Hey, as you might know, Germany is going to elect a new Bundestag in September this year! Federal Chancelor Angela Merkel is going to retire after 16 years in office, meaning that the new Parliament is guaranteed to elect a new Federal Chancelor as well.
I would like to hear your thoughts on German politics and the election. For a quick overview, including the possible candidates for chancelor, see:
interesting, who do you think will win? I know nothing about german politics to comment on, but from the news here, i've heard that nationalism is on the rise.
American coverage of germany is not often positive or atleast, they dont cover the positivity as much, iirc....
interesting, who do you think will win? I know nothing about german politics to comment on, but from the news here, i've heard that nationalism is on the rise.
American coverage of germany is not often positive or atleast, they dont cover the positivity as much, iirc....
For a long time, the right-wing conservative CDU was the dominant factor in german politics, but their management of the pandemic is terrible, Germany is capable of developing the best vaccine (BioNTech), but incapable of getting enough of it, they fucked up organizing homeschooling, and recently there was a scandal, where certain MPs were revealed to have gained millions in provision for organizing shady deals around face masks. And that is not the first case of corruption, they always had these scandals
Their support is dwindling, and the ones that benefit from it are the Greens. They once started out as a left protest party in the 80s but have since then become more conservative and are currently more of a progressive centre-right party, interestingly giving them a similar appeal than Chancelor Merkel had, just younger and more chatty.
Neither the Union nor the Greens have selected a lead candidate yet.
For the Union, its either going to be Markus Söder, Chairman of the CSU and Minister President of Bavaria, or Armin Laschet, recently elect chairman of the CDU and Minister President of Northrhine-Westphalia. Söder is more charismatic, but Laschet is more powerful. Both are more right-wing then Angela Merkel. Laschet is aided by his shadow minister, Nathanael Liminski, a radical catholic who wrote a book for young people on how to behave according to the pope, and he is also the leader of a pope fanclub, Laschet is also enforcing a "zero tolerance" law and order policy in his state. Söder's bavarian CSU is even more right-wing then the CDU anyways, but Söder himself is a member of a christian nationalist Burschenschaft. A Burschenschaft is a right-wing student organization, and while Söder's is probably somewhat rooted in democracy, many others are notorious for being closed off fascist organization.
I don't want either of them.
For the Greens, it is going to be one of their chairpersons. Either the chatty vegan idealist Robert Habeck, or the power-hungry international law expert Annalena Baerbock. It's probably going to be Baerbock.
I don't want any of them either.
I never thought I'd say this, but favorite would actually be Olaf Scholz, the lead candidate of the Social Democrats, current Vice Chancelor and Minister of Finances. I am from a social democratic background, but the party betrayed its ideals under Chancelor Schröder, who afterwards sold himself to the Russians...Since then they have only done dipshit. However he is the only one who is not a closed off megalomaniac. He is unlikely to get enough votes to lead a coalition, though, as the Social Democrats have lost to much of their credibility. It doesn't help at all that Scholz rarely shows much emotion.
None of the other parties can hope to get enough votes to lead a coalition.
The free-market capitalist FDP has become a one-man show around their chairmain Christian Lindner, who looks good and knows how to produce media. Ironically this makes him somewhat like a normal politician compared to all these other strange people. Even if out of economic interest rather than social empathy, he actually has a lot of good criticism on the government's Corona policies. Very strange times, never thought I would actually ever say anything positive about the FDP other than sharing favorite colors.
But the problem is, the party to which I lean to, The Left, has actually overslept getting any kind of media attention during the pandemic, despite the fact that healthcare is one of their core fields and healthcare workers have been crying out for support against their bad working conditions and comparatively unfair wages for years now, even way before the pandemic. But they completely missed electing new chairmen...chairperson...chairwomen in time so now they have two women leading them that no one really knows. One of them, Janine Wissler, was frequently in Talkshows, until she was threatened to be murdered...by the police! WTF! Not that it mattered enough for the party to move out of its lethargic state. The other, Susanne Henning-Welsow gained a bit of media attention when she denied presenting flowers to briefly elected Minister President of Thuringia Thomas "Testosterone" Kemmerich (FDP), as it was some kind of coup d'etat and Kemmerich was cooperating with fascists who worship Hitler.
The big problem of the left is that it is stuck in german grammar. You know, in German, words have a gender. It is "der Politiker" (male), but "die Politikerin" (female). The Left and Green Parties want to change that into "der/die Politiker*In" because they somehow think language is the source of all injustice regarding gender. The difference is that the voters of the Green Party actually agree with that, because they are privileged academics, while the voters of The Left...
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Well and here is the problem,
In the late 90s/early 2000s, the Social Democrats betrayed their values and as such their clients, the working class. or whatever you call them nowadays. The ones at the lower end of social hierarchy. German uses "Unterschicht" (lower class), which sound an awful lot like "Untermensch" (lower human being, a term used by the nazis), or simply "Asis" (short for "the asocial ones"). Conservative people also use "Opfer" (sacrifices). Maybe there is actually something wrong with the language... Anyways, social reforms put these people at severe disadvantages compared to the priviled parts of society. This caused a huge amount of social jealousy, which in turn caused a huge amount of latent xenophobia to erupt, because immigrants and refugees are just much more attackable than the privileged parts of society. The Left tried to pick up these people, but failed as they couldn't compromise between their idealist values and their client's xenophobic perception.
