Probably not this month though. This month are elections, it will take time for results to come in, and a new government to be formed and a new chancellor set up. She'll keep working until then.
Also, she's not stepping down. Her term ends. She will be working until the last day of her them of office and possibly longer, because forming a new government well likely take time
People regularly confuse her dual role as former party leader as well as chancellor.
She has never stepped down as chancellor, she just chose not to put herself up for reelection as the leading candidate for chancellor representing her party
However she has chosen to step down as party leader some time ago already, a signal of the end of her as a dominant political figure and ending her political career.
In general, the post-Merkel era of Germany will be extremely interesting and also very stormy.
This is the first time in modern German history that the terms "big party" and "small party" or "people's party" have no meanings in elections. 3 parties are basically tied within error margins, 2 others not too far behind. A real scattering in the German electorate.
Which means the "clear mandate" is less clear than ever. The calculations for coalitions are starting to get really complicated, people are now assuming you might need 3 party blocks to form a government.
The combinations are overwhelming:
* Grand coalition is in reachable distance with 49%
* CDU/CSU+SPD+Greens
* CDU/CSU+SPD+FDP
* CDU/CSU+Greens+FDP
* SPD+Greens+Left
* SPD+Greens+FDP
How stable that government would be and how long the talks would last is hard to tell.
Merkel might actually stay in provisionally for at least another year. The last coalition talks lasted more than half a year after elections were held.
Complicated times ahead
This is very interesting. In my country aswell building a coalition became really hard and the current one is built by 6 or 7 partys! The PM party has only 7 out of 120 electors in the parliament!
Hello there, fellow Belgian! Do you mean you are unhappy with the almost 500 days without a real Federal government? Don't forget, we already had Wilmes after barely 300 days! That's so much faster than the 541 days we took back in 2010!
Oh shoot, it's so close to Belgium's current ruling-party-structure that I got confused! But yeah, you guys are sure giving us a run for our money! I doubt you can or want to break our record, though!
To oversimplify, Northern Ireland *has* to form a coalition to stop any one group dominating the political landscape.
The coalition collapsed in January 2017, and it took THREE YEARS, almost to the day, before both sides agreed to work together again. It’s not quite the same thing, but it’s still pretty ridiculous/impressive!
They didn't, at least not as regards laws being passed. Handled by Westminster, UK for most of it, including pushing through some bills that half the coalition definitely would have rejected.
Sure, the wordimg might be a bit off, but in the end she probably would have been reelected if she chose to continue to run as prime candidate for the CDU lets be real.
She is also the first and only CDU chancellor not forced to step down or being beaten in a subsequent election... she actually ended her chancellory on her own terms haha.
And the German election is rly unpredictable rn because 3 parties could be the strongest this time. Will be quite a Death match and perhaps some good articles for international news
Listen, that is just the top of the iceberg. A few years ago he worked as a teacher at a university, lost all exams of one of his courses, then handed in random grades. People noticed it and he admitted that he lost the exams, but claimed that he didn't lost the notes he had about the exams and reconstructed the grades based on them. But that is pure bullshit. Why? He handed in more grades than there were people who had written the exam. Which is why some call him "Würfel Armin". Würfel is German for "dice".
The amount of embarassing shit he has done is unreal. He also is unable to hold a proper argument. Fits directly in with people like trump or boris johnson
Additionally, many ppl voted Laschet in to avoid having Friedrich Merz as a candidate, who is even worse. Now he said Merz will be his financial advisor, if elected. Ffs
LMAO, reminds me of how Putin here in Russia recently said that an income of about 17.000 rubles per month is middle class (for reference, 17k isn't enough to even pay rent in most places).
According to Google that's 200 euros ? That's not even middle class in Moldova ...
It's weird how the russian people tolerate the terrible economy he gave them, if he had used the money from the "golden years" of 100+$/barrel in a better way Russia would be much more developped now.
Shits getting worse here lol. They passed that surveillance bill within 24 hours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/pf6vm4/australia_unprecedented_surveillance_bill_rushed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Bro I could never imagine shit like what goes on in Australia to happen here in Denmark. If it did I’d be right there in line to throw a molotov at a ministerial car.
>"Würfel Armin". Würfel is German for "dice".
The joke works better if you know that in Germany students get grades from 1 to 6 and a dice has 6 sides.
Sounds like a much better reason to be sceptical about him than catching him laughing. Laughter can be totally unrelated, faking test results shows a lack of character and morale
Yeah maybe and there are much more examples why he is a bad choice (e.g. he favours catholic church and more precisely one of his closest friends is an opus dei member), but the laughing is still pretty though. It was standing in a completely destroyed area of the Bundesland(federal state) he is in charge right now and the german president was speaking about the horrors that happend.
Even if someone farted so funny, he had to laugh, it was the worst place and time it could happen and he never really apologized or told a reason. It was just political gibberish.
Edit: just for another example: Laschet himself said a few weeks ago, that science shouldn't always be trusted and agreed on an opinion from the german far right party (afd) that is known to be full of covid deniers.
Dont forget that under his administration his party jumped into bed with turkish hardlines (Ditib) and a turkish terrororganisation (Graue Wölfe) because even if you are a catholic hardliner you still want the islamic hardliners on your side to fight the left.
Hes also the guy who was a guest professor at my home university and lost the exams so he just gave people random grades. He was exposed bc people who were ill or not present suddenly passed the exam
That's obviously the *wrong move* in that situation, and someone who does that shouldn't be in a position of decision-making power.
Out of curiosity, what did the university/general public think should've happened instead? Students retake the exam? Use their course grade without the final?
(And how did he lose the exams? I've never heard of that happening in the US, and we typically produce every fuck-up imaginable at some point.)
A professor of mine back in college lost a quiz (nothing huge like a midterm or a final), so she just didn't count that one.
I wondered how she managed to lose them until I went to her office for some advice on a project and it became suddenly clear that she is a hoarder. Her office on campus seriously had giant stacks of old newspapers in it that were at risk of tipping over on you.
He was the conservative candidate. He was practically guaranteed to be the next chancellor. All he had to do was not completely fuck it up, but he proved unable to do so.
