I’m fairly far left but the strong LINKE might actually fuck us over pretty hard. They are strong enough that they’re able to block increased defense spending together with the AfD in a time where increased national and European security might just be our most existential issue.
They are strong enough that they’re able to block increased defense spending together with the AfD
Does Germany have some rules that defence spending requires a 2/3rds supermajority or something? Linke and AfD cannot stop anything on their own if a simple majority is required. The Union and SPD have a slim majority between them, and add the Greens and you’ve got an extremely strong majority.
The only way the conservatives get the funding for increased arms manufacturing is by disabling/changing something about the debt ceiling.
Debt ceiling is in the basic law (constitution), which requires a 2/3 majority to be altered.
Linke are against the debt ceiling in general, but not if it’s only disabled for military spending while still preventing investments in public infrastructure. I think with a bit of diplomacy and concessions in the wording, Linke can be persuaded here.
Edit: Or Merz can just say he doesn’t want to change anything about the debt brake, OK. Saves him from negotiating anything I guess. Maybe the billions he needs will just fall out of the sky then.
Protest voters be protest voting. Unless what they want is actually achieved they’ll start hopping from party to party, usually in the direction of “this will be the greater middle finger to the establishment”. It’s people who think that kicking their car when it doesn’t start will fix it.
Because the right-wing CDU/CSU has won and the right-wing AfD is right behind it?
These are the fruits of 16 years of Merkel with “We can do it”.
It started with her migration policy etc. and the attacks increased but only at times when they wanted to overturn laws or introduce new ones.
This moved the population to the right. (We can do it… Making Germany right-wing again < that’s how it should have been understood!)
So the AfD happen to be former CDU/CSU voters…
Germany gave up its sovereignty yesterday.
The AfD is only second strongest party. Also, no matter what anyone says. The real winners are the leftist party who got 8.7%.
I’m fairly far left but the strong LINKE might actually fuck us over pretty hard. They are strong enough that they’re able to block increased defense spending together with the AfD in a time where increased national and European security might just be our most existential issue.
Does Germany have some rules that defence spending requires a 2/3rds supermajority or something? Linke and AfD cannot stop anything on their own if a simple majority is required. The Union and SPD have a slim majority between them, and add the Greens and you’ve got an extremely strong majority.
The only way the conservatives get the funding for increased arms manufacturing is by disabling/changing something about the debt ceiling.
Debt ceiling is in the basic law (constitution), which requires a 2/3 majority to be altered.
Linke are against the debt ceiling in general, but not if it’s only disabled for military spending while still preventing investments in public infrastructure. I think with a bit of diplomacy and concessions in the wording, Linke can be persuaded here.
Edit: Or Merz can just say he doesn’t want to change anything about the debt brake, OK. Saves him from negotiating anything I guess. Maybe the billions he needs will just fall out of the sky then.
Probably most of those voters voted SPD or die Grüne before but lost trust. Happened in Belgium too…
Yep. SPD lost way more to Union and AfD, though, and the Greens got out of this whole thing relatively unscathed, they have a quite stable basis.
Fun fact: Die Linke gained more voters from CDU and FDP than they lost to the AfD.
switching from a socialist party to afd seems wild to me but ok
Protest voters be protest voting. Unless what they want is actually achieved they’ll start hopping from party to party, usually in the direction of “this will be the greater middle finger to the establishment”. It’s people who think that kicking their car when it doesn’t start will fix it.
Because the right-wing CDU/CSU has won and the right-wing AfD is right behind it? These are the fruits of 16 years of Merkel with “We can do it”. It started with her migration policy etc. and the attacks increased but only at times when they wanted to overturn laws or introduce new ones.
This moved the population to the right. (We can do it… Making Germany right-wing again < that’s how it should have been understood!) So the AfD happen to be former CDU/CSU voters… Germany gave up its sovereignty yesterday.
Democracy is broken!