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- cross-posted to:
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When Friedrich Merz became Germany’s chancellor this year, he promised to revive a moribund economy, rebuild the nation’s neglected infrastructure and making the country relevant on the global stage again. His failure to deliver on many of these core issues has not only helped energize far-right parties like the Alternative for Germany
Merz also caused confusion at an October meeting of European Union leaders, when he incorrectly reported a trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc had been concluded. He later brushed off the mistake as a minor issue.
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Merz is a conservative conman like all the rest. He wants to enrich himself and his allies at the cost of selling out his neighbors and countrymen.
If people want progress they must vote for progressives, if they want things to improve they must vote for those that stand with the working men and women of their country, if they want to be more wealthy they must vote for those that would make them wealthy by reducing wealth inequality.
In Germany that means voting for Die Linke and the Greens and when you have to the SPD.
and when you have to the SPD
Wer hat uns verraten?
Sozialdemokraten!
The SPD is not perfect but based on my short time in Germany they seemed decent. Would I prefer someone more progressive and more capable? Yes. But if you’re talking about the stop light coalition, I don’t see the SPD’s actions as blatant betrayal. It read to me, admittedly not a native German speaker/reader and who came in a year or so into their coalition, like all lost progress was entirely the fault of the FDP. They conspired against their own coalition and I personally believe they should never be elected to another public office again. They were traitors to the German public and did so with intention, disgusting behavior I hope the German public never forgets or forgives.
The SPD usually makes progressive promises but when in government (which they were 23 of the last 27 years) they rarely act on those promises and rather do the exact opposite. Right now, they are doing their very best (together with CDU/CSU) to dismantle social security. Bärbel Bas, minister of labour and social affairs from SPD, literally said they were to tighten penalties (for jobless people who don’t do what the Jobcenter tells them to do) to the limits of constitutional allowance. She denies a raise for social security the second year in a row despite the support rates still lagging behind inflation. High ranking SPD politicians engage in populist rhetoric against jobless people and refugees. Stuff like that.
The brief two-year period during the traffic light coalition were the exceptiom, not the rule.
Idk if I would give blame to the SPD for the actions of a joint coalition when they’re in the minority. Maybe I should? But if the will of Germans has been to shoot themselves in the foot with the CSU for the overwhelming majority of the past - what - 40 years I struggle to blame the SPD even if they were a part of the government when those actions took place.
That being said, as I asked, maybe I should. I see them as equivalent to US centrist Democrats. They won’t make much of anything better but they won’t make many things that much worse. They’re the slow collapse of the empire party, vs the aggressive collapse of the Republicans (in Germany the CSU/CDU) or the speed run of the AfD (post-Trump Republicans.
While they were leaders of their party, even despite the backstabbing FDP they passed several things that seemed good. For a moment it felt like Germany was moving in the right direction. Maybe you’re correct that it’s an outlier, I don’t claim to be an expert although I’m trying to learn as much as I can.
All of that being said, my advice remains vote for Die Linke and Grüne first and foremost, and then if you have to the SPD. But never the CSU and the FDP and AfD should be ridiculed and shamed out of ever admitting they have political inklings let alone that they’re running for office (and arguably the AfD should be outright banned for preaching evil policies). Which I think is a reasonable position to have given how popular the SPD and CSU still are among the majority of Germans.
Edit: I should have also said, if the SPD did say those things and are actively engaging in anti-humanist actions like id expect from the CSU or the AfD then fuck them too. Get politicians out of government that don’t serve the people.
Idk if I would give blame to the SPD for the actions of a joint coalition when they’re in the minority. Maybe I should?
I mean, at the very least they were enablers. The SPD at the very least voted for the bad ideas of the Union in parliament. But two things stick out: the SPD-Greens coalition 2002-2005 introduced Arbeitslosengeld II (commonly known as Hartz IV), a law that amplified impoverishment and precariousness of the lower classes, and the decision of the SPD after the 2013 election to enter a coalition with the Union instead of Greens and Left.
While they were leaders of their party, even despite the backstabbing FDP they passed several things that seemed good. For a moment it felt like Germany was moving in the right direction.
Yes, two of the three Traffic Light years were very hopeful. But the SPD also is not innocent of this coalition’s downfall. The FDP started that backstabbing and sabotage very early on and instead of showing them their place during a time the FDP would not risk losing their position of power, Chancellor Scholz faltered and caved in to tgeir demands, paving the way for FDP and Lindner’s later actions.
The SPD is spineless and rarely actually makes politics for worker’s benefits. Instead, the claw to power as much as they can.