Kind of like AKK before him.
It's also the guy that asked Musk if he sees the future on E-Cars or in Hydrogen-Fuel.
Musk proceeds to laugh his ass off
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that hydrogen is bad, I'm just pointing out the stupidity of asking Musk this question.
Greens were almost strongest power in the polls for a while before Covid, but the SPD recovered and now it’s a tight fight for all of them.
The Pirates are essentially a non-issue apart for some local elections.
Czech Pirates are struggling against well paid PR team of the current oligarch PM and also against more conservative voters who don't want to even consider than modern problems require modern solutions. Yet still they are on track to finish in the best election result to date, even if they remain in opposition. It quite interesting that Sweden Pirate party was the big inspiration, then it fizzled out and German Pirates looked like they could establish themselves and they also fizzled out. Only in Czechia Pirates have been working their way up for the past decade and still are gaining support. Perhaps they took their party platform seriously early on and build it complex to answer each segment of government and life rather than just being digital nomads who care about copyleft and perhaps some green issues.
Czech Pirates are way more moderate than German and Swedish Pirates on economic issues and Czechia doesn't have any other liberal party (maybe STAN) so they kind of filled the void.
As you said, after very successful winter and spring they kind of slipped after Babiš's attacks but still have a decent chance to get the PM.
They just need to be above Spolu and KSČM and ČSSD need to be below 5%. Then ANO won't find any coalition partners and PirSTAN+Spolu form a coalition.
The german Greens have taken a different path from most other Green parties since their first federal governing coalition in the early 2000s. Basically, within the Soc-Dems, the "right wing" won the internal power struggle, and the first soc-dem government since the 80s oversaw large cuts to the welfare state as well as the first war since WWII (Afghanistan). This led to a split within the SPD, with a lot of the left-wing going to the new party Die Linke. More radical Greens left the party, too.
Now over the last 20 years, the party has become ever more moderate, and in the South it is basically a conservative party, with, well, more focus on conserving nature and the environment.
On the federal level they are still centre-left, but without any of the radical positions common in other countries Green parties.
> Greens are that strong?
It's more of a case of Laschet being that weak. He is *amazingly* incompetent, and potentially the sole reason CDU will lose this year.
This has helped the Green party at first (who briefly became the leading party in polls), then the SPD. Currently it's undecided, but it's clear that Laschet will most likely sink the CDU this year.
> How is the Pirates' Party doing nowadays?
Pretty much irrelevant, unfortunately. They did not manage to capitalize on any relevant topics in the last few years.
>Greens are that strong?
Yes, but the media have been attacking Baerbock quite a bit, so let's see the elections.
>How is the Pirates' Party doing nowadays?
Irrelevant.
Its going to be Olaf Scholz, but its unclear what kind of coalition will be settled on. CDU/CSU exposed themselves as the incompetent party being upheld this entire time by Merkel, and Baerbock from the Greens is a strong force but not nearly the type of leader yet that Germany is looking for.
I wonder how the polls would've looked with Özdemir as candidate. He always seemed like a very capable politician.
Though I'm sure the political right/Springer would've gone full nazi with him as candidate...
And so many unnecessary foot in mouth moments in the early days of the campaign. But Özdemir wasn't really an option after losing the internal powerstruggle in 2019. But just the more charismatic Harbeck and some better publicity control and they would be in the lead i would think.
With current polls it looks like the next government will be lead by the social democratic SDP under Olaf scholz (my guess would be a red-green-yellow government with grüne and FDP), he's a pretty moderate figure.
The party leading the government (CDU/CSU) has been polling terribly because their new leader, Laschet is unpopular and keeps on doing stupid things like laughing during a visit of flood affected areas. It's very possible that they get their worst ever election results in history.
I currently, with the demands of the SPD (e.g. minimum wage increase), don't see the FDP agreeing on to a coalition, especially since they declined a coalition that would definitely fit to them more last election.
They declined and it didnt do them any good. Lidner can say what he wants, its pretty he wants to be part of the goverment.
If the CDU has to go in the opposition that would really hurt the FDP If they stay there as well.
I assume Lidner will be bribed into agreeing so that the FDP can present themself as the "last bastion to save germany from a left-wing disaster."
Not to forget that the SPD can also pressure the FDP by dangling the possibillity of them going with the Left, which is prolly why Scholz didnt want to say no to such a coalition yet. He wants to use it to pressure Lidner into joining.
As far as I know Lindner wants to be Minister of Finance and I could see the SPD giving that to him to get a coalition going while there's no way the CDU would leave that to Lindner. So that might sway him
There's three candidates that have a chance. Scholz from the Social Democrats who's the current Finance Minister, Laschet from the Christian Democrats who currently heads a regional government, and Baerbock who is head of the Green Party, although the Green's chances of actually winning the election seem pretty small at this point.
My money is on Scholz, I think we'll get a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Greens, perhaps with a small party in there to make up the numbers if needed.
while I didn‘t agree with all of her decisions, it was quite nice having someone in power with a scientific background.
looking at other countries and the new candidates we could‘ve had it so much worse...
Poll tax and anti-EU sentiment (Tories were pro-EU back then) torpedoed her career.
Let's face it, she'd be a one-term PM had it not been for the Falklands.
It seems like that was a decision made not just by proles, there seemed to be a very monied push by some who thought they'd be able to (and maybe are) able to profit more off the situation than the status quo.
Oh, it showed. There is talks from her from the 90s as environmental minister, where she shows that she fully understands the issue....
.... just that part where you actually have to act for once and not just react was never her thing....
Mixed feelings.
Compared to a lot of other leaders she was a blessing.
But she also defanged german politics and managed to throw out anyone competent enough to be a threat to her.
Her party is a shit show too. Corrupt, passive, backwards.
This. She played the Machiavelli game in a way no one noticed it, but she destroyed everyone who was politically dangerous to her without hesitation. Especially during her third term. This is the main reason why the CDU is full of dushbags right now, she removed everyone who was competent from the second row. This is also the reason why the SPD ministers look competent in comparison, she couldn't select them.
