#Biedermann and the Firebugs

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

How the right tore themselves apart

The fratricidal instincts of America's GOP are extreme and alarming. Simon Kuper: When US Republicans spent four days fighting each other over choosing a Speaker for the House of Representatives, even as skilled a fabulist as the newly elected Congressman George Santos was overheard muttering: “You can’t make this crap up.” 

What happened in the House is simply a dramatisation of what’s happening to rightwing parties across the west. They are being torn apart between two opposing right wings. In most countries it’s the mainstream right against the far right, and in the US the far right against the very far right, but everywhere rightist coalitions are crumbling. Across the five biggest western European countries, the seven biggest in Latin America, and the US, Canada and Australia, only one traditional centre-right party runs a government: the British Conservatives, who expect electoral decimation next year. For all the reports of the supposed death of social democratic parties, the centre-left is winning.

The conservative-far-right alliance was captured by the Swiss dramatist Max Frisch in his 1953 play Biedermann and the Arsonists. Biedermann is an upstanding businessman, a producer of hair tonic, when one day he invites two arsonists into his treasured home. Predictably, they end up burning it down. It was Frisch’s post-Hitler metaphor for what happens when conservatives fool themselves into thinking they can control the far-right. Today’s arsonists attack institutions such as parliament, the judiciary and corporations. They suppress votes, fight culture wars, flirt with Putin, cry “fake news” and push house-burning schemes such as Brexit. They are anything but “conservative”. 

Still, when the arsonists first appeared, Biedermann conservatives welcomed them into their homes. Together, the two rights made big wrongs: in 2016, the homeowner-arsonist alliance delivered Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency. The Biedermanns gradually discovered that their new friends didn’t have their interests at heart. Boris Johnson, whose genius was that he appealed to both homeowners and arsonists, said “Fuck business”, then showed he meant it with his EU trade deal. Trump cut taxes, but then encouraged a mob to storm Congress.Centre-right voters are still disproportionately drawn from the wealthier classes, write Tim Bale and Cristóbal Kaltwasser in their book Riding the Populist Wave: Europe’s Mainstream Right in Crisis. 

These people value their homes and their hair-tonic companies. They don’t want to overthrow the establishment. They are the establishment. Before 2016, they supported parties that were “loyal to the political system” rather than out to destroy it, write Bale and Kaltwasser. The Biedermanns share little with the arsonists beyond an aversion to immigrants and a fear of what they call “woke”. Now the centre-right parties face a dilemma: stick with the arsonists or lose elections by themselves. Alone, they are weak. The old conservative small-state recipe has lost appeal in an era of pandemic, war and energy crisis. Meanwhile, gay marriage has superseded their moral codes. Germany’s Christian Democrats, in power for 32 of the last 39 years, lost to the Social Democrats in 2021. In the recent French elections, the centre-right Les Républicains scored just 4.8 per cent. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has shrivelled to junior partner of his former junior partners on the far right. In Britain, Liz Truss’s tax cuts for the rich — a traditional conservative offering — were remarkably unpopular. Spain’s centre-right Partido Popular can probably only win the next election in coalition with the arsonists of Vox.

Some centre-right parties are following the US Republicans in their march right. Eric Ciotti, the latest leader of the French Républicains, seems intent on turning it into the country’s third far-right party. But even if the arsonist vote currently looks bigger than the Biedermann vote, it’s rarely big enough to win power. The right lost winnable elections in Chile, the US and Brazil largely because its candidates, José Antonio Kast, Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, were just a little too arsonist. Alternatively, the centre-right could return to the centre. That seems to be UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s strategy: making nice with Europe, ideally without upsetting the arsonists. Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, raised in the arsonist tradition, is attempting something similar. But as they eye the centre, they see their soft-left opponents already in residence. Joe Biden, the one-time Socialist Party minister Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Labour’s Keir Starmer have all grasped an obvious truth: a vacated centre offers the easiest route to power.

[h/t Scott Horton]

[watches-and-windchimes]

I'm fairly sure this post is about Biedermann und die Brandstifter which has had an English translations (The Arsonists/The Firebugs/The Fire Raisers) since 1961. It was the inspiration behind PhilosophyTube's character The Arsonist

People who don't speak German are really missing out on that one play that starts with people being told they shouldn't let strangers in because there's dangerous arsonists around and then these guys knock on someone's door and go "can we sleep at your house? We're arsonists btw" and the guy is like "haha so funny sure come in" and they keep setting up stuff and he's like "what are you going to do haha" and they're like "we're going to burn down your house" and also there's a Greek choir of firemen

[analoguegirl4real-blog]

‘Biedermann und die Brandstifter’ – The Firebugs

‘Biedermann und die Brandstifter’ – The Firebugs

  Reading this play at 14 as part of my school curriculum, I remember being outraged by the main character, constantly thinking ‘surely nobody could be this blind to the obvious!’ I never thought then that I would live to witness this play unfold… This dark comedy by Max Frisch in 1953, is set in a town that is regularly attacked by arsonists. Disguised as door-to-door salesmen (hawkers), they…