"How can we stop the SVP's crash course?" asks the Swiss edition of "Die Zeit" (see persoenlich.com) . In the current edition, at least history professor Thomas Maissen and political scientist Michael Hermann provide clever answers: They advise fighting with the SVP over their terms and images. That's a debate, great!
The philosopher Katja Gentinetta, on the other hand, is less convincing. She is content to speak ABOUT the SVP (to put it euphemistically) rather than WITH it. Here is an example: "Instead of portugal rcs data consensus and compromise, politics is dominated by uproar and radicalization; demagoguery instead of democracy is the recipe." Gentinetta's intervention is similar in terms of arguments and tone, right down to the language used, to others that I have experienced in recent weeks, so often that I now suspect an agreed, if not well thought-out, master plan behind it.
Here are just a few personal examples:
Before August 1st, the Club Helvétique published a detailed manifesto in the "Magazin" which derided the 50.3 percent majority of February 9th as "blinkered Switzerland". ETH professor Dieter Imboden, a co-signatory (the manifesto was apparently written by former National Council members Hilde Fässler (SP) and Cécile Bühlmann (GP), most of the prominent signatories did not contribute anything to it), complained a week later on the Journal 21 website about the lack of response.