Germany megathread

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Bundestag's Committee on Health has today rejected a proposal to legalize cannabis (sponsored by the GRÜNEN) with CDU/CSU, SPD and AfD all voting against and FDP abstaining. LINKE in favor.

Might further weaken the SPD's position with young and urban voters. I heard #NiemehrSPD (#NeverAgainSPD) was trending on Twitter after the vote...

Pretty sure that the GRÜNEN will demand full legalization (among many other things) after the 2021 elections. And the CDU/CSU, being the CDU/CSU, will eventually agree for tactical reasons.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Bundestag's Committee on Health has today rejected a proposal to legalize cannabis (sponsored by the GRÜNEN) with CDU/CSU, SPD and AfD all voting against and FDP abstaining. LINKE in favor.

Might further weaken the SPD's position with young and urban voters. I heard #NiemehrSPD (#NeverAgainSPD) was trending on Twitter after the vote...

Pretty sure that the GRÜNEN will demand full legalization (among many other things) after the 2021 elections. And the CDU/CSU, being the CDU/CSU, will eventually agree for tactical reasons.

Seems odd considering drug use in Germany is pretty much out in the open in most cities I’ve been to

Haha, that's the gap between reality and politics... in fact, there are some polls that have shown a healthy majority for cannabis legalization. It's only that the CDU/CSU has no incentive to concede the issue (right now) for two reasons: (1) It would appear as if they were abandoning another 'conservative' position and may thus cause intra-party discomfort; (2) it would not get them anything in exchange. At least the latter point could change if there are coalition talks between CDU/CSU and Greens in 2021.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

I really loved how Schröder mocked Kirchhof by referring to him as "that professor from Nuremberg".

Heidelberg it was. More beautiful place to live and teach anyway.

[Pick Up the Phone]

I don’t know a lot about the Grand Coalition led by Kiesinger or the CDU in the early 1970s, though I think Rainer Barzel was considered more conservative than his successor, Helmut Kohl.
Kohl himself was a moderate as leader of the opposition and as chancellor, who generally shied away from big reforms, with the exception of European integration and German reunification, both of which would not have happened without him. On economic issues, there was a constant struggle against high unemployment and high deficits, only made worse by the reunification and the Gulf War.

It really is interesting how our perceptions change over time. You're right, Kohl was not considered overly conservative during the 1970s and 1980s, whereas he is nowadays widely regarded as an administrator of conservative stasis. In the early 1980s, he famously called for a 'geistig-moralische Wende'* but then he didn't do much as a Chancellor on this front. The most important project of the Kohl era (aside from the reunification of Germany) was to foster European integration. When it comes to social and cultural issues, conservatism has been in a defensive position ever since.  

That being said, the CDU/CSU had a different clientele back then. Most importantly, it was much more religious, which means that it was to a much higher degree church-affiliated and responsive to church teachings and authorities. In 1950, almost 96% of the German population were either Protestants (EKD/Lutheran) or Catholics. By 1980, this share had decreased to 86%, by 1990 to 72%, by 2000 to 64% and today... well barely 52%. And this is a pretty generous number because only a small minority of those formally affiliated with a Church do actually believe in its doctrines (resurrection of the dead etc.). Obviously, this development has had a major effect on how Christian Democrats in Germany view themselves and it definitely has made it easier for them to drop their resistance against abortion and same-sex marriage. One could say that today, for the first time in many decades, the German center-right is more or less decoupled from Christian identity politics.    

* A term that is notoriously difficult to translate. The literal meaning is 'spiritual and moral turn' but this sounds more esoteric and otherworldly than it does in German. The core idea was to strengthen traditional values in society and leave behind the 'subversive' heritage of 1968.

In the early 2000s, the CDU was extremely conservative, especially on economic issues. The party convention of 2003 in Leipzig led to a neoliberal platform. Also, Merkel supported the Iraq War and opposed multiculturalism. From 2005 to 2013, Merkel was governing as a moderate conservative, I would say, since then she has moved considerably to the left on many issues. Nowadays the CDU simply considers itself a centrist party.