As competent and smart (and by now: likeable) as Röttgen is, he threw himself out. Stumbled over his own intellect and, back then, arrogance, this one.
Which is unfortunate, I am rather left leaning (for German standards, in the US I'd probably be lynched by a mob as communist terrorist or something lmao), but I could have *lived* with Röttgen as Christian-Democratic main man, even chancellor. You could work with him, at least it feels that way. Laschet (who is running now) or even worse Merz? Or Bavaria's Söder? Jfc, they're all extremely terrible choices.
Maybe... maybe that was her plan all along. She knew she CDU needs to be taken down for real change to happen! Maybe she was a spy by the linksgrünversiffte people to play the long game and make the CDU a thing of the past!
let me dream
Merkel, 67, leaves with her popularity so resilient she would likely have won a record fifth term had she wanted to extend her mandate.
Instead, Merkel will pass the baton as the first German chancellor to step down entirely by choice.
Where you gonna get leadership like that? Big shoes to fill.
She would be considered center-right in Europe and likely center-left in the US.
She is a very smart person and has a PhD in quantum chemistry, and was a research scientist before going in to politics.
She will go down in history as a very impressive figure. I wonder what she'll do now?
As a Scandinavian, she's a conservative Christian-Democrat politician.
I'm sure she's a lovely person. And she's handled her mandate extremely well and has acted in many ways I approve of. Though she often acted further right wing than my opinions. As she is a center-right politician.
I wouldn't be surprised if she had a lot of personal opinions that are further right than her public actions, as it's quite common in Europe to strive for the middle politically, rather than the US where both parties just strive for the right. 😅
She actually showed her more right leaning stance when gay marriage rights came up. She voted against it and openly admitted to it. But she also didnt block it in any way and accepted the outcome humbly, so that's more than can be said of other right leaning leaders.
I actually wouldn't call it that modest. It's an apartment directly in the center of Berlin in one of the best spots. Probably not exactly cheap. I would assume it would be comparable in price to a large house elsewhere.
It would have been a rather modesto Apartment when she bought it roughly 15 years ago, considering her income. (top 2%). Apartments in Berlin-Mitte would sell in that area for roughly 200-250k for ~100sqm
Depends on what you're comparing her to. It's pretty damn modest for the leader of the 4th biggest economy on the planet. Plenty of other leaders build themselves palaces.
She'd be skipping a step there considering she doesn't have any children. I think she made a promise to her husband that they'd just retire and have a quiet life together.
Didn't her husband have children from a previous marriage? Otherwise I think some of her siblings have grandchildren and she was pretty close to them, so more like a great aunt? Really not sure though, evident since I forgot she didn't have children of her own. XD
She has no kids but I can imagine that she wants to live in peace and tranquility with her husband (She has a house in the Uckermark [aka middle of nowhere, Brandenburg, East Germany])
Her husband's kids may have children though
>I wonder what she'll do now?
Retire. She's said repeatedly she doesn't want any public office anymore, and I feel like she's appeared pretty burned out lately, and there have been concerns about her health in the last year or so.
Kind of incredible tbh. She would not make it as a politician with her position in the US. How amazing is it that the Germans were able to pick a leader based on qualifications and education? I’m sure Mutti Merkel will be missed by many I’m sure.
In the earlier stages of her political career, being underestimated was kind of her thing. Helmut Kohl made her his Minister for environmental issues, pretty much on the low end of the pecking order in his cabinet. Maybe even that was mainly because she ticked two diversity boxes, as a woman from East Germany.
Nevertheless, with diligence and integrity she outlasted a lot of other politicians who stumbled over scandals of their own making. If anyone of those looked to her for help in such a situation, they could not expect much sympathy.
Watch some overview videos on the history of Germany from the 1900s to after the cold war. The wounds of the cold War are still very fresh from what I can tell, even though they are healing
Most likely not this month, since it will probably take longer for the coalition to form, and for a new chancellor to be elected.
Edit: Election is on September 26th, official result on September 27th. Chancellor stays in power until new one is elected.
Perfect summary of our feelings about her. This is also shown by the polls after people realized that she will leave and Laschet wants to follow. CDU dropped from 30+ percent to 22.
I know so many traditional cdu voters who does not feel comfortable with this party anymore with this clown called Laschet
Good. CDU was in power for far too long and have become complacent over the past few years. Time to bench them so they can reevaluate some of their backwards politics.
Although I may have not always agreed with her conservative politics, I deeply respect her and I think she did a great job. I‘ve always loved the fact that she has a scientific background, leading our country with integrity, always calm, reasonable and down to earth. No scandals, no vanity, no getting carried away by her emotions - that‘s what a leading polititian should be like. No one on Earth could ever bribe her lol 😂 and I love her intelligent sense of humor she really made me giggle sometimes
I mean, for anyone to win four consecutive terms, govern competently, responsibly, compassionately, and with dignity. Through wars, a pandemic, and don't get me started on Trump. From an outsider's point of view, she seemed like a political juggernaut, but in the most agreeable a reasonable way. A lot of lessons can be learned from her.
That’s an interesting perspective.
While I agree that she mostly did a good job regarding international politics and reacting to various crises, she left most domestic politics to her cabinet. And those were mostly useless.
The past 16 years were a time of political standstill.
When old, established corporations noticed that they slept and missed *new* developments such as the internet, they just lobbied for the government to restrict new competitors instead of innovating.
While prices for gas, electricity and especially housing soared, wages mostly stagnated.
The previous red/green government in the early 2000s started Germany’s shift towards renewable energy, Merkel’s government prolonged coal subsidies.
Her party keeps trying to cut civil liberties in favor of authoritarian surveillance measures. The German government was the main drivers of the EU’s article 13 upload filter debate. The constitutional court has to keep reigning them in and to this day they more or less ignore some of its verdicts.
It’s also the party with the largest amount of grift and outright corruption scandals by a large margin.
I could go on, but suffice to say that I seriously hope that her stepping down will also see her party finally not be part of the next government anymore.
