German Political System (BRITISH REACTION)
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- Опубліковано 28 бер 2023
- British Reaction To The German Political System
This is my reaction to The German Political System
Original Video - • The Evolution of Germa...
Subtitles are available in German (and English)
I'm triggered when someone calls the chancellors heads of state. They are heads of government. We have a President who is the head of state.
Edit: Bavaria is always a special case. The CSU declined to join the CDU in 1950 and has been independent ever since.
Yes they are independent but they work as partners "officially", i would say they are pretty much the same with the difference the CDU is slightly left leaning while the CSU is slightly right leaning, as an ex USA ruled zone we aren't to happy with communists ;D besides munic it's red/green 🤢
Bavaria is a "Freistaat" besides always beeing peculiar.
I got to hate Bavaria during my first semester when studying law. Everytime you learn something in constitutional law the next sentence the professor says is: "But in Bavaria it is different" aaaaargh. Took me a long time to get over it.
@@ileana8360 to make you happy we bavarians think the same of the rest of germany just do it correctly like we do ^^ :D
@@asddasdasdasdadsa 😂😂 Well, as long as we get along...
@@ileana8360 So is Sachsen. They don't make a fuss about it. The name 'Freistaat' in no way has any legal meaning. It's only played up due to ego reasons.
I recommend checking out Lucas Bender, he has a good summary of all relevant political parties in Germany which he presents in an entertaining way.
Here is a good link:
ua-cam.com/video/_OnO7uxmJzg/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/_OnO7uxmJzg/v-deo.html
I think germanys system is less polarizing than two party systems. Your political enemy today can be your coalition partner in the next term. so it is smart to not only focus on the dividing parts, but also think about simularities and possible compromises.
Of course we have polarisating times too. Mostly when a new in some kind radical party enters the Bundestag. We had that when the geens entered, we had that when the left entered and we have it now with the afd. The examples of the geens and left shows, that you have to deradicalize a bit, when you want to have a chance to gain power in germany. (the left never gained power in federal level, but in state level). Then other parties also start to include some parts of your agenda in their programm (stunningly it was the CDU that ended nuclear power in germany). If it will go the same way with the afd is still an open question yet. The afd is radicalizing more and more. Allthough the afd is a political paria for the other partys, the afd has great success in some regions. And the democratic parties struggle to find a concept to get rid of these racists.
The CDU ended nuklear power?
The SPD with the Greens did.
CDU turned it back.
Then after Fukushima CDU made another turn back to end it again.
Yup, about 1 in 5 vote AfD, and they may not all be nationalist racist buttwhipes, but it's the only party that will openly tolerate and platform them. Every party has skeletons in their closets and the AfD, as a barely better composed than MAGA party, capitalize on anti establishment sentiment and brewing resentments over immigrants finding a life here. It's deeply troubling to meet old acquaintances that have gone full on conservative bobblehead. Like every cop in the 2000s trained to stop the next 9/11, some old pals nowadays mainline Greg Locke & Alex Jonesian insanity the moment they come home, only to use their line of thinking on German affairs and life and issues and people. I've met a German flat earther and it just fucking killed me, I sincerely thought he was joking at first. Just, damn. Then he raises QAnon conspiracy theories that are Straight out of The antisemitic propaganda document ever, a forgery that was planted on a jewish soldier, containing plans for mass subjugation and world domination. Protocols of the Elders of Zion is basically religious disinformation porn, where you'll find the great replacement theory, that the American right speaks of daily, or the baby blood fountain of youth, that aims at jews when conservatives say Hollywood or globalization or friends of George Soros and alike. Those shouldn't be "nazi-esque" dogwhistles, everybody should hear them loud and fucking clear.
I needed to air that out. Thank you for your post by the way. I found it both broad and specific enough for readers to come to a more nuanced perspective. Great stuff.
The biggest difference to the UK is that there is no first-past-the-post system, but a proportional representation system.
The Tory Party corresponds to the AfD and the Labour Party is much further to the right than the SPD.
So the German party system cannot be easily compared to the UK just because the colors of the political parties match.
Right now, we are ruled by a coalition of SPD, Greens , and the Liberals, FDP. In reference to the colours of the Parties, Red, yellow, and Green, it is called the Traffic Coalition
Traffic light 🚦 coalition.
Wenn man die Farben mixt kommt Braun raus🙃 Eine Farbe die politisch sehr schwierig ist…
3:11 Because bavaria always need their extra sausage.
