European Politics

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All the best wishes for voters in Germany! I hope AfD will fail to achieve significant results. Fingers crossed!

Exit polls suggest they will get more than 20% of the votes, a higher percentage than what the Nazi Party got in 1930, when they became the second most voted party… :eek:
 
Exit polls suggest they will get more than 20% of the votes, a higher percentage than what the Nazi Party got in 1930, when they became the second most voted party… :eek:
Not good, but for now it looks like AfD will not participate in coalition. Bad signal: youth is voting for those far right or far left pro russian parties. So far, I like what Friedrich Merz is talking. Puts USA and Musk into shame corner, wants to strenghten Europe, etc.
It's worrying that coalition may be unstable.
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Some context about the election results from someone who actually lives in Germany (and y'all already know my biases and personal views on sociopolitical topics, so take everything with the appropriate amount of grains of salt). You can skip to the end of the post if you don't care about the individual parties:

The results aren't pretty, but they are surprisingly good. Better than anticipated even.

CDU/CSU, our regular conservative party, got by far the most votes, which was expected. They didn't manage to get the 30% that they hoped for. It was basically guaranteed that they'd be in the ruling coalition with Merz as chancellor, so no surprises there. We had 16 years of CDU at the helm which caused a lot of stagnation and "stability", in turn being responsible for a lot of the current issues in Germany. Merz will probably fail a lot, lacking the finesse required for the things he'd like to accomplish, but it's what we have to deal with now.

FDP, our center-right liberal/libertarian party (as in hyper-capitalist, everything is to be decided by supply and demand of the market, "der Markt regelt") failed to reach 5% and didn't get into parliament. They were part of the failed government we had these past 4 years and are responsible for the downfall of said government. Not only did they spend months and years actively sabotaging their coalition partners to block anything that would "hurt the market" (the investors and lobbies), they literally conspired on how to break up the coalition, calling it the D-Day, which is the reason the government fell apart in November. They absolutely deserve the election losses they got and we are finally rid of Christian Lindner, the face of the party, after all this BS. Good riddance.

BSW is technically a left-wing party newly formed by Sahra Wagenknecht, a former member of Die Linke (our actual left wing party). Despite that, the BSW adopts a lot of far-right ideas and is pretty popular with people who vote for the AFD. Oh, did I fail to mention that the BSW parrots Russian talking points and is an asset of the Russian propaganda machine? My bad. That explains their connection to the AFD though. They also barely failed to reach the 5% required to enter parliament, which will make the forming of a ruling coalition for the CDU a much more stable undertaking (more on that once I'm done with the main parties).

Die Linke is, as previously mentioned, our actual left wing party and one of the surprise winners of the current election. They had massive gains, eclipsing what most polls predicted, with almost 9% of the votes (last time they failed to reach 5%). They have great ideas for domestic politics, but despite being a leftist my main issue with them is their approach to foreign politics, in particular Russia/Ukraine. They have some very naive and idealistic views on pacifism, which if enacted in reality would benefit Russia and allow them to take over all terrotories they are invading. None of that is relevant at the moment, since they are not in a position to even discuss any of that; they will be a very welcome and valuable part of the opposition for the upcoming governing coalition.

SPD, the social democrats and the party that "won" the previous election, suffered historic losses with their worst result in 138 years. Their candidate was our chancellor (Scholz) and they were part of the failed government, so it was clear that they'd see number like that, but the actual result is still worse than they had hoped for. Nonetheless, they are essentially guaranteed to be part of the governing coalition with the CDU (as they were during large parts of the Merkel years). They went with Scholz as a candidate again, despite having Pistorius who is one of the most popular politicians in Germany, which I assume was done to not "burn" Pistorius as a candidate on an election that was unwinnable for the SPD. I believe they'll send him to try to win the next election in 2029, where the chances for (center-)left parties to gain will be much higher.

Grüne, the Greens, are the third party that was part of the failed government (with SPD and FDP). They also had a worse result than the previous election, but compared to the other two coalition partners, they had the least amount of losses. Fascinating, considering that they had to endure attacks both from other parties and from the right wing propaganda press machine (our equivalent of Fox News and Murdoch-led networks/press) all the time. They were painted as the boogiemen solely responsible for any bad thing that ever happens. Yet, if the BSW had reached 5% the CDU and SPD would have to form a coalition with the Greens to get enough seats (since a coalition with the AFD is a no-go and political suicide). That didn't come to pass though. They get to spend 4 years in opposition, building up their image and striking back in the next election where they'll have the chance to gain a lot of seats.