This gave rise to another party, the right wing extremist AfD. They largely benefited from the "refugee crisis" caused by the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Lybia (while definitely still a crisis, it actually never was one in Germany). They also aren't just xenophobic, they are racist and absorbed large parts of secret fascist organizations. However, in the pandemic, they fortunately don't gain much attention. The only thing that makes one worried is that the amount of people who believe in crazy conspiracy theories has drastically increased, and these are likely all going to end up voting AfD. They are lead by soft-spoken and manipulative Jörg Meuthen and his cartoon villain sidekick, but the one that everyone fears is Bernd Höcke, who probably believes he is Hitler reborn. That's right, the AfD are Nazis! Did I mention AfD voters tried storming the Bundestag just a few weeks before the assault on the US Capitol?
But in any case, no one would like to form a coalition with the AfD. At least that is secure.
The possible coalitions, in theory, are (first mentioned would lead the coalition and thus provide the chancelor):
I honestly don't know what happens. This is the craziest election I have ever experienced and probably the craziest election Germany has ever had, and I don't even think that would have changed without the pandemic.
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I have to take back what I said about Olaf Scholz. Dude is a full out Sociopath. Crazy times...
i asked a german friend, he said he german system is too complicated, but is very robust and allows for the best candidate... I will have to understand the process better though, will check it out...
How do you feel about coalitions? In India, it sometimes hurts more than helps, compared to an absolute majority.
i asked a german friend, he said he german system is too complicated, but is very robust and allows for the best candidate... I will have to understand the process better though, will check it out...
How do you feel about coalitions? In India, it sometimes hurts more than helps, compared to an absolute majority.
Well the problem is that a lot of parties go via personal preference rather than shared political goals.
It's actually a very long story, but back in the 90s the Social Democrats were ruled by a triumvirate and its actually kinda funny because two of them had a fallout and the third one fell to shame so it's just like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus lol okay the third guy didn't get his throat filled with molten gold but still...
Schröder went on to reform the welfare state and job market with social reforms that were not beneficial for the working class at all, but rather led to further social separation.
The other guy, Oskar Lafontaine went on to form The Left out of a group of disappointed SPD voters and the eastern german PDS, a remnant party of the GDR's state party SED.
Due to the bad blood between the two parties, forming a coalition on the federal stage was a taboo for a long time, despite all obvious similarities in political goals.
Instead the social democrats entered a long series of grand coalitions with the CDU, who are their natural opposite. No good politics came out of it from a social democratic voter's perspective, and the party lost voters with every election.
Now they are open about forming a coalition with The Left, but it will depend on the Greens wether or not this is going to happen.
In general there has only been one time where a party achieved an absolute majority in Germany and that was back in the days of first Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, so I don't have any experience with that.
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The Greens have decided on Annalena Baerbock (*1980) as their lead candidate (surprise, surprise).
Take a good look at the this woman as she is the one with the best chances to become Germany's next Chancellor.
Depends a lot on whom she coaligns with. The Greens are a bit of a "feel good" party. They usually talk more than they actually enact and are pretty much open about forming a coalition with anyone except for the Afd.
However they still prefer certain parties and therein lies the problem.
Typically the Greens prefer to coaligns with the SPD, however in recent times they also opened up about coaligning with the CDU. An example being the green Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, who adapted his federal states general right-wing orientation and just recently continued his coalition with the CDU. His close relationship with Daimler (which is seated in BaWü) is a constant stain on the green image of his party, which would make you think that they won't consider coaligning with the CDU on the federal stage, however...
The other options may likely fail to get a majority. To make things worse...
There is some bad blood between the other options. I think the SPD and Left have set aside their past struggles due to forming some coalitions together in the eastern states. Previously, the Greens with their big city academic youth oriented nature were kinda more open to forming coalitions with the Left, but this started to change since the crisis in Ukraine.
The Left partially succeeds from the PDS, the successor party of the SED, the GDR's ruling party, in turn a forced fusion between Social Democrats and Communists. People in the eastern states were educated more about Russia and its diversity and culture, but also subject to soviet-conform state propaganda. A huge idol among all German lefts is Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD), who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Peace for his politics around communication, understanding and peace with the Soviet Union and its satellite states during Cold War Times. As such, The Left wants our Russian Politics to be like Willy Brandt's, but parts of them fail to realize that they are no longer talking with an autocratic party but rather the mafia.
However the Green party is quite radical in their anti-russian views. Basically Putin=Evil, Russian gas=Evil, Russia=Evil. It's not very aware of how complicated and important Russia is for Europe.
The Social Democrats would probably do anything to sign a coalition contract, but they are kind of split between the two positions, with especially the eastern SPD groups emphasizing the economic importance of Russia to their states.
The other option, reverse traffic light...