Bavaria likes to be a bit more different than any other german state and we hate them for it.
Just jokeing, but there is a resentment/rivlalery going on here.
Spoken like a true Northerner xD Okay nee aber jetzt mal im Ernst, du kommst auch ausm Norden, oder? Das klingt jedenfalls arg danach
@@LeyCarnifex NRW 🤣
Always be wary of people telling you "Bavaria is special" and if there is some sort of rivalry going on. Most of this is just banter in my opinion. While I think it is true to some extend though, I believe most Bavarians would not support any more "separation" than already exists (eg Freistaat) and things like CSU. There are political parties that actually support the idea of Bavaria becoming its own state but I don't think this will become reality in any near future. The idea of the unified Germany in its current state sits right with most Germans nowadays I believe.
4:30 The SPD and the CDU used to be called Volksparteien (people’s parties) because they both represented a wide variety of viewpoints on their respective side of the political spectrum. The SPD has moved a lot to the right since the late 90s when they endorsed a lot of neoliberal positions. Not as much as New Labour under Tony Blair, though. That caused the left wing of the SPD to split off. They later joined the PDS to form Die Linke.
The CDU under Merkel on the other hand endorsed a lot of positions that might be considered further left of the neoliberal politics of SPD-chancellor Gerhard Schröder. That’s one of the reasons why Merkel was so popular. So the SPD found itself trapped between loosing its left wing and the CDU creeping onto its turf. Bad election results followed. The CDU in turn lost its right wing that manifested as the AfD, originally as an konservative anti-Euro-party. But the AfD also drained voters from smaller right wing parties to become a quasi Nazi-party.
Similar movements occurred in the Green Party (with the „realos“ beating out the „fundies“) and the FDP (decidedly moving away from social liberalism to uninhibited libertarianism).
So yes, there was a lot of movement inside the German political landscape since reunification.
The SPD moved as much to the right as the CDU moved to the left
Nazi Party LUL sure buddy
I would like to very much disagree that the FDP is (or is moving to or was at some point) libertarian, muc less "uninhibited" so!
The FDP's positions on the welfare state, public health, public education, infrastructure (among other points) are not so that a libertarian could subscribe to them.
There are probably some libertarians in the party; the party itself is not libertarian, but "liberal" in the modern continental European sense.
@@8Bitzzz they do their best to be justly called like this
@@aaronhunt2890 yeah for sure left wing npc
Bavaria likes to be special. There are no other versions of the CDU in the other federal states.
you asked how we decide on which party to vote for. generally you know which of the big parties represent your world view but for specific questions you can always take the "wahlomat" quiz before major elections where you answer multiple choice questions and it then compares how the parties answered to those questions(all eligible parties, even those not represented in the bundestag). you can even weight your answers for what topics you find most important and it will calculate you a percentage for how much each party agrees with your values
The SPD is more like Blair-Labour.
The Left is more like Corbyn-Labour.
The Greens are more center-oriented/liberal than the more leftist British Greens.
The FDP is more right-oriented and neoliberal than the center-oriented British LibDems.
The CDU is more center-oriented than the Conservatives (and therefore Member of the European EPP whereas the Conservatives have been member of the ECR).
The CSU is more right-oriented in social politics and more left oriented in economic politics than the CDU.
The AfD would be a mixture of the right-wing of the Conservatives, the Brexit/UKIP-Party and the fascist BNP.
The Chancellor isn’t the head of state! The President is the head of state, Chancellor is the head of government!
I wonder if there will be another referendum in Scotland in October 2023. And if so, will the majority of the Scottish people vote Yes for the Scexit this time. Do you know more about this topic? I'm interested. Kind regards from Germany.
Isn't the SNP waning in popularity? Also, didn't London reject that as a possibility?
I'm not caught up on the topic either but from what I've heard, I wouldn't count on another vote happening anytime soon.
3:54 The colors that represent the division of Germany come from the military and economic alliances to which they belonged. West Germany was in NATO and the EU and therefore blue and East Germany was red because that was the color of the Warsaw Pact.
Bad luck I cannot post photos here, we have elections in Octobre (Bavarian parliament and districts) and I just got the ballot papers. A total of 4 ballots, 2 small ones about 10 parties and 2 big ones with 2-3 dozen of politicians for each of the parties.