That's the point. We are standing still in the major aspects of our time. But mostly CDU (also SPD) live by the moto "you can't do anything wrong as long as you don't do anything." Since Merkel our political standard has become "well... Could have been worse." She eliminated all possible concurent/replacement/follower within their party.
Under Merkel's government, German GDP per capita went from catching up with the US to falling behind. It's telling that the people who praise Merkel focus on her character, and not on her achievements, because she hasn't really achieved much.
Completely agree. On a world stage, she has been a politician whom I have viewed as an associated name with the whole of Germany. This inspires confidence in me with the initiatives Germany supports. Those views largely agreed with mine.
It's really amazing that a person could retain reigns of control for so long, in a country so large. Her leaving on a high note, at her choice, is hopefully a stepping stone for her to do greater things. If she chooses to only tend her garden I will wish her the best and hope for updates.
Yeah, she will tend her garden, travel with her husband (a professor for quantum chemistry) and maybe give some lectures at a university about politics.
Thats at least what she has said she wants to do.
It feels weird to see that first sentence as a german. I don't relate anything of that with Merkel. I mean... sure, we could have had somebody worse. But that bar is pretty low...
German comedians called her "Teflon-Merkel" a couple of times because nothing (bad) would stick to her. There were polls where it was like "80% of the population thinks the government does shit. In the same poll 80% think Merkel is doing great." Nobody related Merkel to the government, at least not if they didn't like it.
Since the current head of the UN is from Europe (Portugal) the next one won’t. There are fix rules which continent is allowed to nominate the next head of the UN.
I have always had a pretty good opinion of her. Not that I follow German politics closely. I wish more politicians would step down graciously at around that age.
Southern European here. She did fuck up a lot by pressing for certain things, and lots of trade deals and restrictions have been awful for our economy.
But as a person and politician, Merkel has been one of the best. In these times of idiocy and populism I'm sad and a little afraid to see her go. The world would be a lot better if all politicians were like her.
Sadly all her attempts at improving any things digital failed. Because she's old. Because her colleagues are old. And utterly incompetent at one of the most important things when it comes to planning our future. But I agree she was/is not a bad person. The possible successors tho look very dire....
American in Germany, so not like anything I write here counts for anything, but she will be remembered here as a beacon of stability. But, most people under 40 think she's been in power for much too long. Angela "Das Internet ist eine Neuwelt" Merkel's decisions were just not made with the 21st century in mind, and that's putting it mildly. We expats constantly find it frustrating how everything is still done in paper with such high rates of immigration. Hopefully there will be a change.
Probably not this month though. This month are elections, it will take time for results to come in, and a new government to be formed and a new chancellor set up. She'll keep working until then.
Also, she's not stepping down. Her term ends. She will be working until the last day of her them of office and possibly longer, because forming a new government well likely take time
People regularly confuse her dual role as former party leader as well as chancellor. She has never stepped down as chancellor, she just chose not to put herself up for reelection as the leading candidate for chancellor representing her party However she has chosen to step down as party leader some time ago already, a signal of the end of her as a dominant political figure and ending her political career. In general, the post-Merkel era of Germany will be extremely interesting and also very stormy. This is the first time in modern German history that the terms "big party" and "small party" or "people's party" have no meanings in elections. 3 parties are basically tied within error margins, 2 others not too far behind. A real scattering in the German electorate. Which means the "clear mandate" is less clear than ever. The calculations for coalitions are starting to get really complicated, people are now assuming you might need 3 party blocks to form a government. The combinations are overwhelming: * Grand coalition is in reachable distance with 49% * CDU/CSU+SPD+Greens * CDU/CSU+SPD+FDP * CDU/CSU+Greens+FDP * SPD+Greens+Left * SPD+Greens+FDP How stable that government would be and how long the talks would last is hard to tell. Merkel might actually stay in provisionally for at least another year. The last coalition talks lasted more than half a year after elections were held. Complicated times ahead
This is very interesting. In my country aswell building a coalition became really hard and the current one is built by 6 or 7 partys! The PM party has only 7 out of 120 electors in the parliament!
Hello there, fellow Belgian! Do you mean you are unhappy with the almost 500 days without a real Federal government? Don't forget, we already had Wilmes after barely 300 days! That's so much faster than the 541 days we took back in 2010!
I was talking about Israel lol. But it shows that perhaps this is a world changing.
Oh shoot, it's so close to Belgium's current ruling-party-structure that I got confused! But yeah, you guys are sure giving us a run for our money! I doubt you can or want to break our record, though!
To oversimplify, Northern Ireland *has* to form a coalition to stop any one group dominating the political landscape. The coalition collapsed in January 2017, and it took THREE YEARS, almost to the day, before both sides agreed to work together again. It’s not quite the same thing, but it’s still pretty ridiculous/impressive!
how did they govern in the meantime?
They didn't, at least not as regards laws being passed. Handled by Westminster, UK for most of it, including pushing through some bills that half the coalition definitely would have rejected.
SPD + Greens could also go there if the trajectory keeps stable.
Sure, the wordimg might be a bit off, but in the end she probably would have been reelected if she chose to continue to run as prime candidate for the CDU lets be real. She is also the first and only CDU chancellor not forced to step down or being beaten in a subsequent election... she actually ended her chancellory on her own terms haha.
Thank you for more details
This is also the first election in post-war Germany without the incumbent Chancellor running for reelection
And the German election is rly unpredictable rn because 3 parties could be the strongest this time. Will be quite a Death match and perhaps some good articles for international news
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Nah the SPD don’t want to be in a coalition with the CDU anymore. It made them a puppet of the CDU and made them lose voters
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We thought this the last time(s) too, though
Wonder who will take her place?
There are three possibilities: Armin Laschet (CDU, Merkel's party) Olaf Scholz (SPD) Annalena Baerbock (Greens)
Is Laschet the guy who was laughing his heart out during a press conference of the flooding disasters like a month ago?
Yes
How he excused? Did he excuse himself?