The Greens and FDP already tried forming a coalition under the CDU, which didn't work out due to the Free Democrats backing out. Their Chairman received a lot oft criticism for that back then, but on paper Greens and his FDP just look incompatible. One is progressive idealism (maybe too much, see the grammar thing), the other is liberalism in its true sense of meaning (maybe too much, see the Kemmerich thing). One represents an ecological lifestyle and renewable energies, the other is head through the wall for free market capitalism. Don't think it can work out this time either.
The answer to 'who is going to reign the country in october' is 'greens, spd, fdp'.
That is the only realistic possibility i can see. And I am fine with that.
With Baerbock, Draghi, Macron and Biden as leaders of the four biggest western nations (excluding UK here) are going to be quite a difference power circle than we are used to in the west.
Obama, Merkel, Hollande and Letta were far more centrist than these four. This will probably mean a western front both against China and Russia.
The CDU had a bunch of immense scandals. Were they literally wasted millions in tax money and got themselves rich from it.
Baerbock wrote a terrible book with subpar quality standards (as if any book written by a politician in the past 40 years was actually good). And she made her vita on some website look slightly better than it actually is.
Problem is: CDU voters are a bunch of hypocrites who simply ignore any kind of scandals. Because if they would acknowledge them, as Christians, they would all go to hell.
Green voters are not as forgiving. Problem is, while the accusations are incomparably less offensive compared to what the CDU did, the people are probably right in their suspicion that Baerbock is mostly about her own career rather than a political agenda.
Hence why now the CDU is again vastly ahead of the Greens, who are now much closer to the Social Democrats.
There are people who want the other Co-Chairman of the Greens, Robert Habeck to replace Baerbock as chancellor candidate. I think the idea is dumb because Habeck is an idiot.
The CDU had a bunch of immense scandals. Were they literally wasted millions in tax money and got themselves rich from it.
Baerbock wrote a terrible book with subpar quality standards (as if any book written by a politician in the past 40 years was actually good). And she made her vita on some website look slightly better than it actually is.
Problem is: CDU voters are a bunch of hypocrites who simply ignore any kind of scandals. Because if they would acknowledge them, as Christians, they would all go to hell.
Green voters are not as forgiving. Problem is, while the accusations are incomparably less offensive compared to what the CDU did, the people are probably right in their suspicion that Baerbock is mostly about her own career rather than a political agenda.
Hence why now the CDU is again vastly ahead of the Greens, who are now much closer to the Social Democrats.
There are people who want the other Co-Chairman of the Greens, Robert Habeck to replace Baerbock as chancellor candidate. I think the idea is dumb because Habeck is an idiot.
That is very questionable after the last few days. The flood will have a heavy impact on the elections and in all probability a ver ypositive impact on the green poll numbers.
wanted to ask, hope everything is good with you guys in germany....
The floods look terrible.... We had similar situation in Mumbai back in 2005 where the floods caused a lot of damage with 46 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, but the death toll was much lower...
its good if the green party comes into picture, but what do you think they can do realistically, if the rest of the world doesnt?
wanted to ask, hope everything is good with you guys in germany....
The floods look terrible.... We had similar situation in Mumbai back in 2005 where the floods caused a lot of damage with 46 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, but the death toll was much lower...
its good if the green party comes into picture, but what do you think they can do realistically, if the rest of the world doesnt?
I would not say everything is good. I helped my family to clean up our house the last 3 days and tomorrow i will drive there again, right now, they are evacuated because another dam was at risk to break. We were lucky enough, the water was 3 cm too low to break into our livingquarters, but it took some other parts of the house and both basements. Heating broken, no elictricity, town had no network for some days and chances are these events will happen more and more often. So this is a huge deal, some cities have basically been quenched by this (fortunately not mine).
About Climate change: First, Germany can do a lot even tho it 'only' does 2% of the emissions. Germany is very influential inside the EU, which is responsible for 10% of emissions and a very economically relevant power. Basically, a lot of products that China produces are exported to the EU. If the EU bans climate unfriendly products, China won't produce them, lowering the Chinese Emissions too.
The EU also has the power to help other nations to prepare for climate change and lower their emissions. If the EU moves forward (along with other nations) to develop climate friendly alternatives and gives them to other nations, they will use them instead of climate unfriendly products.
But if the EU (and germany) do not do that and instead take the stance that this is a problem of the regions that emit even more co2, there is no way to uphold even the barest climate targets. In that case, there is a very real risk of even exceeding the 3 Degree prediction until 2100 we have right now, and that means that a lot of places on earth won't be habitable.
So a lot of things changed, Baerbock fell from grace due to a poorly written book and the Social Democrats won and are now negotiating a coalition with the Greens and FDP.
What I would like to hear, was the election or its aftermath covered in your countries media? If so, how is Scholz and the future of Germany presented there?
Personally I am kinda happy with the election result. CDU is gone, and they deserved that. However I am worried that the bad results of the Left Party, which can only enter parliament due to winning three directly elected mandates in Berlin and Leipzig, points at a further push towards the right in society.
The best news is legal weed. That's right, they are going to legalize Marihuana.
Imho the persecution of drug addicts is one of the biggest human rights issues in the western world and I am very glad that Germany is going to leave that path!
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