Bavaria has it's own party because it's basically Germany's texas in indpendent spirit and the proportional representation system let's them split off without sinking the entire ship
CDU and SPD are way more similar than tory and labour. In fact tories left the conservative Block in EU parliament and joined the far right(including afd).surprisingly few brits even know this.
3:45 Our Lord Mayor Melf Grantz is seen in this scene. On the podium are. With the glasses.
Germany is able to have many different parties as we have a system of proportional representation (with a 5%-threshold). Whereas the first-past-the-post voting system in countries like the US or the UK it is almost impossible for new parties to gain any form of parliamentary representation presuming they don't have a strong regional stand fast. It is good to have a bunch of different parties because you actually have a choice to vote for your favourite policy. Unlike a two-party system where you are forced to vote for the lesser evil saying "I vote for this party although I don't like too but I have too because I dislike the other party even more".
There's a more detailed video about the political parties in Germany which is also somewhat funny.
ua-cam.com/video/_OnO7uxmJzg/v-deo.html
That one is a good watch, would also recommend.
9:11 The man doing the Nazi-Salute represents the content of the AfD pretty well!
This is actually a bit outdated. We have serious problems with the far right AfD which has sometimes even more voters than the old parties
At the moment there is/was quite an interesting development with the AFD, Germany has the option to forbid a party, if it is against democratic standards. There were and idk maybe still are attempts to do that to the AFD.
The use of this option has only happened 2 so far to one right wing and one left wing party.
I don't have a good video for that, but I think this could make an interesting video topic.
Btw. we have a party that is literally just a big comedy show, it's called "Die Partei" (the party), they even got a seat in the European parliament.
So the only slightly right leaning party's are the CSU who is a middle ground party and the AFD (who is the only true right wing party) the FDP is more the economic party but I also would count them more on the right site
In the wider context of world politics, it's actually the opposite. Only Die Linke is put to the centre left by e.g. the Political Compass and all other parties are more or less centre right. I mean, compared to the US, yeah, we're all communists, given that the Republican Party is comparable to the AfD and the Democrats are somewhat like the CDU but if full left means communism and full right means unregulated 19th century style capitalism, we're definitely a conservative country.
America moment
@@MellonVegan yeah only die linke die sozialdemokraten not at all left cdu was a center party but that long gone they more or left at the place the spd was a few years ago so center left and die grünen die linke and spd driftet way more to the left and is the wider context die grünen after there owen words are poltics for the poor people (ofc they lie because that doesnt actually work with climate saftey) spd we make politic for old people (besides getting laws done that puts them in housearrest for 2 years and let half of them die out of bordem yeah hitler didnt make poltics for the worker class also not left leaning :D (btw in global poltics hes on the right i wonder why as if the udssr didnt wanted to get assaostioet with faschisem)
6:15 the influence of climate change in Germany is heavily determined by the region you live in. I live close to but not in the mountains, we have long cold months of rain interchanging with extreme heat, 20 years ago having 30 °C was happening one day in summer per year, now weeks of 30+ are pretty normal and not once per summer.
What’s with LibDems and Greens?
Here is the link to Lucas Bender's s video
ua-cam.com/video/_OnO7uxmJzg/v-deo.html
Deutsche Parteien ERKLÄRT (Englisch)
Great and sometimes funny production with more background info and answers to your questions
This honestly showed more your lack of knowledge of the UK political landscape than the German one which are in fact very similar. The last general election had *more* parties participating in the UK than in the last German general election. Also the liberal democrats sometimes being the "kingmakers" like in Germany, where the FDP has been the longest time in government out of all parties due to this. Same with The Greens, where the membership number has grown to over 50000 in recent years and that's just for England and Whales. Similar to Germany's The Greens.
The reason why the House of Commons looks so different from the Bundestag is simply due to the vastly different electoral system. First-past-the-post needs to go.
This "evolution" is a bit a-historic for me. For example, the AFD was originally founded as an anti-Euro (currency) party that now turned anti-immigrant. And there are a number of nuances that could have been mentioned without making the video significantly longer.
One major drawback of so many parties: Small parties, that do get into the parliament (you need to have at least 5% to get in) have a LOT of pull, because they are needed by the big parties to create a coalition to form a majority. So they can essentially dictate their terms for a coalition. Though often the big parties promise much and deliver little...
Indeed public opinion gets more fragmented. But in a way also more black and white. So the opposite. Seeing the AFD as ultra right party reaching sometimes up to 10% of the votes. Sometimes more, esp in east germany? As a German, with the history we have, it makes me sick. Sick to the bones. I still have hope that the right wing does not get as strong as in some of our neighbour countries. We should know better. In fact everybody should know better.