AFD, the fascist elephant in the room, got 20% of the votes in an election with historic turnout (84%). Yet, no one is willing to form a coalition with them. Thankfully that is still one taboo that the CDU, despite trying to emulate Trump and MAGA more and more, is not willing to break. These numbers are obviously incredibly concerning and we need to find a way to combat their rise and success, but you'll often see posts online by people who pretend that the AFD has the potential for unlimited growth; that is very obviously not the case. Yes, 20% are scary but that also means that 80% are still opposed to fascist ideas in an election cycle dominated by immigration and racism.

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So, with all that said, what's next? A governing coalition has to be formed. Had the BSW and/or FDP gotten into parliament, the numbers of seats required would've increased, changing the potential combinations for coalitions. The CDU and AFD have the numbers to rule together, but Merz, as slimy and untrustworthy as he is, has denied this as a possibility, because he understands that this is still frowned upon (and the AFD is incredibly volatile, losing members left and right during legislative periods, which could jeopardize their majority when voting for certain bills). A three-way coalition of CDU/SPD/Greens could be formed, but with BSW/FDP failing to reach 5% it isn't necessary anymore. Such a coalition (dubbed Kenya because of their colours, black red and green) would've been unstable, ineffective and would lead to a lot of infighting.

So, we're probably going to get another "Great Coalition", CDU and SPD. In a sense, given the predictions and previous polling numbers, this is a best case scenario. We've had this combo before and they are known for forming a stable but also stagnant government. The voters want change, the problems we are facing require change, the CDU even campaigned on change (as in, "get rid of wokeness and shift from the left to the right" lol ); yet this coalition is known to historically hold onto the status quo, desperately so. Why is this a "best case" scenario given the circumstances? Unlike the US, who also saw the right wing win, the new government won't have the power to do what it wants. It won't have the power to fuck up future elections and interfere with the future transfer of power. Despite flirting with "anti-woke" talking points, unlike the US and UK the CDU seems to have no desire to actively go against the LGBTQ community and especially the trans community, silver linings and all that.

We are going to see four years of time being wasted, setting up the chance to change things in a major way in 2029. People will see that voting for CDU once again won't lead to the current problems being meaningfully addressed. Depending on how things will play out and what will happen with the AFD in the meanwhile, this has the potential for the SPD and especially the Greens to claw back influence and power.

In summary: I'm not happy with the overall results, which were expected, but I'm hopeful for the future and things could've been much worse.
 
In today's situation, "could've been much worse" after an election is something to celebrate.

The main concern now in European politics is whether the governments of European NATO members will continue to stand up for Ukraine when the US is doing the exact opposite - exploiting the war to force Ukraine to accept a bad deal.

(Or, in other terms, coerce them into paying protection money, without offering any protection apart from maybe Trump telling Putin "I think you should stop bombing them" without following through with action, as nothing Trump has ever said or done regarding Putin makes me think Trump will actually do something to force Putin to do anything he doesn't want to do).
 
@Vaenyr Thanks for your interpretation of the results.

In summary: I'm not happy with the overall results, which were expected, but I'm hopeful for the future and things could've been much worse.

Here's hoping you are right, because whenever fascism rises I cannot help but remember this very powerful scene from Cabaret:

 
@____no5, recently you expressed your dissatisfaction with the annulment of the results of the Romanian presidential election. You said that democracy is in danger and so on. Today I saw reports on Twitter that Călin Georgescu, pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate was detained and millions of dollars? were found in the house of his bodyguard. Georgescu bodyguards and associates often visited Moscow. How has your opinion changed after this fact, if at all. It is obvious that Georgescu is a puppet of Moscow. It looks like your outrage regarding state of democracy was not justified at all.

Edit. Or you will take this stance: "Even though the evidence is clear, Russians and MAGA Republicans will now go on the offensive against Romanian officials. They will call this a 'false flag' operation and claim that the 'deep state' meddled in the elections to prevent Georgescu from being elected."
 