I would say that the CDU of the late 1990s/early 2000s was not more conservative than the CDU of the early 1990s or the 1980s. The point is rather that society had evolved in the meantime and the CDU had not. They increasingly appeared out of touch, with politicians like Friedrich Merz and Peter Gauweiler openly downplaying marital rape because "what happens in a couple's bed should not be the government's concern." The 1998 election was certainly a shock moment and the 2002 election further proved that the party had to modernize. And Merkel was smart enough to do just that. Granted, she briefly tried to return to the CDU's more neoliberal ways in 2009 when entering a coalition with the FDP but this spectacularly failed, and from 2011-2013 onwards, her centrist inclinations became increasingly obvious. There are many different events that fall in this time period: the abolition of mandatory conscription (until then considered a sacred cow of German conservatism), the Euro crisis that called for a more lenient economic policy, the rise of the Greens and the 2011 defeat in Baden-Württemberg where the CDU lost power for the first time since World War II...

Indeed, the CDU calls itself die Mitte (the Center) today. But so do many other parties and I am not sure if this is anything but a marketing strategy. The modernization of the CDU has moved the party to the center but I would still classify it as center-right. The SPD is more centrist in my opinion.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The AfD is a complete joke: Exhibit No. 7264.

In retrospect, it is almost funny that five years ago people considered them evil nazi geniuses of sorts. “It is just a matter of time until they join the government! They’re so dangerous! They’re so powerful!” LOL.

Rarely have I seen such an inept and poorly managed party.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Saxony's minister-president and the CDU's top Putin appeaser Michael Kretschmer has said that Germany should start using Russian gas again "as soon as the war is over".

Not surprising coming from someone who...

...governs a state where a clear majority is skeptical of German aid for Ukraine and the AfD polls around 30%. I don’t envy Kretschmer his job.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Lambrecht should resign or Scholz fire her. Not just that this new year's video was tasteless, she's also incompetent and seems overwhelmed with the job. As were all of her CDU predecessors.

At this point, I think we should have a indepdendent/non-partisan Defense Minister from the outside who's a proven manager of large and complex organisations. In this time, this position isn't a job for a partisan hack. It requires someone with effective managing qualities, knowledge of defense issues and leadership qualities.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1609956411391328258

I don’t see why, to be honest.

A resignation would spell the end of Lambrecht’s political career, and she is clearly not ready to do this. So Scholz would need to fire her, but this may not help him either. After all, Lambrecht is a great punching bag and the more the media focuses on her incompetence and tone-deafness. the less attention it pays to Scholz’s own lack of leadership, the SPD’s ambiguous relationship to the Bundeswehr, or the more structural problems at hand… besides, given that Scholz is committed to parity, he would need to replace her with another woman from Hesse (consider that Faeser may also step down this year), and I don’t see anyone in the SPD who could realistically take over.

Lambrecht is a tragic figure, of course. Everybody knows she wanted to become Minister of the Interior, but Olaf Scholz can be a cruel God…

(Also disagree with the CDU part: Guttenberg was popular and Jung also did a solid job. Von der Leyen was out of her depth, but at least she tried. AKK… well, she was bad but not as bad as Lambrecht is. And back then, nobody cared about the military anyway.)

[Pick Up the Phone]

So, we're not gonna talk about the terrorist attacks from New Year's Eve?

Terrorist attacks? In which parallel universe?

Just because they were committed by a "protected group" that is supported and glorified by the Atlas Antifa?

Seriously, what is wrong with you?

If I weren't the only member who had to deal with the medical emergencies at hand, caused by PUTP's comrades…

I usually don’t like to repeat myself but seriously…

this community would change their perception of immigration from certain countries.

…what is wrong with you?

Have you ever considered going to a specialist? Seeing Antifa terrorists everywhere cannot be healthy.