There was also a broad consensus that the previous lockdown was too harsh, particulary when it came to closing down schools and kindergartens.
Thus we kept them open, which in combination with a general lax attitude and the cold temperature probably led to an increase of infections (the virus was never gone, its reproduction rate was just on a low level).
One part where Germany is still doing relatively ok is the number of fatalities, despite having the second oldest population in Europe.
Edited by Zarastro on Dec 14th 2020 at 4:33:50 PM
Let us also not forget the strong correlation between AfD vote share and COVID-19 case numbers. Not proof of a causal correlation but one certainly has to wonder. Especially when a AfD MP who broke the parliament's COVID-19 rules is now hospitalized with COVID-19
Edited by SeptimusHeap on Dec 18th 2020 at 5:17:26 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That certainly doesn't help, but in all fairness it is difficult to really attribute the outbreak to Af D-strongholds.
Berlin for example has been a Covid-Hotspot during the entire year, but Af D is not that strong there, with the worst hit district being Neuköln, which has many migrants and relatively few Af D-voters. And East Germany where the Af D generally is at its' strongest, is not doing much better or worse than West Germany.
Foreign Troper
Veggie-Hitler, aka Attila Hildmann, is finally being investigated for real
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
There is something particularly odious about a vegan Nazi, they care enough about the feelings and interests of other living things that they would abstain from animal products but they don't extend that courtesy to their fellow humans.
It's sickening.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
It's because they don't consider the people they're targeting to be humans, but "below animals".
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 19th 2020 at 7:29:41 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Hey now, Nazis championed animal rights from the start. (Not snark, there.)
roaming, lurking, arguing
And Armin Laschet is the new head of the CDU. I admit, I don't know much about him, other that he is not Merz and therefore not the worst option. He seems to be an old Black-Green, though he recently distanced himself from a possible CDU/Green coalition.
Still, looks like having a sympathetic soul as head of the CDU could be good for the Greens.
Merz with his economic expertise would have been the better choice as the one who reorganizes our post-pandemic economy, but I suppose Laschet was the safe choice for many. And he does have government experience as leader of Germany's largest sate and has won a difficult election before. His biggest rival from the Green party (whoever it will be) and Merz lack both.
Merz is really a strange case. In the months leading to this election, he made several convincing performances in political talk shows, yet he once again he failed to give a convincing speech. Well, he had three chances now, and he blew all of them, thus he has nobody to blame but him.
Edited by Zarastro on Jan 17th 2021 at 11:38:46 AM
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
He also immediately pivoted and 'offered' himself as minister for economy. You know, a job that is atm not available.
In the words of The Good Place "I took the form of a 45-year-old white man for a reason. I can only fail up."
Also the idea of "successful in business" ergo "good in government" can die in a fire.
Edited by 3of4 on Jan 17th 2021 at 12:28:58 PM
"You can reply to this Message!"
Yeah, what's good for business isn't necessarily good for the people, to put it mildly.
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
It is a good indication nonetheless that someone knows what he is talking about, and the economy will become the main topic in the next few years. Merz probably would have found it easier than the other candidates to challenge the Green party on the sustainability of their program.
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Especially when "good in business" basically means being a glorified lobbyist for a hedge fund. I'd say every person who opened their own hair salon has more "business experience" than that, and I frankly doubt a Merz is concerned with them in regards to 'rebuilding the economy'.
Remember, this is the millionaire who claimed do be middle class despite owning two private planes.
His idea to rebuild the economy would probably be some fancy worded version of trickle down economics. Shove it down the throats of big business and maybe the small businesses and workers will get some crumbs.
I might ask someone who works on cars to help me fix mine, but I'd still rather buy one *built* by an actual engineer.
Edited by 3of4 on Jan 17th 2021 at 12:43:06 PM
"You can reply to this Message!"
If you had listened to Merz's proposals you'd know this is not the case.
Oh, bother.
It's patently absurd to think that being good at business means being good at government. Being good at business means being good at generating profit. That's it. Government should not be focused only on generating profit - that's not what government is supposed to do.
Disgusted, but not surprised
roaming, lurking, arguing
The end-result is that CDU now has a new head, who will likely keep the party on the center-left path it has been since Merkel. There are multiple potential benefactors from this development.
First would be the Greens, as Laschet will be likely more open to compromising on their position as Merz would have been. And while coalitions have been ruled out for now, things can change fast, especially some elections pass. Laschet could very well be opening the door for the Greens towards the federal gorvenment.
The second one would be Söder, who seems to have strengthened his position in the Union and is now considered a serious contender for chancellorship. That he tends to be a more palatable alternative for center-right and right-wing voters than the AFD in many places helps him, as well. The more the latter sabotages themselves, the stronger Söder gets, especially with the "Corona-Boost" he's got in public opinion.
Not sure what Merkel thinks of this, but she might be happy that Merz hasn't managed to get anywhere, given how much effort she put into keeping him out of any significant power.
Edited by TheNohen on Jan 17th 2021 at 1:49:29 PM
Oh, bother.
If Merkel really put in efforts to keep someone out of any real power as much as possible, then there's probably a lot of damn good reasons to not want that person in charge.
Especially since Merkel is presumably more informed about Merz than the general public.
Disgusted, but not surprised
A procrastination in of itself
The German Greens are a concerning group to see benefiting, my understanding is that their anti-science positions are part of what's kept Germany so heavily on coal and gas power rather than allowing nuclear.
