Just go the vote, and make sure your family and friends go to give their votes.
I’m not local, I cannot vote over here, but had seen multiple times in modern times voter suppression has been a big deal, it’s easier to make you not to bother to vote than change your mind who to vote.
I had worked brexit UK, where people voted it due they weren’t happy about the PM. As it was good time to vote against him. Without thinking what brexit actually was. So use your voice by voting. What do you wish the future of country will be in this new era.
I know German has issues, as every Europe union contries. If the problems are easy to solve they would have been solved already, don’t belive one tag line promises.
I’m just wanna say, as a fellow user. Just go to vote.
I see a lot of negative comments about the CDU here, but I certainly think Olaf Scholz is a bit of a disaster. From a Finnish perspective at least it seems in fact that apart from the Nordics and Eastern Europeans the rest of Europe still doesn’t have their shit together regarding Ukraine and defense in general. I don’t think CDU would necessarily be worse on that front and I do think they might be stronger on the economy too, Germany needs to get a bit more competitive going forward.
Hell no, their economic platform is basically “make believe”.
Which party do you think would fare better and why? What I thought I knew about Merz is that he favors tax cuts and deregulation, which are definitely factors that Germany does need currently, but am I wrong about his views?
Random tax cuts are trickle-down economics, otherwise known as bullshit that only helps make the rich richer. Deregulating in the areas of environmental protection, climate change, consumer safety and even tax fraud, as the CxU wants to do is just hostility against the people. What Merz also wants to do: double down on energy imports (oil, gas, and nuclear if his lucky stars align), and double down on old tech (ICE motors and gas boilers). Notably, pretty much any party wants to spur investment and make bureaucracy more fluid – but the CxU have questionable methods betraying questionable intentions.
The current economic issues in Germany are caused by a fossilized export-oriented industries that have been outdone variously in terms of price, technology, and quality by Chinese competitors. Germany didn’t have a plan but exported all its technology to China for some phenomenal two decades of growth. And Industry Captains were somehow surprised that all their Chinese JVs sucked up their technology, improved on it, and then sold it at half the price. Meanwhile, China had a pretty good plan, and has supported the solar, wind, battery, and EV technologies for over ten years. They may have overshot target a little bit though, as they appear to be learning that they are producing more of these goods than they can sell. But that creates the kind of market pressure that hurts German companies too.
Another issue is energy prices, and it’s true that Germany is not the cheapest country country in that regard. However, relying on more expensive imported resources oil, gas, nuclear energy is exceedingly unlikely to help in that regard.
I will note that I am a Greens proponent. But I think the above reasoning makes some sense regardless.
From another fellow nordic, I honestly think any vote that is not for AFD or the pro-russian left is good enough at this point. I also think that CDU suck, but the important thing now is keeping fascism and Russian influence down. Other values are secondary for now.
I’d love to hear why they suck and who would be better and why. SPD track record has been driving Germany to the ground the past few years and the Green denuclearization policies are a disaster both in terms of economics and self-reliance. But of course those view are mine and may well be wrong, that’s just one viewpoint and perhaps poorly informed.
CDU is only a smidge behind on AfD for being rightwibg shitheads, so no, CDU will be terrible.
I don’t necessarily see right leaning as bad automatically, but is there something extreme about the CDU or just that they’re right-leaning?
Eww
Yes, they recently voted together with the Nazi party AfD on the topic of immigrants. Just the most recent example. Also the lead candidate for that party voted against making marital rape illegal.
Could you elaborate on what they voted for? I mean yes AFD is certainly not to be supported, but I suppose it depends on what was voted upon as well. And yeah obviously marital rape is a horrible thing to support, so point taken there for sure.
The eww comment is interesting, I understand if you’re not a fan of conservatism as I’m not a fan of that either, but in Europe generally speaking the problem with the left is that they’re socially liberal which is great but then their economic policies have generally lead to overtaxation and overregulation.
It would be great to have a truly liberal government with far less government spending and far more individual freedom and also individual responsibility. Militarily the left is also understandably cautious given the history, but right now a militarily strong Germany would be needed by the rest of Europe.
How many immigrants are allowed into the country, basically.
The proposed tax plans from Die Linke is the only one with a net positive. Not my words but that of multiple economic institutions that looked at the tax plans from all the major parties. Basically, if you make less than 7000€ per month then with Die Linke you will have more after taxes and if you have more than that/if you have a more than a million euros in property you will start paying your fair share. Right now in germany, there is only income tax but no property tax which is highly unfair to the vast majority of people working and living in Germany.
Nah, such a government would have failed hard during Covid. And with the world as it is right now (or from now on) pandemics become more and more likely. A liberal government would be terrible for that.
Good, substantive comment. I disagree on the Covid part though, Sweden managed Covid wonderfully with quite liberal policies on that front. Don’t you worry with Die Linke that they’re quite pro-Russian or is that a mistaken view from me?
Die Linke is not Pro Putin or Pro Russia. The part of the party that split off some time ago (Now called Bündniss Sarah Wagenknecht) was the Pro Russia part.
Can’t speak on Sweden.
Thanks, that is a relief to hear, the Russia issue is the most pressing from a foreigners perspective like mine, but for you guys of course there are a lot of other things at stake too. Hope whoever’s in power keeps Germany as a European powerhouse and one of our most crucial allies!
I think CDU is pretty much middle to right ground of kokoomus and persu (both more right wing Finnish parties). And CDU has already taken some AfD point and looking like they would be happy to work with AfD, as kokoomus was first very anti persu, before last election where they set government together. CDU with other partners would be “fine”, but I think everyone’s worried is they wanna stay in power and happily take AfD to guarantee their government position.
I see, I think the consensus view here is quite left-leaning so maybe that’s where the negative view comes from. I’m more Kokoomus leaning myself so I don’t see it as bad but I can understand there’s a lot of polarization going on right now.