Established Parties Decide on a Conspiracy of Silence

Two current reports, taken together, represent the state of Germany.

The first report: „Rejected asylum seeker arrested: Iraqi allegedly pushed girl († 16) in front of train“ (bild.de, 29.08.2025).

The second report: „Bizarre election campaign agreement in Cologne: Parties commit to only speak positively about migration“ (bild.de, 28.08.2025).

Ah, I almost think wistfully back to the time when we first half-ironically sighed: Give us new conspiracy theories, the old ones have all been confirmed by now!

Similarly, one wants to complain today: Give us new exaggerations, the old ones simply describe the new reality!

Finally to the Turnaround

Exaggerations, escalations, polemics: These rhetorical tools are meant to awaken the audience. They should highlight dangerous developments. They should warn and admonish – ultimately to move towards a turnaround and improvement!

Similarly, the vocabulary of attack in political debate. To break through the noise of everyday life, one brings the weaknesses, mistakes, and dangerous misjudgments of the opponent to a catchy and aggressive point.

As an example: The AfD has adopted the battle term established parties from the early Greens. Everyone understands: The other parties are „old“ in the sense of established, but crusted and irrelevant. Only the new party can offer new, relevant solutions.

Significantly more aggressive than the concept of established parties is the battle term cartel parties.

Cartel, that implies illegal agreements, illegal abolition of market mechanisms, and exclusion of smaller competitors, all to the massive detriment of the customers.

But Not the Old CDU Members

A term like cartel parties should of course be an exaggeration. A political battle word that points to dangerous tendencies.

Let us consider the undignified conditions in the Bundestag, where the rebranded wall-murder party can hold a vice position, but the party of the old CDU members cannot. Let us consider the so-called firewall, which is nothing more than a cartel of the established parties against the opposition.

In business, a „firewall“ against smaller competition would be a case for the cartel office and thus illegal. In politics, however, the undemocratic cartel formation is sold as highly moral.

Let us also consider the synchronized steps of the parties during the Corona theater. „The organized forgetting“ headlines Der Spiegel and writes that „a cross-party cartel of silence prevents a processing“. (Before you wonder: I have merely quoted perfidiously, namely an article about Stasi entanglements in Brandenburg – from the year 2010.)

Wild conspiracy theories have become the shoulder-shrugging news of the day. And sharp battle terms have become precise descriptions of the „democratic“ operation.

Also Proud of It

The established parties in Cologne now publicly decide – and are even proud of it – nothing less than a cartel of silence.

A cartel of silence is called in Italian: cartello del silenzio. The cartel of silence, also known as omertà, is a term from the mafia world.

The cartel parties of Cologne have decided on an omertà regarding the „election campaign“ for the most pressing of all political problems. (Another political battle term is democracy simulation – but the cartel parties do not even simulate democratic sentiment anymore!)

Why do certain organizations establish a silence cartel? Just ask the artificial intelligence of your choice!

ChatGPT explained to me that the purpose of the omertà is „the protection of one’s own power, the avoidance of prosecution, and the maintenance of structures through fear and conformity.“ „A ‚cartel of silence‘ is not an official cartel in the economic sense, but a metaphor for a community of silence whose purpose is to maintain power and prevent exposure.“

We read about the mafia’s motivation for their silence cartel, and if we are a bit careless, it could easily happen that we confuse this motivation with that of politics!

What Is Worse

In Germany, people repeatedly die at the hands of men who should not even be in the country, and those responsible decide to remain silent about it.

I have no doubt that both the mafia and the cartel parties will provide high moral reasons for why the omertà is necessary. But we all suspect that the real reasons why the cartel parties expand their power cartel into a silence cartel frighteningly resemble the corresponding reasons of the mafia.

Czech President Miloš Zeman is occasionally (but probably incorrectly) quoted with discussions on the question of at what point one can say that a country is „governed by idiots“.

Ah, one would like to sigh today: If only the politicians were only idiots – and not possibly something worse than just idiots.