this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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Very good. The whole of Europe should endeavor to wean itself from the US' protection racket asap.
You are right, but not with this fucking guy in the driver seat.
I don't know much about Merz but it's possible to have a politician who is shitty and self-serving, but who still says good things occasionally.
E.g. Boris Johnson. Purely a self-interested politician who has said many stupid things. But one of his views which I liked was his support for Ukraine.
Yes, that's probably a solid comparison. They are kinda similar. Just without the goofy behavior and even less charisma. And Merz is (thankfully) very strongly pro-EU.
Boris made some pro-EU statements in the past, but then he realised that being anti-EU would give him an opportunity to become prime minister. So he took that opportunity to put his career ambitions ahead of the country's interests.
Question is how much they actually do what they said before, when they are in power.
Merz has been talking heavily about more support for Ukraine, when it served to drive a wedge between the previous government, as the former coalition partner FDP wanted to use Ukraine support spending to cut social spending and climate investments.
The whole reason that is possible is a "debt limit" article in the constitution, that prohibits the country from taking on new debt, even if that debt is used for investments that will pay back much more money. This article was put in place mainly by the CDU but tolerated by the SPD a few years back. The CDU also sued against using leftover money from the emergency Covid fund to finance green investment. Green investment would have reduced the need for energy imports, including direct and indirect imports from Russia, which would have helped Ukraine. Also it put much more pressure onto the public budget, which reduced the legroom for Ukraine support.
The goal of the CDU was solely to use this to blow up the previous government, which eventually succeeded. Meanwhile the CDU worked hard to establish the radical pro Putin AfD Nazis further and it is possible that they will form the next government together.
Merz has ruled out forming a government with AfD hasn't he? I think he did on TV last night. So I assume he will try to form a government with SPD.
Anyway, I really am not massively informed on German politics. But I've heard a couple of good things from Merz so far (his support for Ukraine, and his desire to make Europe more independent of the USA). I hope he will maintain his commitment to those ideas.
Merz also said that he would never accept any working together with the AfD, not in public not in private. Anyone in the CDU that would do so, would be kicked out of the party immediately.
Now whjat we have seen instead on the past year is the CDU working together with the AfD often on the local and state level. on the federal level they finally worked together about three weeks back, when they first passed a resolution against Migration and then barely failed to pass a law together. Merz said, it isn't his fault if the AfD was voting together with them and if the other parties weren't willing to pass the [far right anti human rights anti constitutional rights] laws together with them.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-lawmakers-reject-contentious-immigration-law/live-71465034
https://jacobin.com/2025/01/germany-afd-cdu-far-right/
Merz is a far right populist and habitual liar. If he will not rule together with the pro Putin Nazis he will use it as a maximum threat for making a potential SPD coalition partner fall in line with him on all possible topics. If you follow more actively the next months, you will hear Merz lying day in day out.
Fair enough. I will probably read more about him within the near future. I'm not saying I absolutely believe he will stick to support for Ukraine and European independence, I'm just saying that I hope he does.
If Friedrich Merz rules out that it will rain later today, better bring an umbrella. That guy is a pathological liar and a shameless opportunist.
He will do whatever gives him the most power. The only reason for him to form a coalition with the SPD is that he can use the threat of the AfD to blackmail the (anyway spineless) SPD into doing whatever he wants.
Maybe I will end up disappointed then. I just hope to see Europe standing on its own two feet if the US has no interest in Europe anymore. And I hope to see Europe continuing to back Ukraine.
I doubt that Merz will do too much in this regard unless forced to, as he is in the pocket of his former employer, BlackRock, a US based investment firm.
Well, shit. I will just follow the news and hope for the best while expecting the worst.
Not that good, the far right nazi party came in second..
Orthogonal issue.
Is it though? I think both parties align quite well on a lot of issues.
Then you don't know much about German politics.
I don't unfortunately. It's hard to break into the nuances without knowing German. I hope I'm wrong, but there's going to be more radicalization before your guys next election.
CDU/CSU: 29%
AfD: 21%
where do your 2% come from?
I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say.
CDU/CSU got 29% of the votes in this election.
AfD got 21%.
CDU alone got about 22% of the votes. CDU+CSU got 29%.
For all intents and purposes, they are the same party. We're just (for utterly occult reasons) humouring Bavarians who want to feel special.
I swear, I never heard anyone speak well of Bavaria lol
I canNOT imagine why that would be. 😐
Oh, you're one of those kinds of people.
And what “kind of people” would that be?
People who enjoy "gotcha"s and being technically correct for the sake of it.
I could say the same to you and it would be a nice exercise in futility. The point wasn’t to be right for its own sake, but to highlight that while the far right didn’t outright win it didn’t lose either. As it stands now, either this govt (and the EU) positively address the situation making every elector aware or next election we will have afd (and who knows who else) at the govts; we shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of Biden
View from the mod: You're absolutely trying to weasel through with technically correct bullshit.
CDU is not present on Bavarian ballots, but CSU is on Bavarian ballots. Afd can be elected in every state. And CDU always forms a parliamentary group with CSU. CSU tends to veer a bit closer to nationalism and to the right, but that's largely posture. For all intents and purposes, CDU/CSU is one party with two heads.
View from a user: removing my original comment because you disagree is a dick move, period. Not trying to weasel through anything since there is nothing to “weasel through”: afd got one vote every five voters, it’s insanely high and CDU performance (nor the other parties) were clearly not good enough; okay CDU+CSU are only one party, great, they still got a 9% more than a neonazi party.
And btw, in this whole thing the only one pedantic about it is you (and the other user) since be it 21 or 29, it’s less than a 10% away to becoming the largest party in Germany
I don't think anybody claimed that CxU had a great showing. Or that Afd's percentage is somehow a good sign.
The contested point was that you insisted that CDU only did 2% better than Afd which is completely misleading. Hence I removed that for "misinfomation".
Okay, and you could have said that instead of “implying” I wanted to be correct on some pointless technicality, more so when I had already explained what I meant and what I wanted to highlight
I read all your responses and didn't read them that way. Sorry that I misjudged your intentions.💜
(I will keep those two comments deleted nonetheless though, the deletion rationale still applies there imo.)
No problem lel
Wasn't NATO supposed to offer protection?
If you still haven't noticed, NATO really is mostly an US tool for power projection in Europe and the surrounding areas. It does cosplay as a defensive alliance against Russia, but without the US, there isn't that much to it. Especially as long as the US is a member and can prevent NATO from actually defending against Russia.
We all know that but it should still be the main actor (NATO) the one who speaks, not its main member. A single member thought should be just ignored legally speaking
The alternative to NATO is the EU, which is also a defensive alliance, does not include the US and has a lot of power outside of military matters. The only larger downside is that the UK is not a member, but other then that it is a much better tool.
An alternative that both USA and RUS are now trying to fight with no success.