What Söder Could Be — and What He Is

Markus Söder has abilities that are rare in German politics. He squanders them. That is not a weakness of character — it is the rational adaptation of a talented person to a system that rewards performance and punishes substance. The diagnosis is sharper than the indictment.

I. The Abilities

It is necessary to begin with the admission: Söder can. That is not self-evident in German politics.

He has political instinct — the ability to sense where the mood is moving before it moves. He has timing — the feel for the moment when a position must be communicated, not earlier or later. He has mobilising power — the ability to move people who are not normally moved. He has strategic thinking — the ability to plan several steps ahead in a political culture that mostly sees only the next step.

And he has courage — in the specific, limited sense that he takes positions others avoid. Nuclear energy, when the topic was taboo. Migration, when the topic was hot. Bavaria as a counterweight to Berlin, when the topic was unfashionable. Not always correctly, not always consistently — but with a willingness to expose himself that is rare in the German politics of consensus-seeking.

These are not small abilities. In a time when German parties produce leadership figures without substance — the end product of selection for adaptability — someone who can actually lead is an exception.

II. What He Makes of Them

On 16 March 2026, Söder attends the cinema premiere of a 1990 World Cup documentary in Munich. At the group photo with Lothar Matthäus, Rudi Völler and Jürgen Klinsmann, he reports publicly that he had "briefly weak knees." The message goes to hundreds of thousands of followers across his channels.

In 2026 he appears at Franconian carnival as Braveheart — the Scottish freedom fighter in the Bavarian carnival context, filmed and posted for maximum reach. He is considered the "most successful" German politician on Instagram. 740,000 followers.

He demands Nuclear Energy 2.0. Knowing that Chancellor Merz calls the nuclear phase-out irreversible. Knowing that as Bavarian Minister-President he cannot build nuclear power plants. Knowing that the demand is signal, not policy. The signal goes across the channels. It generates reactions. The reactions generate attention. The attention is the goal.

Three images. The same pattern. Abilities suited for substance — deployed for performance.

III. The Bavarian Lion on a Chinese Platform

TikTok belongs to ByteDance. ByteDance is based in Beijing. The Chinese state has access to the data. The algorithms that decide which content gets which reach are developed and controlled in China.

Söder, the Bavarian Minister-President who demands technological sovereignty, propagates European AI independence, names China as a strategic rival — dances on this platform for attention.

This is not an isolated case. Almost all German senior politicians do the same. But Söder does it with particular enthusiasm and particular talent. The Bavarian lion — the heraldic animal of independence, of defiance against Berlin, of pride in Bavaria as a state within the state — as self-promoter on a Chinese platform.

That is not hypocrisy in the moral sense. It is structural logic. Those who want attention go where the attention is. Regardless of who owns the platform. The system rewards reach. Reach is on TikTok. Therefore TikTok.

Söder is no zombie. He is the opposite — too much life for a system that needs no substance. Because the system rewards performance, the energy flows into performance. That is not character. That is optimisation.

IV. What the System Demands

The question is not: why does Söder do this? The question is: what does the system in which he operates demand?

The German political system rewards consensus — the compromise that hurts nobody and changes nothing. It rewards continuity in office — those who master the apparatus and hold the coalition together survive. It rewards visibility — those present in the media are perceived as relevant. And it increasingly rewards attention on social media — those with followers have power, even when the followers decide nothing.

Substance — genuine reform policy that changes structures, generates resistance, is unpopular in the short term — is not rewarded by the system. It is punished. Those who push through an uncomfortable reform generate opponents. Opponents generate poor polling. Poor polling generates leadership debates. Leadership debates generate departure.

Under these conditions, the decision to place performance above substance is not irrational. It is the optimisation toward the goals the system sets. Söder has perfected this optimisation. He is the most successful player in a game that rewards the wrong things.

V. What He Could Be

Here lies the actual tragedy — not Söder's personal one, but the system's.

Someone with Söder's abilities in a system that rewards substance could achieve something. Rethink energy policy — not as signal, but as policy. Develop Bavaria's and Germany's defence capability multilaterally — not as a demand to Berlin, but as a concrete concept. Shape innovation policy so that independent inventors do not have to fight for decades against the not-invented-here syndrome. Use federalism so that Bavaria actually develops models that other states can adopt.

These possibilities exist. The office of Bavarian Minister-President has substance — more than almost any other political office in Germany outside the chancellery. Bavaria has resources, tradition, political stability. What is missing is not the possibility of substance. What is missing is the incentive.

And the incentive is missing not because of Söder. It is missing because of the system. The system produces Braveheart costumes and 1990 World Cup premieres because that is the currency in which political survival is paid. Those who reject the currency lose the game. Those who accept it play it well — and still achieve nothing lasting.

VI. The Pattern and Its Costs

Söder is not the problem. He is the symptom. The problem is a political system that leads its most talented actors to invest their energy in self-promotion rather than in politics.

The costs are concrete. Every hour Söder invests in TikTok appearances is an hour not invested in the question of how Bavaria transforms its economy. Every nuclear energy demand as signal is a nuclear energy debate that does not take place. Every Braveheart costume is a Braveheart costume.

This scales. What applies to Söder applies to all. The German political system has systematically redirected energy from substance into performance over recent decades. The result is well known: a state that does not maintain its infrastructure, neglects its defence, does not use its innovative capacity, does not deploy its talents — and yet produces press releases daily.

What Söder could be: the man who leads Bavaria and perhaps Germany through a decisive phase — with the abilities he has, deployed for the tasks before him. What he is: the most successful self-promoter on a Chinese platform — and thereby the most precise mirror of a system that produces exactly what it deserves.