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Hey Azas I am still disappointed and believe there was no reason to cancel elections. I will respond to Perun’s post at some point. Not claiming Georgescu is innocent just that whatever happened doesn’t justify the cancellation of elections.
And I don’t like how MAGA handled it either.
 
I will respond to Perun’s post at some point

Oh, forget it. I'm not even interested anymore. Whatever you're going to respond with is gonna be some bs I'm going to spend another two hours responding to, and then it's going to take another two months for you to respond to that, what's the point?
 
You don’t need to respond if you don’t want to. Frenkly especially for this subject I wasn’t even interested in any immediate response just put it there and let people think. Raise awareness so we can monitor the situation and draw our conclusions whenever that be, two months, six months. Annulment of elections in an EU country is a very serious matter and it happened too quickly and whatever were the evidences were simply not enough for such a bold and historic action.

The reason why I told that to you, is because I have seen you have democratic instics inside you and I was hoping you would use those instics for some investigative approach and shed some light on it. Those things take time and yes could be months in this case. Just posting whatever evidence the secret services threw to justify annulling an election is inadequate.
Thus I was disappointed by the quickness and the tone of your reply, and also by the number of likes that you received, so I didn't find any meaning or motivation of replying.

I wasn’t looking and I am not looking to find any immediate reply nor I think it’s possible as we are not familiar with that country. I’m fine of getting some real light whenever that be and more evidences will surface, especially now that Georgescu was arrested, days after JD Vance lectured Europeans about the lack of Democracy bringing Romania as an example. To me it seems as they are trying to put him out of the race completely, because obviously he would win if he were to run again. Despite the Romanian people now knows who he is and what he did. I'm guessing that was why they postponed the elections by 6 months so to have enough time to knock him out completely. But again, let's see.

*Thierry Breton is former European Commissioner.
Romania.jpg
 
You don’t need to respond if you don’t want to. Frenkly especially for this subject I wasn’t even interested in any immediate response just put it there and let people think. Raise awareness so we can monitor the situation and draw our conclusions whenever that be, two months, six months. Annulment of elections in an EU country is a very serious matter and it happened too quickly and whatever were the evidences were simply not enough for such a bold and historic action.

The reason why I told that to you, is because I have seen you have democratic instics inside you and I was hoping you would use those instics for some investigative approach and shed some light on it. Those things take time and yes could be months in this case. Just posting whatever evidence the secret services threw to justify annulling an election is inadequate.
Thus I was disappointed by the quickness and the tone of your reply, and also by the number of likes that you received, so I didn't find any meaning or motivation of replying.

I wasn’t looking and I am not looking to find any immediate reply nor I think it’s possible as we are not familiar with that country. I’m fine of getting some real light whenever that be and more evidences will surface, especially now that Georgescu was arrested, days after JD Vance lectured Europeans about the lack of Democracy bringing Romania as an example. To me it seems as they are trying to put him out of the race completely, because obviously he would win if he were to run again. Despite the Romanian people now knows who he is and what he did. I'm guessing that was why they postponed the elections by 6 months so to have enough time to knock him out completely. But again, let's see.
Three paragraphs of gobbledygook but what it boils down to is that for nearly two months you blew smoke up Perun's ass saying "I will respond when I get a chance" and now that Perun has given up you come clean and say "yeah honestly I didn't give a shit about what you posted and I wasn't planning on responding at all".

I shouldn't be as surprised as I am but Christ. What a slap in the face. You don't give a shit about anything except piping up with your propaganda like the fucking parrot you are. No reading. No critical thinking. Just empty words day after day after day after day. Fuck me.

And you couldn't even fucking spell INSTINCT right. "Instic" is a fucking psychiatric group from Florida you twat.

I don't even care if this gets me another warning, everything about that fucking post is an insult not only to Perun but to everyone you've ever pissed on with your nonsense.
 
You don’t need to respond if you don’t want to. Frenkly especially for this subject I wasn’t even interested in any immediate response just put it there and let people think. Raise awareness so we can monitor the situation and draw our conclusions whenever that be, two months, six months. Annulment of elections in an EU country is a very serious matter and it happened too quickly and whatever were the evidences were simply not enough for such a bold and historic action.