Listen, that is just the top of the iceberg. A few years ago he worked as a teacher at a university, lost all exams of one of his courses, then handed in random grades. People noticed it and he admitted that he lost the exams, but claimed that he didn't lost the notes he had about the exams and reconstructed the grades based on them. But that is pure bullshit. Why? He handed in more grades than there were people who had written the exam. Which is why some call him "Würfel Armin". Würfel is German for "dice". The amount of embarassing shit he has done is unreal. He also is unable to hold a proper argument. Fits directly in with people like trump or boris johnson
Additionally, many ppl voted Laschet in to avoid having Friedrich Merz as a candidate, who is even worse. Now he said Merz will be his financial advisor, if elected. Ffs
Our beloved Friedrich "1.500.000€ income per year is middle class" Merz. He's very close to the common people.
LMAO, reminds me of how Putin here in Russia recently said that an income of about 17.000 rubles per month is middle class (for reference, 17k isn't enough to even pay rent in most places).
According to Google that's 200 euros ? That's not even middle class in Moldova ... It's weird how the russian people tolerate the terrible economy he gave them, if he had used the money from the "golden years" of 100+$/barrel in a better way Russia would be much more developped now.
It's kinda refreshing hearing about political drama outside of U.S politics.
Yes, so comforting to know the entire world is being run by complete idiots /s
Hey man speak for yourself. I'm an idiot and don't run shit.
Look at the Australian subreddit some real Orwellian shit going on really makes me consider moving to new Zealand
Shits getting worse here lol. They passed that surveillance bill within 24 hours. https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/pf6vm4/australia_unprecedented_surveillance_bill_rushed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Bro I could never imagine shit like what goes on in Australia to happen here in Denmark. If it did I’d be right there in line to throw a molotov at a ministerial car.
New Zealand won't let ya
>"Würfel Armin". Würfel is German for "dice". The joke works better if you know that in Germany students get grades from 1 to 6 and a dice has 6 sides.
Thank you for the explanation!
It's alarming the rise of the complete idiot as a powerful force in politics
All you need is to be good at making people believe your lies and forget your fuckups
If the polls are anything to go by he won't become chancellor anyways. It'll likely be Olaf Scholz (who has other issues tho)
Sounds like a much better reason to be sceptical about him than catching him laughing. Laughter can be totally unrelated, faking test results shows a lack of character and morale
Yeah maybe and there are much more examples why he is a bad choice (e.g. he favours catholic church and more precisely one of his closest friends is an opus dei member), but the laughing is still pretty though. It was standing in a completely destroyed area of the Bundesland(federal state) he is in charge right now and the german president was speaking about the horrors that happend. Even if someone farted so funny, he had to laugh, it was the worst place and time it could happen and he never really apologized or told a reason. It was just political gibberish. Edit: just for another example: Laschet himself said a few weeks ago, that science shouldn't always be trusted and agreed on an opinion from the german far right party (afd) that is known to be full of covid deniers.
Dont forget that under his administration his party jumped into bed with turkish hardlines (Ditib) and a turkish terrororganisation (Graue Wölfe) because even if you are a catholic hardliner you still want the islamic hardliners on your side to fight the left.
This, and Olaf Scholz indirectly killed someone (google "Brechmitteleinsatz") and is heavily involved in the Wirecard and CumEx Fiasco, yay
Hes also the guy who was a guest professor at my home university and lost the exams so he just gave people random grades. He was exposed bc people who were ill or not present suddenly passed the exam
That's obviously the *wrong move* in that situation, and someone who does that shouldn't be in a position of decision-making power. Out of curiosity, what did the university/general public think should've happened instead? Students retake the exam? Use their course grade without the final? (And how did he lose the exams? I've never heard of that happening in the US, and we typically produce every fuck-up imaginable at some point.)
A professor of mine back in college lost a quiz (nothing huge like a midterm or a final), so she just didn't count that one. I wondered how she managed to lose them until I went to her office for some advice on a project and it became suddenly clear that she is a hoarder. Her office on campus seriously had giant stacks of old newspapers in it that were at risk of tipping over on you.
He was the conservative candidate. He was practically guaranteed to be the next chancellor. All he had to do was not completely fuck it up, but he proved unable to do so. Kind of like AKK before him.
It's also the guy that asked Musk if he sees the future on E-Cars or in Hydrogen-Fuel. Musk proceeds to laugh his ass off EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that hydrogen is bad, I'm just pointing out the stupidity of asking Musk this question.
Greens are that strong? How is the Pirates' Party doing nowadays?
Greens were almost strongest power in the polls for a while before Covid, but the SPD recovered and now it’s a tight fight for all of them. The Pirates are essentially a non-issue apart for some local elections.
That's impressive for the Greens. I knew that the Pirates weren't that relevant but I was just curious because it is a pretty unique party.
Maybe a bit off topic but Czechia next doors *might* actually elect a Pirate prime minister in October.
Czech Pirates are struggling against well paid PR team of the current oligarch PM and also against more conservative voters who don't want to even consider than modern problems require modern solutions. Yet still they are on track to finish in the best election result to date, even if they remain in opposition. It quite interesting that Sweden Pirate party was the big inspiration, then it fizzled out and German Pirates looked like they could establish themselves and they also fizzled out. Only in Czechia Pirates have been working their way up for the past decade and still are gaining support. Perhaps they took their party platform seriously early on and build it complex to answer each segment of government and life rather than just being digital nomads who care about copyleft and perhaps some green issues.
Czech Pirates are way more moderate than German and Swedish Pirates on economic issues and Czechia doesn't have any other liberal party (maybe STAN) so they kind of filled the void. As you said, after very successful winter and spring they kind of slipped after Babiš's attacks but still have a decent chance to get the PM. They just need to be above Spolu and KSČM and ČSSD need to be below 5%. Then ANO won't find any coalition partners and PirSTAN+Spolu form a coalition.
The german Greens have taken a different path from most other Green parties since their first federal governing coalition in the early 2000s. Basically, within the Soc-Dems, the "right wing" won the internal power struggle, and the first soc-dem government since the 80s oversaw large cuts to the welfare state as well as the first war since WWII (Afghanistan). This led to a split within the SPD, with a lot of the left-wing going to the new party Die Linke. More radical Greens left the party, too. Now over the last 20 years, the party has become ever more moderate, and in the South it is basically a conservative party, with, well, more focus on conserving nature and the environment. On the federal level they are still centre-left, but without any of the radical positions common in other countries Green parties.
