Germany: Not voting for women's rights...

[Delphin]

(evil thread title, I know :-) )

On Sunday, there are national (Bundestag) elections in Germany. I have been worrying and thinking about who to vote for for weeks.

My priorities were, in that order:

1. Women's rights: I didn't want to vote for a party that put the Self-ID law in its current form into the law book. That took Greens, Socialdemocrats and Liberals out of the race.
2. "Debt Brake" (constitutional brake on investions out of state debt). It needs to go, or at least heavily reformed, to get Germany out of the economic slump. That took the Christian Democrats out.
3. Defence and the Ukraine: More investions into the Army, and a realistic policy about Russia, more help for Ukraine.

I had decided on voting for the Christian Democrats for the first time in my life, despite #2, because of #1 and #3.
Then Munich and Riyadh happened.

I will be voting Greens, as they have the security policy plans that align most with my opinions. They also want to reform the debt brake, which needs to happen for the massive investments needed in defence and in infrastructure and industry policies.

For the first time in my life I have the feeling that this is indeed a single issue election. That we are at a point where we need to chance course internationally (and thus nationally), to preserve our society/societies in Europe. I was around for the 1980s Nachrüstungsdebatte (debate on more medium range missiles to be stationed in Germany), but it never felt this acute, even though I was a teen/twen then. I cannot in good conscience "punish" the Greens or Social Democrats for the SelfID law though withdrawing my vote, while Europe is in turmoil (well, the Social Democrats deserve to be punished for their Ukraine policy so far).

I feel like a traitor, although I know that a "punishment" vote won't make a difference as the law is already in power. It's now grassroots work to inform people about its problems and getting it reformed and partly rescinded (the part that basically defined sex out of German law books, and therefore changed all laws that concern women as a sex class). I am looking for a way to get involved (but as I am away from the big cities, there aren't many options in real life).

How do other German voters feel about this? (I know you're out there :-) ) .

I don't see the AfD in isolation; I see them in the context of several right-wing movements, some of which are illegal, some barely scratching legality, some preparing overthrow of the Government, the movement of the "Reichsbürger" and so on. Some of the fringe groups do the things the party officially does not want to do.
An example from a few years ago, where an AfD politican was in a conspiracy with more extreme people:
www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/razzia-reichsbuerger-staatsstreich-geplant-101.html

There were also groups invited by AfD parliamentarians in Berlin who did some reconaissance of the parliament building, to copy the US's January 6th.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bgh-reichsbuerger-100.html

Amongst all the other things, I would not put it past them to criminalize abortion in a much stricter way, in line with the conspiracy theories about replacement.

As you saw from Musk's tweets, the AfD is his favourite party, and check how his government chainsaw is turning out currently.

@Angryexpat forgot to tag the latest reply

No worries. Yes, it’s true that there is right-wing extremism in Germany, more than in the UK. Perhaps the AfD will expel such elements and ‘clean up’, a bit like Marine Le Pen in France.

Whether Musk likes the AfD is neither here nor there, it’s the 19.5% of the voters that matter. Likewise, I don’t think the Reichsbuerger are a credible threat, they seem few in number, deluded and disorganised.

What I think is more dangerous, actually, is when those who profess to protect democracy lose their moral compass and democratic values. Quite a few AfD politicians have been physically assaulted; businesses run by AfD members have been boycotted; these are not the means of democratic debate. That’s why I think it’s actually unhelpful when the taz changes the AfD colour to brown. It’s childish, lowers the tone and just provides more fuel for a victim mentality.

BSW is out!

I largely agree with you @Angryexpat and I loathe the AFD. Banning the party would be counterproductive and undemocratic.

You said "I also struggle to see Alice Weidel, who is, by all accounts, an accomplished woman, as a would-be fascist dictator." It pains me to say it, but I think the reason Weidel is in this position is because she's a woman - the deeply sexist AFD believes it softens their image. If she's accomplished, I fail to see it. She was woeful in the TV debates, completely out of her depth, a political featherweight, short on detail and not across her brief. Chanting from the same script over and over. Typical of far right characters.

It's frightening that the AFD did so well but I hang on to the fact that nearly 80% of those who voted, on a very high turnout, didn't vote for them.

The reporting on Merz is strong on statements on the US and the interventions they feel happened plus wanting independence from them

I didn't realise US troops were in Germany so that's an issue too

And then the issue of troops to Ukraine, relying on the US and whether that will be supported by Germany

She certainly didn't come across well during the Kanzler debate - none of them did really but she had even less caliber to lead than the others.