The reason why I told that to you, is because I have seen you have democratic instics inside you and I was hoping you would use those instics for some investigative approach and shed some light on it. Those things take time and yes could be months in this case. Just posting whatever evidence the secret services threw to justify annulling an election is inadequate.
Thus I was disappointed by the quickness and the tone of your reply, and also by the number of likes that you received, so I didn't find any meaning or motivation of replying.

I wasn’t looking and I am not looking to find any immediate reply nor I think it’s possible as we are not familiar with that country. I’m fine of getting some real light whenever that be and more evidences will surface, especially now that Georgescu was arrested, days after JD Vance lectured Europeans about the lack of Democracy bringing Romania as an example. To me it seems as they are trying to put him out of the race completely, because obviously he would win if he were to run again. Despite the Romanian people now knows who he is and what he did. I'm guessing that was why they postponed the elections by 6 months so to have enough time to knock him out completely. But again, let's see.

*Thierry Breton is former European Commissioner.
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When I made that post in this thread, I was already at the point where I just decided to leave you be. I saw no point in extending whatever discussions we had, because, as I said, your posts started to just infuriate me and at various points I had a bunch of quick-shot responses that I typed to get out of my system, but then never posted.

The only reason I replied at all was because you sent me a DM asking me to read this post. I thought this may have been because you wanted me to engage with it and actually give you reasons why I believe you are wrong. So, I took an afternoon off, read your post thoroughly, checked back on what I thought to know on these issues, and did some very extensive searches on the web, reading carefully a number of articles from various viewpoints.

Then, nothing happens. No response. You defer, deflect, you're too busy, whatever excuse you can come up with, and now finally you admit that you never actually had the intention to engage with my post in the first place. Your excuses: I replied too fast (I took an afternoon off and spent half an evening to deal with your post), you didn't like the tone (I tried to be humorous, to avoid yet another holier-than-thou exchange, ffs), you think I didn't do enough research. As I tried to point out, I even looked for the sources of your claims to see if there's something to them. Funnily enough, I kept running into sources funded by the Russian government not just for your claims, but even for your semantics.

You say you want to make people think. But when people actually think and come to different conclusions than you, that means they're brainwashed. There is no other explanation in your world, is there? No possible way that you could be the one deceived and misled.

For once in this post, you're honest in the fact that you're not actually trying to have an exchange here, but that you just want everyone to swallow and believe whatever BS it is you're posting instead of engaging with the content and challenging your viewpoints.

There is an assault on democracy and my way of life in my country and all over Europe, and you're siding with the enemy and their attempts at gaslighting us to believe the ones defending law and democracy are actually destroying it.

Don't DM me about this. If you have something to say after this, say it in public.
 
No need for tension and pompous words as siding with the enemy.

The tension is there, 5, because I have been trying very hard to have a conversation with you based on facts and sources. I looked at your sources and engaged with your posts. You did not do the same. I put a lot of effort into trying to have this conversation, and you just always deflected and came up with excuses.

I don't know if you understand this, but this is why I am angry at you. You drew a lot of energy from me without me getting anything in return. Instead you're telling me that what I'm doing is insufficient for whatever reason you can come up with at the moment.

Do you understand that this makes me angry? Do you understand that this is not a way to have a conversation?

I do not want to post here anymore, not just in this thread, but on this board as a whole, because of this. Because I only associate negative feelings and wasted energy with it now.
 
I know why you are angry and I understand it. And I still have appreciation and faith to you. You get something in return. I try to say something here, in a calm way. Just take note. No need to reply. Just watch and collect solid info and evidence. This is not something to be solved immediately. I am happy to admit I was wrong, but let’s see first what’s unfolding.

Annulling elections is a grave matter to solve it conclusively so quickly.

But seriously, try and keep your cool in your thinking. “Siding with the enemy” makes me worry about you. If this line of thought were true then no need to think or talk at all, let’s line behind whoever will lead us to the war and whoever says differently he’s a traitor and sides with the enemy.

Again. I remember a couple of things that you’ve told me and you were spot right. I treasure those things and that’s why I DM you. You have the capacity to admit you are wrong and you have the natural justice in you. But for fucks sake keep away from that anger not just against me, I can take that, but generally; as it mess with your judgement. Keep away from the anger in your life in general, it just blinds the mind and nothing good can come out of that.
 
