this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 129 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

Dude does not understand how german elections work lmao. Nobody won that election, the conservatives got 28% of the vote. There will be at least a 3 party coalition and things could become pretty complicated.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 12 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Since FDP and BSW didnt make it into the parliament SPD, CDU should be able to form a coalition. Only Problem, the SPD Chancellor candidate announced they dont want to coalate with the CDU. We may see the same Situation as in Austria.

[–] umfk@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Scholz only said that he personality doesn't want to do the coalition talks. Someone else from the SPD will do them.

Ah, than I misunderstood him.

[–] Vincent 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

the SPD Chancellor candidate announced they dont want to coalate with the CDU.

I thought Scholz announced that he would step back since he wouldn't be able to be chancellor? (If I read the Dutch news right.) Which is something else from blocking a CDU coalition.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

If the AfD votes for Merz, then he will become chancellor. But that doesnt mean that they will form a coalition so its gonna be interesting.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 7 minutes ago

If Merz tries to get himself elected without having secured practically all conservative PMs will call for his head, the Churches are going to let themselves be heard, loudly, there'd be a coup within the CDU/CSU faction. They barely followed him in that stunt last time they're not going to do it when it actually matters.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 81 points 17 hours ago (7 children)

I'm not usually one to agree with trump, but doubling your representation in a single election is a win. An incredibly concerning win, in this case. It bodes poorly.

[–] fantasty@programming.dev 14 points 8 hours ago

The (almost extremist) "conservatives" gained like 3 percent points or something since the last election. Plus, they have been in the government for like 80% of the time since WW2. Trump is soooo anti establishment but these guys ARE the most establishment anyone in Germany could be. They are not the solution to people’s problems, they are the ones who caused many of the problems in Germany.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 hours ago

They didnt double. Olaf Scholz wasnt elected because he was liked. He and SPD last time got the most votes because media slammed against greens, and the CDU/CSU lies and corruption was layed open. Now people forgot who governed the most time and voted union again

[–] cron@feddit.org 67 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

The "conservative party" is the CDU/CSU, and even though they won, they just had their second worst result since the 1950s.

[–] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.world 18 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

thank you, this makes me feel better

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 27 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It shouldn't. They did so poorly because 10% of the German electorate shifted even farther to the far right AfD, and another 10% had already done so in previous elections.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Don't confuse the electorate shifting with non-voters turning up to give a finger to the whole system, that's the AfD's biggest gain. This shit will continue until rent becomes affordable again or another party manages to capture the same vote.

[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 9 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

While in this case, Trump clearly speaks about the party with the largest share, i.e. CxU — it would too make sense for Trump to call Afd "conservatives." Because that's the fun equivalence US Republicans use, as even they don't seem to want to identify as "regressives".

[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 16 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Germans are very much like Americans, they like to Moralize and act like they got their shit together, and pretend like they’re all enlightened, but their people are just as fucked up as Americans sometimes.

[–] belastend@slrpnk.net 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

This entirely depends on if you count the CDU Voters to this. Because I would count them almost as stupid as the AfD Voters.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

their people are just as fucked up as Americans sometimes.

I'm tempted to respond with a picture of Nicholas Cage, but then I think about how Holocaust denial is increasing...

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 20 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

It's a win for the party, but a win for the party is different from winning the election.

In the last Australian federal election, the Greens quadrupled their number of seats. It was absolutely a huge win for the Greens. But going from 0.7% of seats to 2.6% cannot mean you "won" the election. (Also...wow...that shows just how gross single winner elections are. Even with preferential voting. When a party that consistently gets over 10% of the votes is able to win less than 3% of seats and call that a huge win. Proportional systems like Germany's MMP are amazing!)

Whether you want to say the CDU/CSU "won" the German election, IMO, depends less on how their vote changed relative to the last election, and more on whether you want to say the party that ends up selecting the Chancellor "won" an election, even if they need to go into a three party coalition. My personal take is that yes, it's not unreasonable to say they won.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 12 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

AfD (Conservatives Trump was looking for) doubled their vote, but won't be part of government. Party with the most votes went from 23% to 28%.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

Now I’m confused, afd won’t be part of the German government? Why is that?

