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Germans are critical of Chancellor Merz and his government (www.dw.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org

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[–] Tiptopit@feddit.org 47 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Guess that's what happens if you don't care for your people in general, but only for the few you call "the economy".

[+] Stovetop@lemmy.world 41 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] Tiptopit@feddit.org 18 points 7 months ago

Yes, but it's also a side-effect of the other parties taking over right-wing talking points

[–] RedPandaRaider@feddit.org -2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yep it's about time to pack up and leave the sinking ship Germany. Current polls show that the conservatives and far right hold over 50% combined.

Courts will never order a new denazification out of fear of violating the constitution. And at the same time they'll trial anyone who takes it upon themselves to denazify the country. The only option is leaving at this point.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Conservatives dominating isn't a new thing, though. We had them be in power for like 70% of the time modern Germany exists. We started out with Adenauer after WW2... I'd say more recently with Merkel we had quite some leftist and green things happening under conservative government... So yeah, I don't want to defend them. But lumping all of them together with the far-right idiots isn't helpful either. Either there's more to the sinking ship image (it is), and/or we've always been a submarine.

[–] RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The issue is the conservatives push the same regressive and reactionary policies as the far right. The only way Merkel was more "left" is because she did nothing instead of continuing the decades long push further right.

Also Adenauer was very right wing. He quite literally was an autocrat who ended denazification, allowed nazis into all new state institutions, from the bureaucracy to the police, ministries, the army and even into parliament. He further allowed the existence of a shadow nazi paramilitary until the Bundeswehr was founded. And lastly he used his new nazi staffed intelligence agency to spy on his parliamentary opposition.

The CDU are the successor to the Zentrum party. Nazi collaborators who will do the same again if the circumstances arise.

The CDU are not far right. But they're also sinking Germany and symbolising everything that's wrong with this country. They're a party for geriatrics with long outdated views and policies that aim to harm and suppress people as much as possible. They will choke the country to death and should be banned and Nuremberg-trialed along with the far right.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sure. I mean we all know the stories on how denazification turned out. And how proper processing of the nazi past didn't start until much later. I feel some people invested quite some effort into the entire thing, at least in West Germany, but that's a different story and doesn't include those people.

Idk. I recently watched a short documentary about Merkel and the war in Syria. And seems she has some moral integrity. And she still thinks it's a christian thing to help people and not steamroll them at the border or something. Also she's very pro-Euroean. And she wasn't a 70yo man when she assumed office... But yeah, she also did a lot of ...nothing... to address issues. And the same neoliberal politics that is the core issue of everything.

I always welcome if people refrain from calling everything nazi and devaluing the term. Now that we need it to call out the proper fascists. But I don't think there's a single reason to vote for the CDU either. That's not a path forwards. And I bet the lines are blurred sometimes.

[–] RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The issue with denazification was that it was ended way too soon and the German governments themselves were allowed to just end it. At the same time the winning powers of WW2 weren't thoroughly denazifying the country, playing politics over valuable former nazis, trying to gain their expertise.

A real denazification would have entailed sentencing every single Nazi party member to death. The same must be done now to any fascist parties like the AfD. (As a note to concerned mods, I'm not calling for violence, I'm calling for a due process with death penalty).

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hehe, sure that should do it. As an immediate first step we definitely should ground quite some people and take their phones away so they can't be on Telegram all day.

To be fair, I think a lot of the early denazification was important as symbolism. But it was never going to properly solve the underlying issue. And in the 50s they wanted to be done with it and move on, so they didn't really do anything useful and that took until a new generation. So I think the proper process that got us somewhere happened during the entire later 20th century. And apart from school education, a lot was done within society, not necessarily just top-down by politics or the government.

Unfortunately populism works quite well. And a lot of people really like to be sheep and be miserable and be told whom to hate.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But lumping all of them together with the far-right idiots isn’t helpful either.

But that is exactly what is happening. After Merkel the C*U did a massiv leap to the right and spend the last 3 years parroting every far-right lie and narrative thus painting the picture of those morons actually being right and having a point.

And given that it happened right after two small parties (Greens and FDP) banded together after the last election to see who is given them the better deal in government building it's hard to believe that this is a coincidence. They realized that they are going to be meaningless no matter their own votes if they don't find any common ground with other parties so they helped grow another (far) right-wing party, democracy be damned...

