Angela Merkel, who never misses a chance to take Friedrich Merz down a notch, said this week that she didn't come up with the firewall against AfD and doesn't really like it either. The way to convince people, she said, is to set specific goals on something like pensions to make it clear that working with AfD isn't possible. The other parties need to get away from their fixation with the right-wing populists, she said. Yet institutional firewalls of one sort or another are defining moments of the final phase of Western civilization. Since at least covid, and esp. since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, society has been intentionally divided into opposing groups by governments, political parties, corporations, media, educational institutions and civic groups. Each individual has been pushed toward erecting his or her own personal firewall against undesirable elements, sometimes even within a single family. These walls aren't easily torn down, and no one can expect any institution to take the initiative in doing so.