[–] fantasty@programming.dev 5 points 8 hours ago

Dude because they’re literal Nazis

[–] belastend@slrpnk.net 3 points 9 hours ago

Because the actual party with the most votes categorically refused to work with them. Going inti a coalitiin with the 3rd placed SPD will still guarantee the CDU a majority in the Bundestag.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 14 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

In parliamentary democracies, the "government" is the term used for the ruling party or coalition. Even more specifically, it's used for the Ministers. It's a more specific term than just referring to all elected representatives sitting in the parliament (the Bundestag, in the case of Germany, or maybe the Bundestag & Bundesrat). Comparing it to the American system, "government" is somewhat analogous to the "executive"—the President and Cabinet Secretaries—except that it's a fuzzy term and can also mean the non-ministerial members of parliament who are allied with the ministers.

So the AfD will not be a part of the Government because both the CDU/CSU and SPD have placed a cordon sanitaire around the AfD. They refuse to work with them because they view them as dangerous extremists. It would be theoretically possible for the CDU/CSU to break that cordon and form a government between just their party and the AfD, or they can form a traffic light coalition with the SPD and Green party. The latter seems more likely, given recent German political history.

[–] boreengreen@lemm.ee 9 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Cause they can't find common ground and form alliances with other parties, to form a majority.

At least that is how I understood it.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

can you explain your reasoning here?

The context comment makes much more sense, that this is not a conservative win, and Trump is too dumb to realize that that.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 10 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Imagine that your place of work, a sizable but far from monopolistic company, suddenly finds itself with twice the clientele. You now service 20% of the market where before you serviced only 10. How might your boss describe that situation? Because mine would call it a win, with very little coaxing.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

so if the situation was entirely different, with different aims, one could draw a different conclusion?

surrre.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I understand that you don’t want to panic about this, and you don’t need to. I have more than enough panic to cover for you. Gotchu, babycakes

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 0 points 16 hours ago

yeah, I'll definitely leave the unnecessary panicking to you guys. not my jam.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 35 points 16 hours ago

This cannot be said enough to Anglosphericals, even the well-informed ones sometimes don't get it. Under proportional representation, you almost never "win" an election and that's the point.

It's a classic misunderstanding between two political different cultures. I remember once a German state election, I think it was Baden-Würtemberg, where the first-placed party had no friends so the parties #2 and #3 (the Greens were one) formed the government. The Anglo press just did not get it - a "the losers ganged up on the winners"! How could Germans possibly accept this travesty of democracy??! But the second and third parties agreed on more things, and between them they had far more votes! It was arguably more democratic than the outcome of a classic first-past-the-post election in Britain or the USA.

This silly obsession with winners and losers was why the Tories dominated 20th-century British politics even though Labour and the Liberals often had more support between them. It's arguably what sunk the UK LibDems' referendum on electoral reform under the Cameron government. And then a few years later Brexit got 51.9%, which for Brits was obviously a resounding victory so most of the the other 48.1% didn't even complain about literally losing their EU citizenship. The winner-loser culture goes deep for Anglos but it doesn't always serve them well.

[–] JayObey711@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, they won. And there will probably be a Union-SPD or Union-AfD coalition.

[–] analoghobbyist@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

I've also read that the other parties have stated that they will not form a coalition with th AfD, so Trump's friends will not have a seat at the table.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 hours ago

Merz already tried to form a majority for a vote in the parliament with the AfD, just a few weeks ago. There might not be a coalition, but I expect them working together.

[–] ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, well Merz is a special kind of person so I wouldn't hold my breath for that promise "not to form a coalition" with the AfD. Let's see what the next weeks bring.

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 7 points 13 hours ago

Don't kid yourself, the future chancellor and former blackrock executive is very well connected with the capital.