Today is election day

[oloriel]

And if memory serves, that was the most crowded polling station I've ever been to.

Jörg says it's probably a bad sign because it means that all those people who feel abandoned and misrepresented by regular politics crawled out of their holes to vote AfD (alt-very-right).

I'm hoping that rather, more people than usual were motivated to vote for the moderates in order to prevent the AfD getting too much of a foothold. Alternatively, since one of the major candidates (Liberal Democrats, i.e., sort of centre-ish) was born and raised in our little town, maybe they all want to give him an extra push.

Well, we'll find out tomorrow, but it's stressing me TF out. I mean. A high turnout is a good thing, but not if they vote AfD! Cmon fellow Germans, don't mess this up!

Comments

[heartofoshun]

I completely sympathize with your anxiety having experienced my worst nightmare in last presidential election here. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

[cowboy_r]

Ditto.

I did happen to see a headline somewhere suggesting that Ms. Merkle has won her race, though, so that seems hopeful?

[oloriel]

Not really.

You see, the fear was never that AfD would win a majority of votes and get to fill the chancellor's seat. The fear was that they would manage to cross the 5% hurdle, bringing them into the Federal Parliament at all. And according to the latest projections, they got 12.6%. So although they'll fortunately be constrained to opposition, they do get to vote on everything that passes through the Federal Parliament, and they do get to make motions.

Now of course, 87.4 % of voters did not vote for AfD and the strongest force continues to be Merkel's party (which was to be expected), but the fact that over 10% voted for a party that is openly racist, homophobic, antisemitic and Euro-sceptic nonetheless gives us nightmares.

Although maybe that just looks like good old German Angst from outside. >_>

[cowboy_r]

No, no pointing of the angst finger from here.

The world-wide upsurge of nationalist movements is deeply concerning to me, because I recognize that under that movement is economic concern, and under that is increasing instability. I worry that things are falling apart; that the center cannot hold.

I also worry that we're shuffling toward a third world war that nobody wants, all because we Americans let a sociopathic dotard be our face to the world.

[oloriel]

It is even more concerning when the economic concern is perceived instability rather than real instability, as is very often the case here. (I know that things are rather more real in the States.) People feel "left out" and "ignored" and "neglected" and "misrepresented" and want to blame someone - the establishment (TM), mainstream media, and of course, the foreigners who stole their jobs - and above all, do not want anyone else to have a piece of their cake. The actual background to that movement - in Germany, at least - is entitlement issues and the same lack of perspective that these people ascribe to the politicians who "no longer understand them".
Which doesn't make it any better, of course. If these people were truly desperate, it would be easier to forgive them for falling for right-wing rabble-rousers. But instead, they just don't want anyone else to be happy.

You're the second person to call him a dotard this week! ;) Seriously though, a while back (when the dotard started with his fire and fury rhetoric), Kim's answer was something along the lines of "We will keep a close watch on him" and I thought Wow, when the dictator of North Korea sounds more sensible than the president of the United States, we really should be worrying. :(

[cowboy_r]

Yeah, not long ago, Jenny tweeted something like "ego-baiting a dictator with nuclear weapons and nothing to lose is folly, bordering on madness. Kim Jong-Un should know better."

The sad thing about the economic stress in the US is that a great deal of it is manufactured. Income inequality has been growing since the 1970s, and has only recently reached a tipping point. But instead of looking at the actual causes of that growth of inequality, politicians keep trying to sell the same snake oil which created the chance for it to occur.

I feel like the whole thing could be resolved quickly, if we were more like bonobos, and less like chimpanzees.

[oloriel]

*high-fives Jenny*

The sad thing here is that half of our economic stress might (might) be genuine, but half is taken over unthinkingly because Things Are Bad In America. Seriously, some people look at complaints that come wafting across the great pond and go "OH YES IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME HERE". No it isn't, and the only ones likely to make it so are the right-wing assholes that you voted.
(If you look at the demographics of the past couple of elections here, it's really striking how poor/unemployed people with a high educational level tend to vote Left; poor/unemployed people with little education tend to vote AfD. Basically because the Left go "EVERYONE should be able to have a good life" while the Right go "ONLY WE have a right to a good life" and that seems to speak to a lot of people's entitlement issues.
There are problems with mainstream politics (TM) but the biggest of them is that they are governed by a combination of good ideas, lobbyism, individual politicians' egos, party ideology and that pesky thing called Actual Events. However, this is always going to be the case for any party, however noble or attractive their ideology...

Or if everybody actually held themselves to the same standards to which they hold other people.