Germany gazing into the abyss (federal elections)

[Husar]

So upcoming Sunday, Germany, country where the sun always goes down, will have its federal elections, where Angela Merkel is challenged by...absolutely noone.

The last polls I saw had her party at 37% of the vote, followed by the SPD at a mere 20%.

Running behind them are the:

AfD at 12%
FDP at 9.5%
Die Linke at 9%
and the Greens at I forgot percent (I think around 7%).

Here's a nice video where a friendly American explains some differences to the US election and some other basics about our election:


If you're somewhat informed, you may see several things:

1. The refugee crisis has not hurt Merkel AT ALL. In fact she is even stronger now relative to the other parties. It's as though the AfD (anti-immigrants) drew all of its strength from her political opponents (and current allies in government, the SPD) and weakened them a lot. This is why she is also known as the Teflon-chancellor, none of the criticism seems to stick on her.

2. A whole lot of people seem to be content with current politics despite the seemingly high criticism. The people who are not seem to seek the solution on the right side of the political spectrum. Both the AfD and the FDP (between democrats and libertarians in the US) gained a lot of votes.

3. Social justice is overrated, has been made unbelievable or is not really wanted, let's indulge in more neoliberal corporatism instead. Or maybe it's just that the Left suck up to Russia too much or that they're called populists similar to Sanders in the US. The SPD is basically seen as having betrayed its voters in recent years/decades by cutting social programs etc. The AfD only pretends to be social but actually seems to be pro-corporate, much like their heroes from the thirties.

4. Perceptions and memories seem really weird, hypocrisy and strangeness is everywhere. The AfD is German-national and pro-family (anti-homosexual) and their candidate for chancellor is an attractive woman who lives with her partner, another woman, in Switzerland. Merkel failed terribly to address the Diesel scandal, her incompetent minister arranged for corporations to introduce some half-baked improvements to Diesel cars and even the corporatist FDP leader claims the corporations should have paid much more and potentially not even made a profit for a while to pay for fixing the cars properly. The Greens are in control of the state that owns large parts of VW and the state's prime minister, a Green party guy, was defending VW. *insert facepalm* Obviously all the parties have flexible morals when it comes to money and winning elections. Only Merkel will win anyway thanks to her teflon abilities.
And the Left? They hate Capitalism and the US so much that they would rather cuddle with Putin (the AfD also believes we should cuddle more with him btw.). While I personally think they have some good points on social justice and stopping arms exports that only facilitate more wars in third world countries, they also have their share of annoying ideas, oh and they are also not fond of the EU.
And the Greens? A recent study found their voters want all kinds of change, but they only want other people to change and not change themselves, and they're mostly above average wage earners, too.

Needless to say that I feel that despite the relatively large number of parties, I feel it's hard to find one that actually somewhat represents me. I guess I will go with more social justice though, even though it seems relatively fruitless with the CDU having almost twice the percentage of votes as the runner up. The two possible coalitions at the moment are CDU + SPD as it currently is or CDU + FDP + Greens, which would mean more neoliberalism and pro-corporate politics most likely.

Here's also our age structure, evil people may draw their conclusions: http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/age_structure.html

What I really don't get either is how small business owners continue to vote for liberal parties promising lower taxes when these measures only ever help the big corporations that are the ones suffocating the small businesses (economies of scale etc.) in the first place? They place all the blame on the government suffocating them with taxes and then vote for the parties that historically only lower the taxes for big business regardless of their promises. It's not even surprising considering the biggest donors to political parties are rich people and corporations, as can be seen here(all donations over 50k€, since those have to be made public): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/p...-inhalt/488236

What's also "funny" on that list is that the Danish culture ministerium is giving money to a very small minority party in northern Germany. I guess if V. Putin were on that list giving money to The Left and the AfD, there'd be a poopstorm all over the internet, but I didn't even know about this until I checked the list yesterday. I know it's small and seemingly insignificant, but it's a foreign government funding/influencing politics here.

Eh, I'm done, opinions and apologies welcome.

[Gilrandir]

Eh, I'm done, opinions and apologies welcome.