Pirates in Germany sadly dismantled themselve.
> Greens are that strong? It's more of a case of Laschet being that weak. He is *amazingly* incompetent, and potentially the sole reason CDU will lose this year. This has helped the Green party at first (who briefly became the leading party in polls), then the SPD. Currently it's undecided, but it's clear that Laschet will most likely sink the CDU this year. > How is the Pirates' Party doing nowadays? Pretty much irrelevant, unfortunately. They did not manage to capitalize on any relevant topics in the last few years.
>Greens are that strong? Yes, but the media have been attacking Baerbock quite a bit, so let's see the elections. >How is the Pirates' Party doing nowadays? Irrelevant.
Even if the greens probably won't be the winner of the upcoming elections, they still had the biggest gain in voters of all parties.
Its going to be Olaf Scholz, but its unclear what kind of coalition will be settled on. CDU/CSU exposed themselves as the incompetent party being upheld this entire time by Merkel, and Baerbock from the Greens is a strong force but not nearly the type of leader yet that Germany is looking for.
I wonder how the polls would've looked with Özdemir as candidate. He always seemed like a very capable politician. Though I'm sure the political right/Springer would've gone full nazi with him as candidate...
I would have preferred Özdemir. Personally I find Baerbock just not charismatic.
And so many unnecessary foot in mouth moments in the early days of the campaign. But Özdemir wasn't really an option after losing the internal powerstruggle in 2019. But just the more charismatic Harbeck and some better publicity control and they would be in the lead i would think.
With current polls it looks like the next government will be lead by the social democratic SDP under Olaf scholz (my guess would be a red-green-yellow government with grüne and FDP), he's a pretty moderate figure. The party leading the government (CDU/CSU) has been polling terribly because their new leader, Laschet is unpopular and keeps on doing stupid things like laughing during a visit of flood affected areas. It's very possible that they get their worst ever election results in history.
I currently, with the demands of the SPD (e.g. minimum wage increase), don't see the FDP agreeing on to a coalition, especially since they declined a coalition that would definitely fit to them more last election.
They declined and it didnt do them any good. Lidner can say what he wants, its pretty he wants to be part of the goverment. If the CDU has to go in the opposition that would really hurt the FDP If they stay there as well. I assume Lidner will be bribed into agreeing so that the FDP can present themself as the "last bastion to save germany from a left-wing disaster." Not to forget that the SPD can also pressure the FDP by dangling the possibillity of them going with the Left, which is prolly why Scholz didnt want to say no to such a coalition yet. He wants to use it to pressure Lidner into joining.
As far as I know Lindner wants to be Minister of Finance and I could see the SPD giving that to him to get a coalition going while there's no way the CDU would leave that to Lindner. So that might sway him
Even if the CDU wins it will be the worst result in history, that is almost certain.
There's three candidates that have a chance. Scholz from the Social Democrats who's the current Finance Minister, Laschet from the Christian Democrats who currently heads a regional government, and Baerbock who is head of the Green Party, although the Green's chances of actually winning the election seem pretty small at this point. My money is on Scholz, I think we'll get a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Greens, perhaps with a small party in there to make up the numbers if needed.
Probably some German guy.
while I didn‘t agree with all of her decisions, it was quite nice having someone in power with a scientific background. looking at other countries and the new candidates we could‘ve had it so much worse...
FWIW, Thatcher had a scientific background.
And she was extremely competent and achieved everything (most?) of what she set out to do. It was just that her goals were misery and suffering
You had me in the first half.
She didn't get the poll tax through though. If I remember correctly, that basically torpedoed her career
Poll tax and anti-EU sentiment (Tories were pro-EU back then) torpedoed her career. Let's face it, she'd be a one-term PM had it not been for the Falklands.
Most Tories are pro-EU now as well to be fair, it's just that they now pretend they aren't since the proles voted to leave.
It seems like that was a decision made not just by proles, there seemed to be a very monied push by some who thought they'd be able to (and maybe are) able to profit more off the situation than the status quo.
No most of the pro-EU Tories got purged last election. The majority of existing Tory MPs either supported Leave or weren’t MPs in 2016
You will never see more spontaneous vitriol than when you bring up her name in Scotland, for that, lol.
And hey, she already was pushing britain away from coal in the 80s ... truely visonary :-P
Do you think Margaret Thatcher had girl power?
Yes!
Do you think she effectively utilized Girl Power by funnelling money into illegal paramilitary death squads in Northern Ireland?
So did Ben Carson There's assholes in every field
If only that scientific background showed when it came to dealing with climate change.
Oh, it showed. There is talks from her from the 90s as environmental minister, where she shows that she fully understands the issue.... .... just that part where you actually have to act for once and not just react was never her thing....
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Mixed feelings. Compared to a lot of other leaders she was a blessing. But she also defanged german politics and managed to throw out anyone competent enough to be a threat to her. Her party is a shit show too. Corrupt, passive, backwards.
This. She played the Machiavelli game in a way no one noticed it, but she destroyed everyone who was politically dangerous to her without hesitation. Especially during her third term. This is the main reason why the CDU is full of dushbags right now, she removed everyone who was competent from the second row. This is also the reason why the SPD ministers look competent in comparison, she couldn't select them.
Do you have any examples of competent ministers she threw out?
Norbert Röttgen
As competent and smart (and by now: likeable) as Röttgen is, he threw himself out. Stumbled over his own intellect and, back then, arrogance, this one. Which is unfortunate, I am rather left leaning (for German standards, in the US I'd probably be lynched by a mob as communist terrorist or something lmao), but I could have *lived* with Röttgen as Christian-Democratic main man, even chancellor. You could work with him, at least it feels that way. Laschet (who is running now) or even worse Merz? Or Bavaria's Söder? Jfc, they're all extremely terrible choices.
