Did frerepublic lavaroise just insult us?
Posted on 09/24/2017 8:22:07 PM PDT by oblomov
Angela Merkel has won a fourth term, but official results have shown she'll have a "tough road" for coalition talks. While the CDU remains the largest party, the far-right AfD will be the third biggest political force.
With all 299 constituencies reporting, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the CSU came out ahead in Germany's national election on Sunday, with 33 percent of the vote. Rival Social Democrats (SPD) led by Martin Schulz tumbled to a mere 20.5 percent, while the Green and Left parties remained about the same as they did in 2013, each with 8.9 and 9.2 percent, respectively.
The only real success stories of the night were for the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). After failing to make the 5-percent hurdle to enter the Bundestag last time around, the FDP managed a 10.7 percent to cement its comeback.
As for the populist AfD, a remarkable showing of 12.6 percent means that Germany will have a far-right party in parliament for the first time in more than half a century.
Although these results mean the CDU will remain Germany's largest party, it still represents a substantial loss for the conservatives, who managed 41.5 percent in 2013. With a three-way coalition looking to be the likely solution to avoid a minority government, Merkel is about to begin a far less stable administration than in her past three terms.
"We had hoped for a better result," Merkel told a clapping but subdued crowd at party headquarters in Berlin. Later, she spoke of the "tough weeks ahead," for the CDU, and promised to recover votes lost to the AfD...
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
But AfD is only right about the immigration and wrong about everything else. All the reasons why socialism is a bad idea still apply to them.
“FDP is libertarian lite”
Ye, as pro open borders as U.S. Libertarians.
It's a matter of priorities - worrying about the tax code or how to privatize social security while your country is being overrun by Third World savages is like worrying about the leak in your kitchen faucet when your house is on fire.
There are two kinds of libertarians. One type wants minimal government while acknowledging the nation-state as a sovereign entity (that needs to be defended by that minimal government). The other type reject the very idea of nationhood because they stupidly equate nationhood with "big government." The latter are committed to a world without borders (free trade and unrestricted immigration), and are hardly any better than the Left.
Unfortunately, most European "classic liberals" are libertarians of the latter variety - e.g. the op-ed writers for The Economist. Us libertarians are about a 50-50 split between the two, but the internationalist variety gets more visibility thanks to Reason etc.
Please point out the AfD's socialist positions.
The fact is that no party in Europe wants to completely privatize everything or eliminate the welfare state, so this is a non-debate. The choice is between a welfare state with open borders vs. a welfare state with border security. Only the latter gets attacked as "socialist" by doctrinaire Libertarians or by neoconservatives in the US, because they're actually more offended by immigration restriction than by the socialism.
The biggest U.S. Libertarian think tank and Libertarian ideas promoter, the CATO organization, is solidly in the open borders camp. I recently cancelled all my interaction with them.
I have also heard that Schultz has stated he will not form a coalition with Merkel. Is that true?
Yep - got the Coudenhove-Kalergi award to prove it. Anyone interested should look up the "Kalergi plan"...
Yes - that does get tiresome...
You heard right. Merkel now has a chance of putting together a coalition with the Libertarians and the Greens or have new elections.
Interesting. Thanks.
“The National Front in France did better with each election, followed by a dismal showing where it lost to a liberal globalist lightweight from an upstart political party.”
Did the National Front really lose that election?
I wonder.
I was generally referring to the false narrative that ANY political party in Europe is “right wing,” especially when compared to the American definition of that term.
As far as I know, no AfD candidate has campaigned to revoke the cradle-to-grave German welfare state, or to revoke the century-long “corporatist” alliance between government, business, and labor, or to revoke Germany's pacifist and tyrant-friendly foreign policy.
However, I certainly agree that the AfD founding principles were Conservative - no bail outs for poorly governed Euro nations, and no low skill culturally maladjusted immigrants.
Unfortunately, AfD’s sudden surge in popularity seems to have been fueled by a large bloc of possibly anti-Jew and anti-Israel voters, and by a large bloc of East German anarchists.
In case you haven't heard, Frauke Petry, who appeared to be AfD’s most Conservative leader, resigned from AfD today.
Merkel is divisive.
Another reason is Merkel is beholden to the big, successful German corporations.
The corporations have a voracious need for cheap immigrant (slave) labor. To Hell with the cares of the German people and the German cultural suicide that this is causing — they say...
Instead, they can reap the profit$$ from all that cheap labor and Germany can continue to remain the economic powerhouse it has been. Without any new/young labor and an aging population, German economic power was threatened.
It’s all about “corporate greed” - something the arrogant Left-leaning Germans think they are so above.
Greedy globalist liberals.
FYI, the AfD party platform in English. I don’t see the “Socialism” in there, even in American terms (with all those hundreds of US “social benefit” programs...):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3588878/posts
Actually, decidedly less so.
Nonsense. The German economy/industry has no use at all for 3rd world illiterates. The only jobs I see them getting is in the (semi-)public sector. Postal deliveries and the like. Much like US AA hires...total loss for the actual local economy.
It is an impressively Conservative manifesto, and doubly impressive for Europe.
One problem - Frauke Petry, the chairperson of AfD, and a lead author and editor of the manifesto, decided to quit the AfD this morning.
Now, perhaps Merkel offered Petry a leadership role of some kind, or there are other reasonable explanations.
Nonetheless, the political optics of her resignation are shocking.
Still, the weight of the evidence supports your original argument, and you have persuaded me that AfD is not a Socialist party by any definition.
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