Anachronistic Misquotation as Deceitful Metarepresentation in Germany’s Covid-19 Public Discourse

This chapter deals with quoting practices in the German COVID-19 debateDebate, specifically with polemical misrepresentations of statements by the Health Minister Karl LauterbachLauterbach, Karl. Both he and the scientist Christian DrostenDrosten, Christian had to defend themselves against biased quoting practises of the media and other politicians who selectively (mis)quoted historical statements to show that in the light of later pandemic developments these two speakers had been wrong or mendacious. The chapter first analyzes in detail the metapragmatic counter-argumentationArgumentation that Lauterbach (assisted by Drosten) developed in order to counter the anachronistic misconstruction of his own earlier statements as having been proven wrong by later pandemic events. Then I investigate the exploitation of such misquotationsMisquotation by extremist parties and politicians who use them to “prove” conspiracist narratives of the pandemic as a hoax or a conspiracyConspiracy against the people. The analysis shows that “vilificationVilification-by-misquotation” can lead to serious threats against the safety of the quoted speakers and to general confusion. In conclusion, this type of anachronistic misquotationMisquotation is defined as a special case of deceitfulMetarepresentation metarepresentation.