No, you are not. You will be when the sun goes down on Sunday. And who will you vote for (if such direct questions are allowed)?

[Husar]

No, you are not. You will be when the sun goes down on Sunday. And who will you vote for (if such direct questions are allowed)?

I meant that I was done bringing up somewhat random points about our politics.
Of course it is allowed to ask who I will vote for, it's just not allowed to force me to provide an answer.

I forgot to mention that some say an unusually large amount of voters are still undecided.

For myself, I think it's a mix of smallest evil, preferences, general directions and voting tactics and then I'm "left" with...The Left.
They're not perfect, but the only ones with a somewhat believable socialist program that doesn't rely on more privatization and other evils that have increased wealth and income inequality for the past few decades.

[Kralizec]

I meant that I was done bringing up somewhat random points about our politics.
Of course it is allowed to ask who I will vote for, it's just not allowed to force me to provide an answer.

I forgot to mention that some say an unusually large amount of voters are still undecided.

For myself, I think it's a mix of smallest evil, preferences, general directions and voting tactics and then I'm "left" with...The Left.
They're not perfect, but the only ones with a somewhat believable socialist program that doesn't rely on more privatization and other evils that have increased wealth and income inequality for the past few decades.

I don't know. I'm obviously not a German (I actually like Sigmar Gabriel) but I would personally never vote for a party that so closely associates itself with the old DDR. These guys walked out of parliament because the former president (a noted DDR dissident and critic) was going to give a speech, and a large chunk of the members from the East were actual Stasi informers at one point in their life.

I know that the DDR isn't controversial for many people who actually lived in it and I don't begrudge them their right to have themselves represented, but I certainly would never join them

[Husar]

I don't know. I'm obviously not a German (I actually like Sigmar Gabriel) but I would personally never vote for a party that so closely associates itself with the old DDR. These guys walked out of parliament because the former president (a noted DDR dissident and critic) was going to give a speech, and a large chunk of the members from the East were actual Stasi informers at one point in their life.

I know that the DDR isn't controversial for many people who actually lived in it and I don't begrudge them their right to have themselves represented, but I certainly would never join them

Well, they're only half a former DDR party, the other half was a new party (forgot the name) that merged with them into the left. I can't find the incident right now, but from what I read they blamed Gauck for having been too friendly with the DDR, not for being too critical. Or maybe that was just the side of their party that's less crazy. It is my impression that the party has largely moved on or at least enough that I'd rather vote for them than any of the other crazies. It's not a love at first sight, more like the lesser evil. Or call it a tactical choice. There's a small chance that I would try the SPD, but as I said they lost a lot of trustworthiness. Every other major party is basically on the more capitalism hypetrain and will basically end up lowering taxes for some while raising the costs of everything people need. Obviously this tends to hit those the most, who earn so little that they barely pay any taxes anyway. How that could be a more moral choice I do not see.

Ideally I would like a party that is pro-EU (in general, not necessarily exactly the way it works now), aligns with our Western allies mostly, but is open to other countries, supports a return to a more social form of capitalism, stops and perhaps reverts some aspects of privatization of basic commodities, supports more market transparency, better education, higher infrastructure investments and measures to stop the wealth gap from growing and poverty from increasing. I could to some degree support a later retirement age and other things to make up for the costs. In a very ideal case, the party would also have a decent vision for how to solve the issues of growing mechanization and replacement of workers with capital/machines. While not quite there (mass replacement) yet, I can see us reacting to that trend way too late.

[Montmorency]

Some say Germany has once again forgotten how to be democratic under Merkelreich, but on the other hand she's more left-wing than most possible German governments.

The prophecy declares that if she can outlast Putin in office Germany absorbs Russia.

What's also "funny" on that list is that the Danish culture ministerium is giving money to a very small minority party in northern Germany. I guess if V. Putin were on that list giving money to The Left and the AfD, there'd be a poopstorm all over the internet, but I didn't even know about this until I checked the list yesterday. I know it's small and seemingly insignificant, but it's a foreign government funding/influencing politics here.

Isn't that about Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein wanting more Danish-cultural education because they're still sore over annexation?