I know why you are angry and I understand it. And I still have appreciation and faith to you. You get something in return. I try to say something here, in a calm way. Just take note. No need to reply. Just watch and collect solid info and evidence. This is not something to be solved immediately. I am happy to admit I was wrong, but let’s see first what’s unfolding.

Annulling elections is a grave matter to solve it conclusively so quickly.

But seriously, try and keep your cool in your thinking. “Siding with the enemy” makes me worry about you. If this line of thought were true then no need to think or talk at all, let’s line behind whoever will lead us to the war and whoever says differently he’s a traitor and sides with the enemy.

Again. I remember a couple of things that you’ve told me and you were spot right. I treasure those things and that’s why I DM you. You have the capacity to admit you are wrong and you have the natural justice in you. But for fucks sake keep away from that anger not just against me, I can take that, but generally; as it mess with your judgement. Keep away from the anger in your life in general, it just blinds the mind and nothing good can come out of that.
Oh fuck all the way off with this sanctimonious bullshit. We are all tired of your usual tactics. People are telling you why they are angry with you ans that your behavior is making them want to quit the forum altogether and you respond with doubling down and purposefully angering them more by doing exactly what you were being accused of.

The "tensions" are because you are posting Russian propaganda, clear as say for everyone to see. Not only that, we even have proof that your talking points come from that direction, if you actually read Perun's post properly.

The "tensions" are because you refuse to deal with facts in any way. You ignore everything that blatantly contradicts and easily disproves your arguments and talking points (can only get so far with faulty premises). You push us to blindly accept utter bullshit because Russia, Putin and the enemy says so, but you never engage with anything that counters your narratives. Every single one of your political posts is disingenuous to the core, to the point where I doubt you have a single shred of good faith inside of you.

The "tensions" are there because of your blatant hypocrisy. You spent literal months assuring and even having the audacity to joke about responding to Perun's thorough take-down of your bullshit. Now, for once, you are finally somewhat honest in acknowledging that you don't care about discussing or debating. You have no interest in dialogue. You want us to swallow the propaganda you spew, unthinking and uncritically. In case you wonder why multiple forum members jumped to "attack you" (or rather call you out) for the last couple of posts, it's because you've severely tested the patience of everyone who has to read your bullshit.

You will never convince anyone here since your patterns of behavior are well established and people can easily see through the usual talking points. In a sense it is understandable that you refuse to address Perun's post (despite promising so!) because it was such an utter take down of you as a poster on this forum (and arguably as a person). The only thing one should feel after being exposed like that is deep embarrassment, shame and humility.

Also, no one cares about your "tone". Just because you post in a "civil and polite" manner doesn't diminish that you are being purposefully as disrespectful as possible. You've reached a point where even people who were defending you when the rest started piling up on you, people who always gave you the benefit of the doubt and wanted to give you another chance are tired of your behavior. They are angry and frustrated with you and are absolutely justified with that. They likes and reactions Perun's post got were because the majority of members here appreciate someone who takes the time and properly sources all the facts that are being presented, even when dealing with a disingenuous clown who cries foul about being yelled at as if that will somehow make the content of your posts any more tolerable.

I don't care if I get a warning or a thread ban for this, but enough is enough. Sincerely, fuck off.
 
I know why you are angry and I understand it. And I still have appreciation and faith to you. You get something in return. I try to say something here, in a calm way. Just take note. No need to reply. Just watch and collect solid info and evidence. This is not something to be solved immediately. I am happy to admit I was wrong, but let’s see first what’s unfolding.

Annulling elections is a grave matter to solve it conclusively so quickly.

But seriously, try and keep your cool in your thinking. “Siding with the enemy” makes me worry about you. If this line of thought were true then no need to think or talk at all, let’s line behind whoever will lead us to the war and whoever says differently he’s a traitor and sides with the enemy.

Again. I remember a couple of things that you’ve told me and you were spot right. I treasure those things and that’s why I DM you. You have the capacity to admit you are wrong and you have the natural justice in you. But for fucks sake keep away from that anger not just against me, I can take that, but generally; as it mess with your judgement. Keep away from the anger in your life in general, it just blinds the mind and nothing good can come out of that.
This is just three paragraphs of gaslighting.
 
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