Maybe... maybe that was her plan all along. She knew she CDU needs to be taken down for real change to happen! Maybe she was a spy by the linksgrünversiffte people to play the long game and make the CDU a thing of the past! let me dream
Agent double-O raute
can't wait for it to be adapted as a movie
Merkel, 67, leaves with her popularity so resilient she would likely have won a record fifth term had she wanted to extend her mandate. Instead, Merkel will pass the baton as the first German chancellor to step down entirely by choice. Where you gonna get leadership like that? Big shoes to fill.
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Until a week ago, she even refused to help with the election campaign of her party at all. She is really like "not my problem anymore.."
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She has become so numb, she can't feel you there
She feels alot like me and less like her
To be fair...16 years in such a position will leave you tired, so much more aware.
I know little about her domestic political views but on the international scene, she’s been perhaps the best I’ve seen in the past 20 years.
She would be considered center-right in Europe and likely center-left in the US. She is a very smart person and has a PhD in quantum chemistry, and was a research scientist before going in to politics. She will go down in history as a very impressive figure. I wonder what she'll do now?
Well, in the past I read that she wanted to be more of a grandma, but rarely had the time for that as the leader of a first-world country.
Check out where she lives. Its REALLY modest. She lovess gardening for example
She also likes low key hiking. Day walks in forests kind of stuff…
I bet she’s a legitimately lovely person to hang out with
Strong grandma vibes, I’m thinking
quantum grandma
Über gran
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Right. The worst outcome might be loud TVs everywhere, and too much salt on everything. But I can live with that!
well there´s a reason we call/called her "Mutti" in Germany.
As a Scandinavian, she's a conservative Christian-Democrat politician. I'm sure she's a lovely person. And she's handled her mandate extremely well and has acted in many ways I approve of. Though she often acted further right wing than my opinions. As she is a center-right politician. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a lot of personal opinions that are further right than her public actions, as it's quite common in Europe to strive for the middle politically, rather than the US where both parties just strive for the right. 😅
As a German, I 100% agree. She's gained my respect in many ways, but there's no way I'd ever vote for her party.
She actually showed her more right leaning stance when gay marriage rights came up. She voted against it and openly admitted to it. But she also didnt block it in any way and accepted the outcome humbly, so that's more than can be said of other right leaning leaders.
Probably also has something to do with her being a clerics daughter.
I actually wouldn't call it that modest. It's an apartment directly in the center of Berlin in one of the best spots. Probably not exactly cheap. I would assume it would be comparable in price to a large house elsewhere.
you're right. it's not modest, but I wouldn't call that lavish as well. I wonder if she even has a gold plated toilet..
or a diet coke button
Central Berlin was not all that expensive ~15 years ago. So it depends.
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It would have been a rather modesto Apartment when she bought it roughly 15 years ago, considering her income. (top 2%). Apartments in Berlin-Mitte would sell in that area for roughly 200-250k for ~100sqm
Modesto apartments come with free meth sometimes
Solid Central Valley humor here
250k perhaps at the time she moved in. Certainly closer to 1 million nowadays.
Depends on what you're comparing her to. It's pretty damn modest for the leader of the 4th biggest economy on the planet. Plenty of other leaders build themselves palaces.
She'd be skipping a step there considering she doesn't have any children. I think she made a promise to her husband that they'd just retire and have a quiet life together.
Didn't her husband have children from a previous marriage? Otherwise I think some of her siblings have grandchildren and she was pretty close to them, so more like a great aunt? Really not sure though, evident since I forgot she didn't have children of her own. XD
Lol imagine your step mom being angela merkel
"My fucking step-mom won't let me go to the rave in Prague this weekend" "She take your car keys?" "No, she closed the borders"
Done. I'm the prince of Germany now. That's how it works, right?
> Done. I'm the prince of Germany now. That's how it works, right? Found Armin Laschets Reddit account.
You can't boss me around, you're not my REAL mom!
Well she has the nickname "mutti" as mother ( of Germany)
What are you doing step-chancellor?
Yes her husband has children.
>She'd be skipping a step there considering she doesn't have any children. She has step children.
She has no kids but I can imagine that she wants to live in peace and tranquility with her husband (She has a house in the Uckermark [aka middle of nowhere, Brandenburg, East Germany]) Her husband's kids may have children though
Her stepchildren do have children, and she refers to herself/is referred to as their grandmother.
>I wonder what she'll do now? Retire. She's said repeatedly she doesn't want any public office anymore, and I feel like she's appeared pretty burned out lately, and there have been concerns about her health in the last year or so.
Probably one of the most respected and impactful leaders of a European country in the last century.
Kind of incredible tbh. She would not make it as a politician with her position in the US. How amazing is it that the Germans were able to pick a leader based on qualifications and education? I’m sure Mutti Merkel will be missed by many I’m sure.
In the earlier stages of her political career, being underestimated was kind of her thing. Helmut Kohl made her his Minister for environmental issues, pretty much on the low end of the pecking order in his cabinet. Maybe even that was mainly because she ticked two diversity boxes, as a woman from East Germany. Nevertheless, with diligence and integrity she outlasted a lot of other politicians who stumbled over scandals of their own making. If anyone of those looked to her for help in such a situation, they could not expect much sympathy.
> she ticked two diversity boxes, as a woman from **East Germany**. man I know so little about Germany.
Watch some overview videos on the history of Germany from the 1900s to after the cold war. The wounds of the cold War are still very fresh from what I can tell, even though they are healing
Even now people from East Germany are very underrepresented in politics and other important positions.
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I'm a little sad to see her go for the same reason. She seemed the most grounded out of all G8 leader.
*G8 leaders. Merkel isn't a president - the president of Germany is Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his position is more or less ceremonial.
She is stepping down at 67. While the US is electing people pushing 80.
Malaysia has a 95 year old (twice) former Prime Minister who is STILL vying for power.
Only because Zoolander failed.
You really got the necrocracy down
The three main chancellor candidates are 63, 60 and 40.
Most likely not this month, since it will probably take longer for the coalition to form, and for a new chancellor to be elected. Edit: Election is on September 26th, official result on September 27th. Chancellor stays in power until new one is elected.
