Waited in line for an hour to view Lenin’s embalmed corpse. I found seeing his body a surprisingly moving experience. The clichés about how lifelike he looks are true. Looking at him it’s possible to feel for a moment that the last century has vanished.
I had the very good fortune that a German teacher my age from Dresden and his daughter were next to me in line, and I spent an enjoyable hour talking history and politics with him. I asked him about rightwing radicals in Sachsen and he said he knows very few, that there are however a lot of AfD voters.
His take on the motivation of AfD voters and the relationship between them and leadership sounded very similar to my own experience with Trump voters I know.
In comparing German, Russian, and Belarusian museums I was struck once again by the clear-eyed perspective some people who grew up in the DDR bring to their views of politics today. I have been feeling this last year that Americans have been moving in the opposite direction, that is, the Democratic Party in fostering Russophobia is accentuating polarization between „us“ the good, the reasonable, and „them“ the great unwashed who in Robert Reich’s opinion are not even to be engaged with (they won’t listen).
Over the years I’ve heard peers in tech jokingly ask where the flying cars promised in their childhood are today. I find myself asking a similar question:
Where is my Emmanuel Goldstein?