For me there was no clear cut vote winner, I did vote, but not happily, more tactically.

Yep, which means that a coalition of CDU and SPD will have a majority and will not need a third partner. Phew!

@EasternStandard

Yes, there are plenty of US troops in Germany, which wasn't "only" favour to Germany, but they were stationed there during Cold War times, when the opponenent - Russian puppet state (though independent) Eastern Germany (GDR) was nearby. It was in the USA's interests to be close by.
There were troops of other countries, like Belgium, France and UK, in Germany, too, but I think they mostly moved away nowadays.

The NATO headquarter is in Brussels, and Allied Joint Force Command is headaquartered in Brunssum, The Netherlands.

When Nancy Pelosi broke her hip on a trip to Luxembourg recently, she was treated at the military hospital belonging to the US troops in Germany.

The location in Germany is also often a stopover for US troops who are deployed to other war zones. It is a very convenient location to them. And the military hospitals care for wounded American soldiers in action for example in the Middle East.

The great disintegration as is being touted would be a disadvantage to the USA, too.

haha, I thought BSW would be a useful addition, especially regarding Self-ID. They were really close, probably only a couple thousand votes short. Oh well. At least now there are at least two options for a coalition.

I don't agree with the impression that the AfD are more harmless than it seems, and I think, too, Alice Weidel is helpful for the argumentation: "oh look, a woman, a lesbian and with a partner from a different country". But there is plenty wrong with the AfD.
The fact that Weidel lives in Switzerland was probably not so good, either.

When they talk about German identity, this is what they mean:

@ForestAtTheSea interesting

How do you feel about Merz' comments on the US?

On one hand I suppose it's good the seriousness of needing increase in defence spending is good?

Oth we kind of do need US, the UK is incredibly tied to them on security

What's the mood like there on Ukraine, US etc?

But how stable is that coalition going to be if the votes of a large proportion of the electorate are completely sidelined. Look what has been happening in France - where Macron can't seem to create anything long term and functional.

The 5% threshold was created exactly to prevent a parliament of numerous small and tiny parties that won't be able to create a stable government (see: Weimar Republic). Two-party coalitions have proved to be rather stable in the last 75 years, even those across the floor (left/right).
As for the stability of a CDU/SPD coalition: They will be supported by Greens and Linke on a case to case basis. If they look at what drew voters towards the AfD (and it wasn't migration alone), they might even be able to win substantial votes back. We had a similar situation in 1993, where the party Die Republikaner started winning votes with a similar brief to the AfD (migration then came from former Yugoslavia). No-one talks about Republikaner today.

Germany always has coalitions and they are generally stable - in fact Germany typically has the longest lived governments of any country in Europe. The government will be formed of parties that garnered over 50% of the votes. Compare to the UK where governments routinely are formed by 'ignoring' well over 50% of the votes.

The UK (and Canada, Australia, NZ) WERE incredibly tied to the US on security.

Do you really think that the intelligence sharing relationship will hold up if there's a risk that whatever intelligence we share with the US gets passed straight on to Trump's chum Vlad?

I think we as Europeans (including the UK) have to accept that the Transatlantic Alliance is over, that NATO can no longer rely on its most important member (who has threatened to annex one member and seize territory from another), and that we have no choice but to go it alone and build a new security alliance. This means building up the gaping hole in military capability (particularly around logistics and intelligence gathering) that will be left by the US taking a leave of absence for the next four years.

Do you really think...

At this point I don't really think anything. I'm asking questions to see where Germany are out of interest

We do have a PM meeting Trump with the intention of asking for security back stop in Ukraine and wanting to send troops

On that level we are diverging from Merz who has made strong statements in the other direction. I find this a disconnect here - are we in the U.K. together with US still or not and what does that mean wrt Germany and other allies

Idk what's the best way at this point tbf, I'm listening to various commentators

Security is hugely intertwined and I've not heard anyone say here how that will be dealt with

I agree with you on your stability of German gov representing more people than here currently, notwithstanding the second winner and those voters

Merz knew very well what he was doing. That's why there was such an outcry and tons of demonstrations.

Merz knew what he was doing … and? Like it or not, the only way to take voters away from the AfD is to take the issues they raise seriously. They’re no longer a mere protest party.

As for Alice Weidel being accomplished, I meant this in the sense of having educational credentials, including speaking Mandarin, and professional experience. She may still be a terrible politician. What do you think, is she in the same league as Le Pen or not?

