seriously.

Crap, I wish we had a normal president!



.....A normal U.S. president would have something rather blunt to say about the victory of the AfD and the larger, ominous rise of illiberalism across the continent and the globe. A normal president of either party would speak out against hatemongering and racism, and salute those in Germany who have embraced democracy, rule of law and human rights. And such a president would be leading a discussion in the West about how to combat Russian interference in Western democracies. President Trump rarely raises his voice about these values but is strangely full of empathy for autocrats such as Mr. Putin...................

Since Schulz called an end further cooperation with Merkel in the so-called "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats, her only option was with two of the smaller parties anyway. Since (as opposed to Schulz) she declared flat out that there was no way she would accept either of the extremist parties in her coalition, including both the FDP and the Greens was her only option if she wanted a coalition with 50% of the votes in parliament. Since the current leaders of both the FDP and the Greens are both pragmatists, I see the prospects as good as long as ideologues in the smaller parties don't adopt a Bush-like "my way or the highway" attitude on some issue.

All of them will have to make compromises, and it is practically guaranteed that moments will crop up when all members of such a coalition will get frustrated and yell, "why are we even talking to these people, let alone trying to govern with them." Merkel will have her hands full, but Schulz, with the way he spoke last Sunday night, angrily ripping Merkel to shreds on live TV with her standing 2 feet away from him, basically ended all prospects of maintaining the current government coalition. Merkel, as usual, maintained her cool, and made only Schulz look worse.

European political parties can be confusing. What's the SD's problem with Merkel?

Merkel is a compassionate pragmatic, to borrow a term. There is no way in the world she wants to dismantle any of the social safety nets here. On a US scale, she would probably be solidly in the Howard Dean wing of the Democrats. Indeed, Howard is coming here next week to celebrate Oct. 3rd with Frank Walter Steinmeyer, the Federal President from the SPD. The Social Democrats, desperate for a toehold in the government, have been very wishy-washy in trying to lay out a distinctly different program. Recently, that has consisted to a large extent of saying they'd raise taxes somewhat. Their slogan in the campaign just ended was "more justice." Nice and specific, right?

My wife, a life-long SPD voter, finally got fed up with the SPD this time. They have had competent women from time to time, and they never fail to suppress them. They remain an old boys club. Instead of getting a dynamic, inspiring candidate for chancellor, they reverted back to form and AGAIN chose a bureaucrat (Schulz) who had lived off of public money most of his career, lastly as an EU commissioner in Brussels. Germany is run by well-paid, all-powerful, employed for life bureaucrats, and much of the population is sick and tired of them.

The SPD per se didn't really have a big problem with Merkel so much as Schulz did. Indeed, their main frustration seems to have been that she was too liberal for them to bash, and was far too acceptable to their voters for their leadership's tastes. In other words, their biggest problem with Merkel is that they didn't have enough of a problem with Merkel. Schulz seemed drunk as a skunk in the post-election TV appearance with the other party heads (my wife tells me he is a reformed alcoholic), and ranted and raved at Merkel (standing right there), interrupting the moderators as if he were trying out for a position with Fox "News." He didn't do the SPD any favors with that performance, especially since he also said he had no intention of resigning as party head.

I do believe AFD had an effect on Merkel's / CDU/CSU coalition options. If the AFD didn't exist, many of their voters would have voted CDU or CSU, and some FDP. So instead of ~33% for CDU/CSU they might get ~40% of votes. Add FDP into the CDU/CSU mix and we have a stable "Schwarzgelb" government.

Now they need the green party as well. And that complicates things, a lot. The FDP is not a big fan of fighting climate change, which is the core issue for the green party. The green party stands for everything the right-wing loves to call "identity politics", like what they refer to as "gender-neutral restrooms", dictating the minimum number of women in some institutions of public live, and so on. The FDP wants low taxes, green party wants to introduce a property/wealth tax. And now I'm not even talking about immigration issues, where the green party would probably side with Merkel (at least superficially), while the FDP leans more to the CSU-Seehofer side...

In short, agreeing on a coalition contract probably would have been a hell of a lot easier if it wasn't for the AFD. Which is strange, because I'm a green voter, so the AFD maybe even helped my favourite party.. (let's see how the possible government work affects future election results for the green party before calling it a win. All the required compromises might hurt the green party badly.)

I think plenty of them would have stayed home. Also, I don't the FDP would have profited appreciably from their absence. The AfD seems, like Trump, to have picked a lot of disaffected angry voters who didn't find much to like elsewhere. But we can only speculate at this point.

Like you said, the constellation with the Greens and the FDP will make for interesting bedfellows. But if Merkel can do a 180° on nuclear power, then she certainly deserves a shot at trying to convince the business-friendly FDP that being environmentally friendly can be good for business as well. The Greens could definitely play a role there, too, especially since Özdimir seems to know what he is doing. He seems to be a Realo through and through.

A wealth tax is not going to happen. The Supreme Court of Germany pointed out last time it was suggested that the Constitution forbids double taxation. Since the only wealth that can be easily taxed is from funds already declared, and thus already taxed, any wealth tax is double taxation. Geissler called it a "Neidsteuer (a jealousy tax)," and since Germany already has an effective 50% tax starting at a very low threshold, I tend to agree with him. Enough is enough. Germany is already running a solid surplus. Capital flight is a serious danger when taxes go over 50%, and like we say in the south, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Of course, Bill Clinton nailed our Republicans perfectly with his version of Republicanism: "If it ain't broke, break it!"

I don't see compromises as hurting the Greens under the current situation. I think the FDP has a far more delicate situation, as they will be the ones making the most compromises. Business is already relatively good in Germany (if you're not Air Berlin, that is!), and asking for more concessions for business will be dicey. Unemployment is finally (relatively) low, and so working on improving environmental issues can be given some priority without endangering a lot of jobs. Besides, with unstable atomic power plants on the borders (Belgium has a disaster waiting to happen just a few miles west of Aachen), Monsanto trying to introduce GMO food, and oil-tax-dependent agencies whining about wind and solar renewables, environmentalists do not have a road paved with gold in front of them, even in Germany. There is no guarantee, but the so-called Jamaica coalition has a chance to do some real good. Of course, ANY coalition has a chance to fall apart due to petty quarreling, too, so a little maturity will be needed to make this work. Schulz might learn some, too, if he wants to breathe a little life into the SPD. They should FINALLY allow some of their women to join the leadership. Having Hannelore Kraft as governor of NRW was a minor gesture, but they need some female dynamism on the federal level. Steinmeyer was OK, if a little dull (as Bundespräsident, he's perfect for the job), but Schröder and Schulz did the SPD no favors, no matter how much of a hit Schröder's "Hol mir ma' 'ne Flasche Bier" was.

Thanks to Snowden, Assange, RT and Wikileaks. Those 4 twitter accounts are the most active/far-reaching on twitter using the #Catalonia hashtag to convince Catalonia to secede from Spain:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/on-catalan-independence-julian-assange-edward-snowden-emerge-as-surprise-backers-20170925-gyoqxs.html

What a coincidence! I'm sure Assange and Snowden are not agents of Russian influence. And Putin is a very good friend of Europe and the EU. We should definitely buy more natural gas from them, like the SPD, CDU, CSU, FDP, AFD and Die Linke Parteien suggest. (Thank god for the Greens.)