At the same time, we became ideologically blind and realpolitik no longer seemed to stand a chance. I wonder how long it will be before ordinary people start fighting back against the current ideologically charged "value politics" or just lose trust in the system.
We in Germany try everything to prevent that. e.g. huge energy cost subsidies - which unfortunately have no effect and only make people angrier as they see the failure of the state. The oil companies raised prices, the normal citizen does pay the bill. It is understandable that people get angry. Well, now we're having funny talks about expropriations in Parliament, just to calm people down, I think. History has proven that this type of market manipulation does not work – the debates of the established parties are now so close to populism.
And finally, the ideological war has forgotten that during Covid we had unlimited money supply and the ECB is caught in a debt trap with too little room to maneuver. The war itself does not bring all of the problems we are experiencing, such as the dire food shortages approaching in the fall of 22 or the slowdown in economic output in Western Europe.
It is the sanctions that have led to all this, not the war per se. At the same time people are being told that the whole war is to blame for all of this and not the decision to put sanctions ahead of economic interests, global stability and eventually Covid – remember the inflation rate was 7% before the invasion.
I think nobody cares anymore and it's easy to just yell at Putin - instead of criticizing the West's terrible political response and acknowledging the post-Covid effect (and obviously disagreeing with the war on a moral level, but not in this blind, activist, aggressive type).
I have lost confidence in our Western (German) politics, no longer feel represented by any of the major parties and have stopped voting - and so have many of my friends. Only my opinionated, ideologically motivated friends are very active.