Regarding identity, the above seems to be a poster of an AfD candidate with his family. The kids happen to be blond. Yes, some of us are uncomfortably reminded of Nazi propaganda about blond Aryans, I get this. But there are some subtle differences. The parents look kind of dorky in their IKEA kitchen, not like Nazi super-men. They seem to be on the same level in terms of power. Not quite sure what to make of it, tbh.

About “not leaving a percentage of the voters out of the debate”; I don’t think the description is so accurate.

In most election, a big percentage of the votes are not represented. US elections: 49% roughly, UK elections – a different system to the German one but not everyone is represented. Germany: you need enough for a coalition to have more than 50% of the representatives in parliament – the others are the opposition. The opposition has a lot of rights and can question the Government – a bit similar to PMQ in the UK.

Due to the federal system, parties that are in the opposition on a national level are often in parliaments on country level or district governments. Not everything is decided on a national level. When you look at past elections, there always were parties, having between 30-40% of the votes between them, which were not in Government.

@Shortshriftandlethal

@EasternStandard

I’m not sure which statements by Merz you mean, as he said a lot of things.
But in general I would say that almost all parties (except for the AfD) were quite fed up with Musk’s interventions on top of general disinformation.

On the matter of free speech as pontificated by JD Vance it also needs to be looked at the format of discussion.

A couple of real people discussing in a civilized manner and disagreeing is one thing.
But social media and their algorithms and Russian/Chinese etc botfarms make for a very different quality of debate. Now there are real people discussing in good faith and lots of trolls and disinformation. Videos going viral in a couple of hours can spread misinformation much more quickly. We are not talking about fair and free debate.

That’s why the EU and other actors want media and internet companies take their responsibility seriously. It is not interference to ask companies to adhere to national and international laws. What Musk & Co. (& Farage) are asking from countries is the equivalent of asking the police to not interfere in crime because it hinders the freedom of criminals to do what they want.

Not the least the Springer media and yellow press and the former Bild-Zeitung editor in chief with the new portal Nius don’t care about fanning the flames, either.

I’m sure there are a lot of problems in Germany which need to be dealt with, but the quality of the debate changed a lot.
This started before Covid and lockdowns, but these events contributed significantly to a worldview that the government in general is evil and unreliable and is the enemy of the “free and reasonable” people.
Every law is seen as oppression instead of trying to govern a country with many differing interests.

Especially in Eastern Germany which doesn’t have the same history as the western part re: democracy (yes, so many decades after reunification) and many structural economic problems there is a much stronger mistrust of the state, because the former socialist GDR was not trusted, either.

These are of course often the children and grandchildren of people who grew up in the GDR, but everyone born before 1989 will remember it well and the new mistrust could connect easily to the previous mistrust and helps support for the AfD.
The general tone of the debate is much, much, much more aggressive and hateful. What many of their politicians are doing lowers the tone much more than using brown as their colour in statistics.

@EasternStandard

Regarding cooperation with the US, of course it was clear the new Trump administration has different goals and he complained about payments for NATO during the first term, too. He also threatened to withdraw the US troops but probably some advisers with a clearer mind had pointed out to him that there are a couple of advantages for the USA as well and that it was their idea in the first place.

This time around there are far fewer people who disagree and can keep him from doing the most lunatic things, and the talk about Greenland isn’t helping, either.
But suddenly hearing that an ally becomes the enemy overnight, especially for someone who is in a conservative party and was all about US cooperation (and employed as higher up by Blackrock, never forget that), was probably not part of his plan.

One of the problems of the past coalition was that they simultaneously passed many laws about energy saving / renewable energy which affected the costs of housing, products and food, and at the same time due to the war, energy costs in general multiplied.
At the same time, Germany did support the Ukraine, sent a lot of money and equipment and took in refugees, which seemed to be reasonable actions, but all together things are becoming quite expensive.

4.97% as of right now according to Tagesschau. Gonna be very close, I don't think that is final yet.

The fact that they can't clean up is exactly why they haven't had the success of Le Pen or Meloni.

sorry late to the party. I would never vote for the AfD or the CDU. Not interested in the tiny fringe parties (and BSW didn't have candidates in my are)
I'm not voting Green. They have lost their way - and Ganserer gives me the absolute creeps, so meh.

Basically where i live it will be CDU with a huge margin. so my votes are wasted anyway. But i voted SDP with Die Linke. Hopefully it contributed to the slight increase in Die Linke votes.