Yes, he is called Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. Yes, he wears a jaunty cravat. But don’t infer from the alleged figurehead of the foiled German coup that it was a harmless and baroque caper. The federal republic tends not to send thousands of officers on more than 100 raids to arrest mere eccentrics. It tends not to involve Austrian and Italian authorities on a whim.
What we are allowed, if not a chuckle, is a question. It is not one I have seen asked since the news broke last Wednesday. Why are such reactionaries so rare? Why is the anti-republican Reichsbürger movement thought to number 21,000 (in Europe’s biggest nation) and not something nearer a million? Think of the mental shift that Germans have had to make in a few generations: from violent dictatorship to near-pacifist democracy, from an electorate of white Christians to a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional one. Even with the best civic education, there “should” be more people who are irreconcilable to the change. There should be more in Italy, Spain, Japan and other nations that democratised at speed.
It is important to take note of what doesn’t happen in life, not just what does. Almost all of the time, in almost all of the west, there is no active revolt against or even principled objection to democracy. Populism doesn’t quite count. Its very name flatters democracy. Even when Donald Trump lies that his opponent stole votes, he isn’t saying there shouldn’t be votes. Genuine reaction, the belief that rule by the people is wrong, even profane, hardly exists.