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For four years now, the European politician Manfred Weber (CSU) has become a hero on March 21.

On this day, he mainly thinks about which socks to wear.

The fact is that if you put on two different colored socks on March 21, World Down Syndrome Day, and take a picture of it, you will really empower people with Down syndrome.

And because Manfred Weber is a great friend of people with Down syndrome, he has had a video or a few photos taken of himself and his different socks every year since 2018.

In 2018 he wore a light blue sock with bananas on his right foot and a dark blue one with palm trees on his left.

And he looked clean-shaven and with a huge pile of files on his lap really sweetly from his beautiful leather couch at the camera.

And right in front you could see his feet with the different socks on the coffee table.

And he wrote: "It is completely okay to be different."

In 2019, Manfred Weber sat down on a heater with red and green socks and uploaded a 36-second video of it.

And the video was even in English.

Which is really smart, because there are many more people in the world with Down syndrome who speak English than German.

And the camera was a little higher than his face.

And he looked so seductively into the camera from below.

And then he said: “For us as Christian democrats one key element behind the idea of ​​a society is equal treatment and human dignity.” And you don't even understand that because Manfred Weber speaks Bavarian rather than English.

Fortunately, there are subtitles.

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In 2020 something must have come up with him.

There is no video, just a stock photo on the Instagram channel with the hashtag #rockyoursocks.

But he must have done other things for people with Down syndrome.

And that's why he published his own photo again in 2021, last Sunday.

But if you look closely, they're the same socks and pants as in 2018. And surprisingly, you can't see his face either.

Because Manfred Weber is now wearing a beard, like such a young start-up.

In 2018, as the sock photo from that time shows, he was clean-shaven.

It goes without saying that he therefore does not show his face in the photo that he posts in 2021, but which was taken in 2018.

And by then it is also clear that Manfred Weber probably doesn't care about people with Down syndrome.

And some 23-year-old intern told him about the Ice Bucket Challenge, which was long over, and that they just found the sock thing for the Down syndrome anniversary.

If you google Manfred Weber and Down syndrome, you will only find the few videos and photos.

On his own homepage there is absolutely nothing about Down syndrome.

And otherwise, Manfred Weber never really stood up for people with Down syndrome.

There is a Manfred Weber in the Karlsruhe advisory board for people with disabilities.

But if you call there, there is only an answering machine.

And in a dialect that doesn't sound like Manfred Weber at all, someone says: “This is Manfred Weber's answering machine.

Because of his hearing loss, please speak slowly and clearly after the whistle.

Thank you."

The age of symbol politics

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So we live in the age of symbol politics.

Every day is some day of action or remembrance.

On November 19th, World Toilet Day.

March 8th, International Women's Day.

On February 23, Russia celebrates Defender of the Fatherland Day.

And somewhere on any of these days someone pushes a bouquet of flowers, a roll of toilet paper or a golden Kalashnikov into someone else's hand and feels really horny because someone else takes a photo of it and writes an interchangeable sausage salad text to go with it.

2019, you may remember, there was something about the climate crisis.

And on May 2, 2019, the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg declared a climate emergency.

And then followed Heidelberg and other completely absurd places like Marl, Horstmar or Brachttal.

The pictures were the same everywhere.

The mayor was surrounded by a bunch of children and young people who “think it's really great how committed the young people are” and who “really take something away” from the talks.

Or just as CDU Mayor Wolfram Zimmer from that climate-critical Brachttal used the hour to say that one has been “active in the air conditioning for a long time”.

Which is not a lie, seen from that point of view.

Because regardless of whether Wolfram Zimmer drives to work in a Porsche Cayenne or on a bamboo Segway, it always has something to do with the climate.

But the point is: It's the same as with Manfred Weber's socks.

It doesn't really matter.

No one with Down syndrome has a better life because of Manfred Weber's socks.

And no one in the Philippines thinks if the next tsunami tears their home and half of their families into the abyss: “Man, because the Wolfram Zimmer has been active in the air conditioning for a long time, this time it was only half the family that is gone . ”In the end, the symbolic politics only benefit the politicians and ridicule the people to whom it is supposedly addressed.

The climax of the narcissism mad world

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What do the descendants of Holocaust victims think when some politician looks sexy at the floor in a half-erotic, half-deep black-and-white picture and a stupid A4 sheet of paper from the office copier in front of the office worker’s camera on which it says “#weremember” in font size 34 Times New Roman?

The office employees are sure to think: “Really brave that they should talk about that.

And definitely gives a lot of likes.

And it's really great that she dares to do it: so vulnerable, but also strong;

and now completely without #MeToo, so really really sexy, in the sense of self-determined #expositive in the photo. "

It all fits together so well.

The present as the culmination of the narcissism mad world of people who are underwear influencers in Dubai or intimate influencers in Berlin and then want to plant trees in the rainforest with their “Team Trees” campaign.

This is what YouTubers called Sami Slimani, Simon Desue and Kim Lianne really did.

And in the end, of course, it was all made up.


Trees were never planted.

The money gone.

And also the YouTubers, whose business model is to kidnap others, they too were kidnapped.

So they didn't cheat on anyone.

But they took part and gave their name to an action that never took place.

Because they are so stupid that they would sell their mother for two likes and a mention on Twitter.

And until now it was always thought that there was still some difference between politics and influencers, but now the horseshoe theory of the digital age is confirmed.

When it comes to symbols, those that seem furthest apart are closest to each other.

And so the highlight of the recent episode of the successful series “Prime Minister's Conference” is not about improving people's lives.

As always with symbol politics, the climax is the mockery of those affected.

So one heard that Angela Merkel was against camping holidays in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Whereas Manuela Schwesig, the responsible Prime Minister, motto “MV is good”, was more in favor.

And meanwhile someone is breathing their last breath in a Covid intensive care unit.

And elsewhere, someone can be put on the waiting list for psychotherapy because they can no longer stand the lockdown.

And Jens Spahn has a duplo in his mouth, and Andi Scheuer eats a melon.