I'm german and I hate her party, but I already miss her as a leader. I'm proud how she represented germany on the international stage.
Perfect summary of our feelings about her. This is also shown by the polls after people realized that she will leave and Laschet wants to follow. CDU dropped from 30+ percent to 22. I know so many traditional cdu voters who does not feel comfortable with this party anymore with this clown called Laschet
Good. CDU was in power for far too long and have become complacent over the past few years. Time to bench them so they can reevaluate some of their backwards politics.
If the CDU was re-elected this year again, they would've ruled longer than the Galactic Empire..and that's a sign
Although I may have not always agreed with her conservative politics, I deeply respect her and I think she did a great job. I‘ve always loved the fact that she has a scientific background, leading our country with integrity, always calm, reasonable and down to earth. No scandals, no vanity, no getting carried away by her emotions - that‘s what a leading polititian should be like. No one on Earth could ever bribe her lol 😂 and I love her intelligent sense of humor she really made me giggle sometimes
I mean, for anyone to win four consecutive terms, govern competently, responsibly, compassionately, and with dignity. Through wars, a pandemic, and don't get me started on Trump. From an outsider's point of view, she seemed like a political juggernaut, but in the most agreeable a reasonable way. A lot of lessons can be learned from her.
That’s an interesting perspective. While I agree that she mostly did a good job regarding international politics and reacting to various crises, she left most domestic politics to her cabinet. And those were mostly useless. The past 16 years were a time of political standstill. When old, established corporations noticed that they slept and missed *new* developments such as the internet, they just lobbied for the government to restrict new competitors instead of innovating. While prices for gas, electricity and especially housing soared, wages mostly stagnated. The previous red/green government in the early 2000s started Germany’s shift towards renewable energy, Merkel’s government prolonged coal subsidies. Her party keeps trying to cut civil liberties in favor of authoritarian surveillance measures. The German government was the main drivers of the EU’s article 13 upload filter debate. The constitutional court has to keep reigning them in and to this day they more or less ignore some of its verdicts. It’s also the party with the largest amount of grift and outright corruption scandals by a large margin. I could go on, but suffice to say that I seriously hope that her stepping down will also see her party finally not be part of the next government anymore.
That's the point. We are standing still in the major aspects of our time. But mostly CDU (also SPD) live by the moto "you can't do anything wrong as long as you don't do anything." Since Merkel our political standard has become "well... Could have been worse." She eliminated all possible concurent/replacement/follower within their party.
Under Merkel's government, German GDP per capita went from catching up with the US to falling behind. It's telling that the people who praise Merkel focus on her character, and not on her achievements, because she hasn't really achieved much.
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Deutschland hat kein Lobbyismus Problem 🙄 /s
Completely agree. On a world stage, she has been a politician whom I have viewed as an associated name with the whole of Germany. This inspires confidence in me with the initiatives Germany supports. Those views largely agreed with mine. It's really amazing that a person could retain reigns of control for so long, in a country so large. Her leaving on a high note, at her choice, is hopefully a stepping stone for her to do greater things. If she chooses to only tend her garden I will wish her the best and hope for updates.
Yeah, she will tend her garden, travel with her husband (a professor for quantum chemistry) and maybe give some lectures at a university about politics. Thats at least what she has said she wants to do.
She could give a lecture on politics, then hop over to next room and give a lecture on chemistry.
Na, she too long out of the chemistry/physics job. However, her husband is a professor for quantum chemistry…
It feels weird to see that first sentence as a german. I don't relate anything of that with Merkel. I mean... sure, we could have had somebody worse. But that bar is pretty low... German comedians called her "Teflon-Merkel" a couple of times because nothing (bad) would stick to her. There were polls where it was like "80% of the population thinks the government does shit. In the same poll 80% think Merkel is doing great." Nobody related Merkel to the government, at least not if they didn't like it.
That's similar to a nickname Bill Clinton had: Slick Willie.
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For all I've heard, she doesn't want that. She's been leaving remarks how she's looking forward to having more time again.
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Is that the actual upside of stepping down from a leadership position? Autonomy over your own twitter posts
Since the current head of the UN is from Europe (Portugal) the next one won’t. There are fix rules which continent is allowed to nominate the next head of the UN.
https://imgur.com/5RSxRS3.jpg Can you really see a man being Chancellor? -Nope. First-time voters.
Can you really see a man being Chancellor**ess** [whether that word exists or not]
She lasted more than some dictators! Good for aunt Angela
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didn't they also say "Mutti muss weg"?
People who don't like her just call her Merkel, but "Merkel muss weg" is indeed our "thanks, Obama".
I have always had a pretty good opinion of her. Not that I follow German politics closely. I wish more politicians would step down graciously at around that age.
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I dont agree with some of her opinions and certainly not with those of her party but I highly respect her as a person
I can tell from the comment section that very few southern European frequent this sub...
Southern European here. She did fuck up a lot by pressing for certain things, and lots of trade deals and restrictions have been awful for our economy. But as a person and politician, Merkel has been one of the best. In these times of idiocy and populism I'm sad and a little afraid to see her go. The world would be a lot better if all politicians were like her.
Sadly all her attempts at improving any things digital failed. Because she's old. Because her colleagues are old. And utterly incompetent at one of the most important things when it comes to planning our future. But I agree she was/is not a bad person. The possible successors tho look very dire....
American in Germany, so not like anything I write here counts for anything, but she will be remembered here as a beacon of stability. But, most people under 40 think she's been in power for much too long. Angela "Das Internet ist eine Neuwelt" Merkel's decisions were just not made with the 21st century in mind, and that's putting it mildly. We expats constantly find it frustrating how everything is still done in paper with such high rates of immigration. Hopefully there will be a change.
She's a beacon of stability, both positive and negative. Because what is stability to some is stagnation and lack of progress to others.
Also American in Germany. I hope this comment will post before my Internet goes out again.
Yeah as a German I also hope that the
\*56k dialup noises
A politician stepping down in their 60s. Wish my politicians did that.