There is a particular, delicious irony in watching the engine of Europe—a nation that essentially invented the concept of ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ before it became a marketing slogan for cheating emissions tests—decide that it has finally had enough of the Silicon Valley messiah. According to the latest data, a staggering 60% of Germans have looked at the sleek, minimalist, and frankly soul-crushing silhouette of a Tesla and decided that it is ‘completely out of the question.’ It seems the German public, usually so susceptible to the allure of a well-engineered status symbol, has found the limit of its tolerance. Perhaps it is the panel gaps that look like they were measured by a toddler on a sugar high, or perhaps it is the realization that buying a car from Elon Musk is less an automotive choice and more an involuntary subscription to a billionaire’s mid-life crisis. Regardless, the rejection is wholesale. In a land where the Autobahn was once a sacred temple of internal combustion, the electric dream is sputtering into a ditch of Teutonic indifference.

But do not mistake this for a sudden outbreak of common sense or a newfound devotion to the environment. The German psyche does not move toward logic; it merely rotates its neuroses. While the citizenry is busy ghosting the world’s most litigious car manufacturer, they are simultaneously flocking to the one institution that has spent the last eighty years trying to convince the world it’s just a harmless hiking club: the Bundeswehr. Yes, as Tesla sales stagnate, the German military has reached its highest personnel levels in over a decade. It is a fascinating pivot. One wonders if the average German youth, faced with the choice of being trapped in a self-driving bubble that might spontaneously combust or donning a camouflaged tunic to stare grimly at the horizon, has decided that the latter offers more job security. At least in the army, the bureaucracy is honest about its intent to crush your spirit; with Tesla, they pretend they’re saving the planet while charging you for the privilege of beta-testing their hubris.

This shift highlights the profound emptiness of the modern Western identity. On one hand, we have the performative ‘Green’ future, personified by Musk—a man whose primary contribution to civilization is proving that if you’re rich enough, you never have to stop being an annoying teenager. The 60% of Germans rejecting his ‘Ludicrous Mode’ are not doing so out of a sudden love for the planet, but because the aesthetic of the future has become too embarrassing to inhabit. Tesla’s brand of innovation is a vacuous, plasticized version of progress that ignores the reality of human nature. On the other hand, we have the resurgence of the state’s monopoly on violence. The ‘Zeitenwende,’ or turning point, that Chancellor Scholz so breathlessly announced has finally manifested not in a revitalized economy, but in a line of recruits long enough to make any geopolitical hawk salivate. It is the ultimate regression. When the shiny toys of the tech-bro elite fail to satisfy the existential itch, humanity invariably returns to its favorite pastime: preparing for a conflict that no one actually wants but everyone seems to be auditioning for.

Historically, Germany’s relationship with mobilization has been, let’s say, ‘consequential.’ Watching the Bundeswehr swell its ranks while the flagship of American ‘innovation’ sinks in the polls is like watching a slow-motion collapse of the post-war liberal order. The neoliberal promise was that we would all be too busy trading carbon credits and buying overpriced EVs to ever care about borders again. Instead, the Germans are looking at the ‘Technoking’ of Tesla and saying, ‘Nein danke,’ preferring instead the cold, hard reality of a standard-issue rifle. It is a rejection of the digital utopia in favor of the analog nightmare. The world isn't ending with a whimper or a bang, but with a charging cable that doesn't fit and a recruitment poster that finally does.

Ultimately, this is the tragedy of our era. We are trapped between two equally moronic poles: the vapid, grifting consumerism of the tech sector and the grim, redundant necessity of the military-industrial complex. The Germans, with their characteristic lack of humor, are simply the first to admit that the farce of the ‘electric revolution’ is over. They have looked into the abyss of the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel eyes and decided that a life in the infantry is more dignified. It’s a scathing indictment of our progress. If the best the 21st century can offer is a choice between a glitchy iPad on wheels and a decade-high surge in military enlistment, then perhaps we deserve the mediocrity that is currently engulfing us. One can only hope the new recruits enjoy the irony as they march past the abandoned charging stations of a future that never arrived.