sufficiency. But it might not be enough. Because the only self-evident fact in human history seems to be: “Between equal rights, force decides.”17
1 Using a 60-year-lifespan definition of one generation. Imagine that: Louis XVI was dethroned just 232 years ago.
2 Don’t get at me saying that this is oversimplifying — I know it is.
3 This, of course, is a reference to the fact that they have overhauled their entire constitution five times since the end of the Napoleonic era. The most recent was caused by Charles de Gaulle after World War II.
4 Francis Fukuyama, 1989, “The End of History?”
5 Eric Hobsbawn, 1994, “The Age of Extremes.”
6 Yup, it’s been less than 60 days.
7 Margaret Atwood, 1985, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
8 I watched the livestream from parliament, which included a more than four-hour long break as all parties called for emergency meetings to discuss the options that were on the table. I really realized this day that watching parliamentary debates is excruciating.
9 I’m referring to a planned change to the constitution to reform the debt ceiling (“Schwarze Null”) that is set on the parliament’s agenda for Tuesday, March 18, 2025. This is just a week before the new parliament will be constituted. While technically completely legal, it is frowned upon because it is this weird period where we already had elections, but the old parliament is still the legislative body. I’m all in for the proposed change to the constitution, because that is necessary, but I do understand critics who aren’t happy with the timing. Especially since this reform would have been much simpler for the conservatives with the new parliament, as they have a bigger majority there. But due to how they did it now, the greens of all parties have had a major impact on it. I’m happy with it, but I honestly do not understand the reasoning of the CDU here. I will explain why shortly in the text.
10 Do not misunderstand me here. I am not saying that Macron and Trump are anything alike. Trump is a petty autocrat, while Macron still holds dear democratic values. I even believe that Merz is still a democrat, even though he gambled with democracy. Rather, what I am trying to say is that the styles of government they all share are very different instances of a common trend.
11 Many Greek thinkers, from Thucydides through Aristotle to Plato have had their own theory that forms of government alternate, called κύκλος, or cycle. They hypothesized that there is some set of government forms, and the city states would cycle through them, from good to bad — from aristocracy, through timocracy, then democracy, ochlocracy, and finally tyranny, only to start anew.
12 Weber argued for three types of government that would morph into another one. It starts with charismatic leadership where a charismatic individual reigns absolutely; then, after their death, the rule becomes traditional that is, “it has always been like this,” before being replaced by the rule of law (“Wertrationalität”).
13 If it does, it does so as a tragedy first, and as a farce second.
14 Translated by me from a great piece of the Deutschlandfunk on Walter Benjamin’s relationship to the painting “Angelus Novus”, https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/walter-benjamins-engel-der-geschichte-ein-sturm-weht-vom-100.html.
15 I believe the differences and similarities between the reasoning for the existence of NATO and the INF are instructive here. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created by the U.S. to secure the West against the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the USSR, it lost its reason to exist, and many people across all member nations hold the belief that it should be disbanded. But as both Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and the Trump administration’s most recent threats of leaving NATO illustrate, NATO has turned from a mere defensive pact into a beacon for the values it was set up to defend. The INF, or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, on the other hand, is not part of public debate, because too few people ever heard of it. But it, too, was a beacon of peace and meant to safeguard the liberal West from destruction. However, as it was deemed “unnecessary” after decades of nuclear disarmament, it was broken. And you know by whom? Donald Trump. In his first presidency. To a certain degree, the INF was the canary that only few talked about that could’ve given us the hint as to what is about to happen to various other important columns of the “free West” in the coming years.
16 See also the Böckenförde-dilemma.
17 Karl Marx, “Capital,” volume I. Somewhere towards the end, if I recall correctly. I unfortunately have the book only in its analog version, and not with me to look it up. I believe this is a statement where we clearly see that Marx has read Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan.”