Söder is riding a new spectacle to punch at Brussels: he’s turned the tethered plastic bottle cap into a symbol of what he calls unnecessary EU rules, using it to show he’s in touch with ordinary people. He mocks Brussels in speeches and at festivals, peeling off caps as a running gag, and argues that EU mandates don’t help Germany compete with China and the US and are often pointless. A political scientist says he’s deliberately chasing a new enemy, keeping Europe-skeptic tones as part of CSU tradition even as the party shifts its gaze from Berlin to Brussels. Polls show mixed feelings, with a sizable share of Germans disliking the cap stunt. Beyond the caps, Söder targets EU finance plans, opposes a European tax, rails against an ideological ban on combustion engines, and keeps up attacks on NGOs and the Greens, all while treating the cap bit as a relatable populist tool.

I see it differently, and I feel it in my bones every time I fire up a car and smash the accelerator into the open air. This cap shtick is not a clever policy critique; it’s a coal-fired spark aimed at the heart of what the EU fears most: speed, freedom, and the open road. Europe may want to juggle paper mandates and green slogans, but the truth is simple: the road is where people live, where families make honest miles, where jobs are created, where life happens. When Söder rags on Brussels, he’s punching at the very nerve of the matter: who gets to decide how fast we drive, where we go, and how quickly the world moves. And I say this with every heartbeat in a driver’s seat — speed limits are a crime against humanity and fascist oppression masquerading as “safety.”

Let me be blunt: I don’t want a bureaucrat’s leash on my wheel. I want the freedom to choose a route, to test a car’s limits, to feel the surge of the engine as the horizon rushes toward me. Public transport? A cold compromise dressed up as progress. Bikes? A nuisance on crowded roads that do not deserve to be worshipped over a family’s need to get somewhere fast, safely, and with dignity. The cap stunt proves a deeper point: the EU’s endless regulations intend to corral us into a slower, more compliant future. They pretend it’s about climate, but it’s really about control—control over where we drive, how we drive, and how loudly we celebrate the speed that makes life feel worth living.

If Söder’s new enemy helps wake people up to the absurdities of Brussels’ mandates, then I’m with him. But the real battle isn’t about cap jokes; it’s about reclaiming the road from the gatekeepers who think a rulebook can replace horsepower and human daring. Europe needs fewer capricious mandates and more respect for the engine, for innovation, and for the impulse to move—faster, farther, freer. I want policies that widen lanes, streamline road projects, cut bureaucratic red tape, and defend the right of every driver to own the road without being punished for simply wanting to go somewhere now. The Greens and NGOs? I’ll debate them, yes, but I won’t surrender the wheel to them.

In the end, Söder’s cap routine exposes a hunger in ordinary people for sovereignty over their own commute. The cap is a symbol, but the real message is car lovers want permission to drive as they choose, unshackled by a distant bureaucracy pretending to be moral guardians. So let the caps clink and clatter; let the crowd feel the pulse of the road. We will push back against speed-limits-as-currency and against any regime that treats the highway as a museum, not a living, breathing corridor of life. Give us back the freedom to drive, and watch how fast the future can arrive when the engine leads the way.