All of that being said, my advice remains vote for Die Linke and Grüne first and foremost, and then if you have to the SPD
You don’t have to. Germany employs proportional representation for parties, meaning the parties get seats in relation to how many votes they get. The only exception might be the election of direct candidates, but that is a whole other discussion and not as attached to party elections as it might seem to superficially.
Thank you for this write up, I really do appreciate it. I will move forward liking the SPD even less than I already did.
One has to wonder why OP has posted almost 2k posts in 4 months. All either posting only positive news for China, or negative for Western democracies.
You know your wild assertion might be more convincing if the sources from this user weren’t noted Western sources like The Economist Bloomberg and the New York Times.
I guess I’ll “balance it out”, here at least, with a link to the YouTube channel China Insider with David Zhang, which highlights some negative things about China.
Well, only one of him did.
Germany: votes for idiots promising nazi-lite ideas
Also Germany: pikachu face that things aren’t getting better
Monti Python Meme: You are the chancellor? Well, I didn’t vote for you!
You’re foolin’ yourself!
We had bad chancellors in our history but I have to admit: Merz seems to be the worst since that Austrian guy.
Me, old enough to remember Helmut Kohl: tough choice. He botched the probably biggest project in post-war Germany, and was really stupid to boot.
I was about to argue for Scholz being worse than Merz (so far). But then I remembered Scholz had at least some competent people in his cabinet.
Scholz: just incompetent, not incompetent and fascist.
For what it’s worth, I prefer the former to the latter.
Did he, though? I remember him more picking on the social democrats an especially the green party. Then he talked a lot about the AfD and immigration. But promising us a better economy… that was kinda rare moments during his campaigning?!
The promises of a better economy were implicit but very obvious given years of ranting about the Greens in particular being to blame for the economy.
Then shortly after election they even seemed to show a rare moment of understanding and admitted that Germany needs huge investments in the economy and infrastructure… to convice those they insulted for years for exactly such statements to cooperate on creating massive fund based on new debts they rigorously rejected before.
So there was a sentiment of “that was shitty populism and political maneuvering but at least they are doing something now…”.
Yet half a year later:
The investments into infrastructure are even lower than before. Unless you want to build even more new Autobahn sections or build huge amounts of expensive new natural gas power plants.
Investments into the “economy” are limited to those that don’t need it (but donate for their campaign). Like lowering taxes for the food service industry mainly helping the big companies like McDonalds that paid their party conventions. Or lowering taxes on air traffic. Or soon starting to subsidzse industries’ energy use to counteract the fact that their own brain-dead policies make energy more expensive. Or spending millions on culture war fairy tales like hydrogen and synthetic fuels so all those poor citicens can ignore the future and cling to their old cars.
Oh, and the parts of the budget planned for climate-friendly transformation of energy systems and industry are used to pay the EU fines for failing the agreed upon transformation instead.
Also we need to save a lot of money on social systems now as a literal trillion € in new debt is somehow not enough even when nothing of it is actually spend on its intended purpose.
But hey… at least they spend a lot of time on solving (again culture-war related) non-issues to save the country and ranted a lot about immigrants. Guess they only need to scream about all that bullshit even louder to divert from any actual problems. I guess they haven’t learned enough from all their MAGA friend’s advice and need some extra tutoring on how to flood the zone with shit more effectively.
Yes. It’s the usual Spiel about some felt (and made-up) reality we’ve embarked in with social media and MAGA and a bunch of societal dynamics. It’s about feeling some way, not about addressing any real issues. And I’d like to add the trains to your argument about infrastructure. Millions of people in the urban regions rely on them, they’re electric vehicles to begin with and we don’t have to be stuck in the daily traffic jam on the beat-up roads. Would be nice if we weren’t late to work every other day and then also spend additional time on the way home. I think there’s a bunch of problems with very straightforward solutions which also help with the environment and they’re an investment in economy as well.
promised to revive a moribund economy, rebuild the nation’s neglected infrastructure and making the country relevant on the global stage again.
Outrageous that he still hasn’t delivered.
It’s a charade. Without cheap Russian energy and an end of ICE cars new companies have to be build. That takes time. The thing to judge is if that is made easier.
he incorrectly reported a trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc had been concluded.
After the way the conference last week was handled I would assume that the agreement was there but other political goals are more important.
Without cheap Russian energy and an end of ICE cars new companies have to be build.
I don’t know if we live in the same Germany but in mine leading CDU politicans argue for buying Russian gas and oil again.
Also, Merz constantly calls for postponing the ban on new ICE cars.
Merz & Friends are not laying the ground work for anything worthwile in the future. All they try is to preserve the status quo.
