IT HAS PLAYED OUT – OR: THE TRUMPIZATION OF EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING
Spring 2025 doesn’t make it easy to believe that things will be better this year and in the coming years than in 2024, 2023, 2022 and ….
On the contrary: the disastrous cultural policy decisions in Cologne and Berlin, where the budget debates not only resulted in cuts to important institutions and projects, but also in some cases in complete liquidation orders (see the Cologne Academy of the Arts of the World), bode ill for German cultural policy after last weekend’s depressing election.
Current events in the USA are rightly fueling fears that even more massive cuts to social and cultural projects are looming here too and that regressive policies in general will make a mockery of the important progress made in recent years and decades. These fears are exacerbated by the speed with which many companies (such as Meta, Google, Target, McDonald’s) are prepared to discontinue their diversity and sustainability programs.
But you don’t have to look that far to feel pessimistic; even in their own environment, more and more people are acting in a selfish, egocentric or even aggressive, careerist manner in the face of tougher economic conditions – probably because they always have been, but didn’t notice it in more relaxed economic times, but perhaps also because they finally feel liberated by the new circumstances and don’t have to hide it. You can definitely say that: Trump has given many – in my world of experience it is significantly always men – a carte blanche, which they gratefully accept.
