Germans, please go to vote!
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Good, substantive comment. I disagree on the Covid part though, Sweden managed Covid wonderfully with quite liberal policies on that front. Donât you worry with Die Linke that theyâre quite pro-Russian or is that a mistaken view from me?
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Geht wählen ihr Luschen!
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We had electronic voting, but it was gone as fast as it came. I voted electronic once in a local election in the early 2000s
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Die Linke is not Pro Putin or Pro Russia. The part of the party that was split off some time ago (Now called BĂźndniss Sarah Wagenknecht) was the Pro Russia part.
Can't speak on Sweden.
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Given Merz' right-wing rhetoric (incl. literally calling anyone who doth protest his behavior a "a green or leftist crackpot"; or pronouncing that "left-wing politics are over"), his playing-off of parts of society, his choleric antics, and his closeness to Maga-friendly figures like Spahn ... Yeah, no. Merz is danger.
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We're very sceptic about the rigidity of the so called firewall (the confession of the big parties, especially CDU/CSU to form a coalition with the neo nazis). The chancellor candidate Merz (aka Mr. Burns) already jackhammered it by voting together with AfD against migration. Just yesterday he denounced millions of people who are protesting since the beginning of 2024 against the move of politics to the far right by asking where they were when Walter LĂźbcke a CDU governour fighting for migrants was murdered by a nazi in 2019. They were protesting in the thousands and the Antifa was investigating the backgrounds of groups like hammerskins, combat 18 or NSU. Mr. Burns yesterday also called lefts and greens "Spinner" (crazies) and was rewarded with frenetic applause by the bavarians to whom he was holding his speech. There are a few CDU politicians saying out loud that the firewall is history and they should work together with AfD.
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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 health and tax fraud area, as the CDU wants 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).
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.
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Thanks, great reply! Strong argument overall, maybe the only major disagreement here is with nuclear energy. Here in Finland electricity is some of the cheapest in Europe and while itâs not entirely due to nuclear that is a key factor for us in self-reliance and energy security especially when youâre going down the renewable road, because you do need some kind of a stable backbone for days where solar and wind just donât produce enough, at least until there are better storage options. Thereâs a huge need to optimize the energy mix with renewables because itâs unsustainable to have these massive price fluctuations currently and I donât see many solutions currently that have more potential than Nuclear, especially if we can make SMRâs a reality. I am of course aware also that Nuclear by itself definitely isnât a cheap way to produce electricity, but I believe especially SMRâs and other advancements can do a lot there.
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The American system of democracy is fundamentally flawed and has been even before the Republican success in the election. In Germany, there are a variety of parties to vote for that vary across the political spectrum- there is a multi-party system, the American democracy is a decision between right and alt-right, a heavily skewed two party system. I see your point, but this is a false equivalency and a bad analogy
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It is done. đ§â
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What analogy?
The comment I replied to mentioned USA.
