All Tricks, No Treats: A Brick Is Not a Political Argument

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Imagined noir satire: GenZ regelt, Die Linke and a police horse in riot gear — Not my kind of party.

Opinion · 23 October 2026

Halloween used to mean children demanding sweets while dressed as monsters. This year, I’m worried the adults will demand a better society while making the existing one considerably more flammable.

Protests are planned across Germany for 31 October under the “Gen Z regelt” banner. The demands include better education, affordable living and opposition to compulsory military service. Die Linke has voiced support. Police representatives have warned that extremists could exploit the demonstrations. [1–3]

Those demands deserve a hearing. I would also like functioning public services and a future that doesn’t arrive with a payment reminder.

What I do not want is the Halloween special where somebody decides a stranger’s hatchback is personally responsible for capitalism.

Before anyone starts: the organisers explicitly reject violence, destruction, fireworks and provocations against police. Good. That belongs in the story. It also needs to survive contact with the street. [1]

My concern is what happens if people turn up who couldn’t give a flying fuck about the demands but quite like the prospect of throwing something at a helmet.

Because a brick is not an argument. It is a fucking brick.

It does not become political theory because the person throwing it has a sophisticated explanation of structural inequality. It still hits a human being.

I do not envy the officers who may have to stand there, protect the right to demonstrate and simultaneously work out which person is exercising that right and which person has mistaken attempted head injury for civic participation.

Would I trust my own composure if someone spat in my face and threw fireworks at me? Absolutely not. Which is one excellent reason I am writing this with a glass of wine instead of applying to the riot police.

Officers need restraint, accountability and proper support. They also deserve to go home without a brick embedded in the evening.

Actual police misconduct must be investigated. But throwing a projectile and then treating every attempt to stop you as proof of oppression is a remarkably convenient little business model. Start the incident. Crop the video. Launch the moral superiority tour.

And please leave the horses out of it. If public order collapses, I do not want an animal trapped between fireworks and humanity’s ongoing audition for the title of Worst Species With Thumbs.

Then there is the political cheerleading.

According to reporting on a discussion with the student organisation SDS, Ines Schwerdtner promised to defend activists against attacks from police or media. I want to see the full context before treating that as a promise to protect rioters. It is not evidence that Die Linke organised violence. [3]

But anyone offering that kind of solidarity should make the boundary unmistakable: peaceful protesters have your support; people attacking officers or destroying somebody’s livelihood do not.

Put that sentence in the headline. Say it as loudly as the exciting bit.

Otherwise, someone else gets to do the revolutionary posing while a shop owner spends November discussing shattered windows with an insurer. Apparently the road to social justice runs straight through the till of a person who already works six days a week.

I have no patience for an opposition politics that treats public anger as a recruitment funnel. The AfD does not get a pass from me, and Die Linke does not get one because I might agree with some of its social demands. If your politics needs enemies more urgently than solutions, my enthusiasm has left the building.

As for “Gen Z regelt”: an entire generation is not a Telegram channel. I suspect plenty of young people would like affordable rent without being cast as extras in Fast & Furious: Municipal Insurance Claim.

The protests have not happened yet. Police preparations are not proof that riots are inevitable. I hope the organisers keep their word, the demonstrations stay peaceful and this post ages like a deeply embarrassing prediction.

Please. Make me look excessively cynical. I can live with that.

Happy Halloween.

I’m hoping for treats. I’m worried about the tricks.

Today’s sour thought: If your plan to improve society starts with destroying someone else’s Tuesday, it may need another draft.