We simply plunged from the testimonies into the realm of responsibilities, immediately after the elections. I now speak not only on behalf of myself, but especially on behalf of the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), who made the illuminating distinction between an ‘ethic of persuasion’ and an ‘ethic of responsibility’.
During the campaign period, the politicians spoke their hearts out and intoxicated the voters with political views. Now that most of the votes have been counted, the politician is suddenly a prophet. He has become a porter who has to ‘deliver’, as you say about a furniture store where you have just ordered a sofa. And the customer asks for a guarantee beyond the front door.
And yet the moment that I remember most from election night was the farewell of Frans Timmermans as leader of GroenLinks-PvdA; the man who decided to stop ‘delivering’. The first exit polls had just arrived, the results were immediately disappointing for the red-green combination, and Timmermans resigned. Precisely by making that decision publicly at that moment, and therefore also bearing party responsibility, it became a charismatic farewell. Timmermans thanked the audience, the party members, the voters, bowed gracefully and then actually walked away.
As a student, a long time ago, I read that beautiful essay by Weber Politics as a profession (1919), and it’s thanks to a pithy piece by Thor Rydin The Green Amsterdammer this week, that I remembered what I had read, but had also forgotten. Weber wrote about ‘charisma’, that indispensable substance for a politician, which cannot be brewed by one’s own hands, but which the politician in question receives from others, his voters. In the testimony phase, just before the elections, in which the leader strings together one beautiful phrase after another, the politician also knows in advance (I now quote Rydin): “It will never go as expected and yet action must be taken; bear the blame with me in advance.”
“Borry the blame with me in advance.” Timmermans took the blame for GroenLinks-PvdA as a whole: he therefore briefly became the scapegoat on whom the frustrations of all party members and voters could be charged, and left.
In his time, Weber talked about Someone will have to sacrifice themselves for the party and its voters, someone will have to put on the sack, especially on behalf of all those people who voted for a party out of conviction.
Timmermans became a runaway, but of a completely different kind than Geert Wilders
I did not vote for Timmermans, he was not my favorite as a politician, but his resignation was exactly what you should understand by ‘moral charisma’: exemplary. He informed his supporters of his motives, took responsibility and paved the way for a new leader.
He thus became a runaway, but of a completely different kind than Geert Wilders. He also got the name because he had left twice; first in April 2012, as a tolerating partner of the Rutte I cabinet, and then from the last cabinet, which was nominally called ‘Schoof’, but bore Wilders’ stamp in everything.
Wilders never justified himself to his party members, because they do not exist, he only pointed to the other coalition partners as guilty, and then walked away to stay.
Precisely because Wilders is assigned so much charisma by his voters, this is all the more bad. In that respect alone, Timmermans is completely different from him. Timmermans is a moral runaway.
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