The last thing we need is Germany doing even more environmental damage because of the Greens, there's been enough of that as is.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
roaming, lurking, arguing
The Greens in germany are actually rather reasonable. They do have sadly the same loonies as similar parties in other nations, but they are not very influential and the current leadership is, if anything, surprisingly progressive and pro-science.
Speaking as someone who votes Green, they are slowly taking the position of the SPD as the progressive, social party, which contributes to their growing popularity and the SPD's loss in votes.
Its true that they started out as anti-nuclear and its still part of their party-programm, so that point sticks. But please, don't compare them to, say, the Greens in the United States.
The Greens have two wings. The Ökos and the Realos. The former had been leading the party since their inception and are pretty much your standard-fare green activists, radicals and anarchists. The Realos are more pragmatic, interest in actually governing and supporting social programms and progressive policies.
The Realos have been ousting the Ökos from party-leadership a few years ago and since then the party has basically boomed in popularity and influence. The Ökos by now have been reduced to a minor faction within the Greens and don't hold much influence.
Edited by TheNohen on Jan 17th 2021 at 2:26:27 PM
Merkel did not really put in any real effort to keep Merz out though. He lost his first power struggle with her like so many other men, quit politics and only came back when she could no longer oppose him. Obviously she doesn't want him as party leader because he would be more tempted to criticize her, but they are not that far apart on many issues as one might think. Merkel did not want Roettgen as party leader for the same reason, despite him being very centrist and on board with her foreign political decisions (with foreign policy being his field of expertise).
Well, the Green party now wants to phase out coal prematurely too, without any credible explanation where Germany could reliably get its' energy from. You can phase out either nuclear energy or coal, not both at the same time. There are reasons why one might want to phase out nuclear energy, but cutting CO 2 emissions is not one of them.
Not sure if I agree with this assesment. The Ökos still have a lot of influence and forced the Green party after 2019 to furthermore increase their demands for phasing out coal against better knowledge, putting a lot of pressure on the federal leadership to change their stance on many issues and are putting their party in coalitions on the state level in a bind e.g. when it comes to long decided infrastructure projects (e.g. Hessen).
It will be very interesting to see what happens if Kretschmann should lose his reelection this year. His possible replacements in the party are hardly realos from what I have read.
Edited by Zarastro on Jan 17th 2021 at 2:37:40 PM
roaming, lurking, arguing
I'm not saying, the Greens are without issues. No party is. But there is a significant difference in competence between them and your standard Green-party that yells about how vaccine are evil and such things. The Greens in germany are an actual competent party and there is nothing wrong with voting for them.
Not to mention, for many frustrated ex-SPD voters the Greens offer a more stable and effective alternative.
As for Merkel, one shouldn't forget that Merkel is, beyond anything else, a power-player. Idealism doesn't play as big as a role for her, which makes her politically very flexible. Roettgen, Merz and, to an extent, zu Guttenberg all challenged her authority and she never reacts well to that. Just look what happened to Seehofer and his "grand plans".
In the end, Merz should not be anywhere near real power, both for the sake of the economy and good governance. Heck, the only people who would look forward to him in power are the FDP and that should not be an endorsement.
Edited by TheNohen on Jan 17th 2021 at 2:35:28 PM
The German Greens are a concerning group to see benefiting, my understanding is that their anti-science positions are part of what's kept Germany so heavily on coal and gas power rather than allowing nuclear.
The last thing we need is Germany doing even more environmental damage because of the Greens, there's been enough of that as is.
Okay, some corrections.
First of all, the Greens aren't the reason why we're on coal right now, the CDU is. The Greens were nowhere near power when Germany pulled a nuclear exit - it was a 180° turn by Merkel in the aftermath of Fukushima.
Even before that most Germans were... skeptical of nuclear power at best due to incidents like Chernobyl (and later Fukushima), France and Belgium operating failure-prone plants right at our border, the financial costs involved with running those plants and the fact that producing more nuclear waste when we didn't even have a final storage facility was an utterly ridiculous idea.
And calling opponents of nulcear energy "anti-science" is downright slanderous - people aren't against nuclear power plants because they don't understand or reject the science behind them - people just don't trust the people running them to actually keep them safe.
I still remember reading Die Wolke in school and I assume most German tropers in here are at least aware of that book.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jan 17th 2021 at 2:40:42 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Which, given how safe modern plants tend go be, is not a very scientific point of view. You have a point with your other arguments though.
As for the Energiewende, the Greens were of course an important factor in Merkel's considerations. The first (and so far only) Green Ministerpräsident was elected after Fukushima, and the Green party was polling at 25%+. Merkel knew that the Greens would have used Fukushima as a rallying cry for the federal elections, thus she basically eliminated the topic. One way or another, nuclear energy was dead in Germany after Fukushima.
Foreign Troper
I think the Greens are the best choice to vote for Center-Left people currently.
I mean, what are the alternatives? The SPD is nothing but a sad shadow of it's former self, and the Left Party.....has some good people but also a massive issue with GDR apologia.
Other than that, who else is there, except for jokes like the Pirate Party, "Die Partei" or fringe Communists?
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
People patting themselves on the back for how we handled things in Spring and being too lax this time around, Politicians being too craven to go hard Lockdown when they should have and people just being idiots and partying and shit.
Edited by 3of4 on Dec 14th 2020 at 3:51:06 PM
"You can reply to this Message!"