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I'm not entirely convinced yet. But you have a good point. It's just that they're clearly fishing for the right-wing nuts. And I'm not sure whether they're all convinced of that shit, or if that's cold political calculation. Because they could get away with it. They have a broad basis of (old) people who is going to vote for them, no matter what they do. In the end, it probably doesn't matter. Even if it's a deliberate lie today to achieve some kind of goal, they're bound to start believing in it at some time. And we knew Merz was an idiot, even for CDU standards. And he's living up to the promises. I'd say there is still some chance there are still some democrats left in that party. But maybe it's what you said. It's certainly not looking good and we're going to find out.

I wonder if we're as stupid as the people who voted for Trump, who sold some weird authoritarianism and despotic rule to people who (in part) previously claimed to like law and order and their constitution/traditions...

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Where you going ? Asking for a friend.

[–] RedPandaRaider@feddit.org -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Planning to go to Norway. You essentially have all the benefits of the EU there with the added benefit of not actually being in the EU, so not suffering it's downside.

And unless you go into the deep countryside you can live and work perfectly fine just speaking English.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

I know norway well… not convinced you will be happy there, but all the best.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

It‘s also what happens when people really do not pay attention during elections. He‘s doing exactly what I expected him to do: Giving to the rich and take it from everyone else. He pretty much said so himself. Of course the economy and the people will suffer from his destructive policies and it will only get worse the longer he‘s in office because he can not understand nor does he care about the 99%.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

What government?

He spend years ranting about the former governent's uselessness (the one that did more work in 2 years than the usual C*U-led government in 8...) and making big promises... only to break them all within weeks of the election (some of the big ones even before becoming chancellor).

So what we got is yet another perfect example of right-wing populist reality: Making a big show of rolling back progress made by the former government as a diversion from all money gifted to his rich buddies while also silently keeping all the former government's neccessary but often unpopular changes he was most outspoken against. Sadly neither reality nor economy actually care for culture war bullshit.

It's basically "We are in power again so now everything will magically become better while we do nothing but enrich ourselves". And their brain-dead voters see no actual problem. Sure... they criticise the (obviously non-existent) results, but will still vote exactly the same again, like they do every single time (for reference: C*U lost only about 1.something % or so in polls since the election).

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 points 7 months ago

Heute show did a similar take on the rise of populism, rich buddies and neoliberalism and fooling all the idiots out there. (German language): https://youtube.com/watch?v=LZLZJWVFZvs (piped.video)

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 7 months ago

merz has to go. he's not helping the people; he's making everything worse by threatening to slash the social spending. if he behaves like this, he has simply no place in politics.

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Question for Germans voters, please;

How should any current or future German PM navigate the increased foreign political influence by foreign antidemocratic institutions, like those by Russia, CCP and Heritage Foundation , via Afd ?

And, which three policy areas should German Politics focus on the next years, according to your pov?

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Would say that it is the same here as it elsewhere, we need a strong counter narrative and a charismatic person that is fronted by a leading party that manages to deliver that, while cutting through all the bullshit spewed by the demagoguery of the right. We need fighters, not 'civility' politics against people that are anti-democratic.

We need better social policies and actually mean them. Those were what people wanted and often still want when they are baited by the right.

Right wing mention actual social issues, but "resolve" them with xenophobic "solutions", while also fabricating issues out of thin air, like immigrant crime, etc. Which suddenly all other parties think they need to address as well.

[–] dust_accelerator@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ban all (social) media that offers paid political advertisement at decix / BGP level 4 months prior to elections. Likely unpopular due to the high number of media addicts in society, but I bet it would be vastly effective.

Probably would work to outlaw paid political advertisement on all channels with every violation doubling the fine, but this is not as reliable as the former, because of the "culture war" angle. Plus, it would get drawn out in court until after the election, so not a good solution.

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ban all (social) media that offers paid political advertisement

Yeah, social media as it is now is more disruptive than informative.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works -4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Germans are critical of ANY chancellor. They are critical of the hairdresser, the baker, the streets, the cutlery, the economy - it’s in their nature. The only challenge is, that in the next elections they will all vote rightwing afd, and they will complain about kanzler Weidel too - but then it will be too late to rescue the democracy. Dear (DW) journalists help us rescue our freedoms.