🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Anyone know what is the best TV news coverage for German elections? Either for English or German language?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Someone tell Armin that a "Zukunftskoalition" would be one that isn't led by the octagenarian's party lmao.

Also both estimates having die Linke on exactly 5% is quite funny, hedging their bets there

I wonder what happens if when the actual votes come out, they come out as 5.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%. Exactly 5%, neither under nor over. Do they get into the Budestag then?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Updated ARD exit

24.7% Union 155+43 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.8% Green 117
11.3% AfD 89
11.2% FDP 88
5% Linke 40

An another indication of an Americanization of German elections:

Will the 2021 federal election turn into a 2016 US election? 🤔

That would be more like 2000 than 2016. In 2016, Clinton won by a clear margin, whereas in 2000 Gore's margin of victory over Bush was relatively narrow.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

What if neither CDU or SPD is able to put together a coalition that has the support of the majority of parliament. Could the FDP come on top as sort of a compromise

How would the FDP be a "compromise" given they're further to the right of the CDU?

If OSR's fantasizing had any real basis, it would probably be more likely the Greens would be the "compromise" party. Not that that will happen either, of course, but it is at least more plausible.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I've already switched the TV off. Always forget how boring election night coverage actually is. Just a load of interviews with about three seconds of excitement when the polls close [/hottake]

Say what you like about FPTP it tends to lead to far more interesting election coverage than PR.

As much fun as it is to have entertaining politics, I guess it is better that politics not be entertaining.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Aging out is a thing, but that alone doesn't explain Linke losing 2/3rds of their East Germany vote in 10 years.

It might actually, because of the amount of time that has passed since the Berlin wall fell. Life expectancy declines exponentially after a certain point as age goes up. And it is not like there has been a new population of old Linke voters entering into the electorate - rather there was just a lump sum of old people who remember some aspects of east Germany positively. At a certain point, there are no such people left, because too many voters don't remember East Germany well (or at least fondly - the later generations who came of age in the 70s-80s before it fell probably remember it least fondly as compared to those who came of age in the earlier days of the DDR).

Also, remember COVID happened and COVID disproportionately kills olds. No doubt that knocked off a few of the remaining Linke olds.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It is soooooooo painful hearing Germans attempt to pronounce Jamaica and horrendously fail at it.

I really wish that coalition could get some different nickname just for purely auditory reasons.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It is soooooooo painful hearing Germans attempt to pronounce Jamaica and horrendously fail at it.

I really wish that coalition could get some different nickname just for purely auditory reasons.

If Americans just stop to even pretend to try to pronounce German names, maybe... ;-)

Not wrong. I was watching the Phoenix/ZDF election coverage yesterday that posters on this thread kindly linked to, and the American LA Times reporter that kept talking had horrendous German pronunciation. The French reporter had way better pronunciation.

Anyway, it seems to me that Red-Green-Yellow is most likely at this point.

Hopefully that means that the government focuses on leading the world in dealing with climate change in a robust way and is able to successfully cut CO2 emissions way down. SPD should promise to the greens that this will be the government's #1 focus, and that along with the fact that green voters strongly prefer SPD to CDU in a coalition I think will be enough to avoid Jamaica - even if the FDP somewhat prefers it, if the greens won't go along with Jamaica (and lack any incentive to prop up the CDU), then it is not going to happen.

This will have to be done in a "market friendly" way in order to keep the FDP in line, but nevertheless. Hopefully they can show the rest of the world that it can be done. And if they can show that it can be done in a way that parties like FDP can live with and even be happy with, then that will make it much more politically feasible in other countries as well, since then business lobbies/corporations in other countries will be more and more able to support strong action on climate. If that happens, I would even go so far as to call this election outcome as a blessing in disguise.

That is my hope, anyway.