Always keep in mind the source of the video. The "Bertelsmann Stiftung" is a center right, highly capitalist organisation aligned to the CDU. The bias in the video is subtle but noticable.
In UK or US politics the overtone window shifts left or right. In Germany in just narrowed. CDU voters think they moved to the left, SPD voters complain they are moving to the right. In fact they struggle to differenciate against each other. Good thing is: I have a lot of options in an election and i'd never vote for any party (again) that are currently represented in parliament. They are either trash or betrayed me in the past.
Just because it's Bavaria!!!
They want there King Ludwig II. back.😂
The video shows very roughly what politics the parties stand for. As you might have guessed, that has also shifted over the decades. The CDU in particular has moved to the left in order to take away voters from the SPD. In doing so, however, the CDU severely weakened its bourgeois-conservative, Christian and national wing, so that the AfD was only able to emerge. The AfD vacillates between conservative and nationalistic politics. On the other hand, the left always wants a more social policy than the SPD and the left also has a communist wing that wants the GDR 2.0 for all of Germany. There are also many Greens who reject the Republic as it is and dream of an ecology-socialism dictatorship. They are also called "The Ban Party" because they subordinate everything to environmental protection. Above all, the FDP is economically liberal. When it comes to civil rights, they are quick to make "compromises" when they come into government. All parties are greedy for power, so they often betray their core voters. That is why the current form of democracy has many critics in Germany. Voter turnout has also declined sharply over the decades.
In principle, I think proportional representation is better because it represents a larger group of voters. More compromises have to be made and more consideration is given to the interests of the citizens. Parties almost always have to form coalitions in order to have a majority in parliament. The disadvantage is that this form of democracy strengthens the power of the parties and individual politicians are less responsible to the voters than to the party.
Let's make a deal ;-) I invite you to visit Hamburg, and you invite me to scotland with my motocycle,.... so we both have a cool time ;-)
The CSU exists, because Bavarians believe they still somehow constitute a tribe. 😛
Climate change (in terms of how much hotter it got) is actually worse in Germany than most places in the world. We've had record droughts with associated crop failures and dying forrests for 4 or so years now and it's getting worse every year. When the average amount of global warming was estimated to be 1°C (it's now 1.1), Germany was already 2° warmer than pre-industrialisation.
So yeah, at least we deserve it for causing so much of this, I guess. But people in Germany ignoring climate change are really just shooting themselves in the foot.
Die Linke is the only party in germany not talking nonsense all the time…
I have a feeling that a lot of people would say that about their respective party. :)
@@jan-matthisweng4437 I mean you can factly check that they have the best program for environment and social justice, that’s fact not opinion…
@@genosseschlaurent "Social justice" is a normative concept that depends on one's political (meta-political, ethical, philosophical, theological...) affiliations and convictions and, thus, cannot be fact-checked like an empirically observable entity or process or outcome.
To put it another way: The differences in what constitutes "justice", social or otherwise, are, to an important degree, exactly what constitutes the differences between political convictions, ideas, ideologies, and Weltanschauungen.
That's why no one, ever, used being "for injustice" as a political slogan. They simply aren't, they just disagree what's behind the term.
@@jan-matthisweng4437 You can prove social justice with historical materialism and classism.
The only way to create social justice ist to end the fucked up capitalism, cause it’s in his dna anti-social.
Die Linke is the only party in the german parliament who wants destroy capitalism -> so: the only party for social justice.
sorry , i thought you said the only party not talking nonsense, my bad
Ohh yeah why has Bavaria a different party because Bavaria isn't Germany ;) we are officially a part of Germany but the rules don't count for us we do our thing and the rest of Germany does there thing, also it's historical because Bavaria was it's Owen kingdom we are probably closer to Austria than to the rest of Germany we also had a few trays to get votes for independency of Germany.
Tbf, Bavaria was simply the biggest kingdom to be absorbed by the Prussian-made German empire, so them being hesitant about it (which they were) and getting some extra bits and bops does make sense.
green party has some serious brown wings. be aware
Could you give an example for this?
@@jan-matthisweng4437he is overdramatizing this, but the Green Party is critisized sometimes for "pushing their ideology", "verbotskultur" (banning-culture) and that they make politics for only a small elite without Caring for the "small man". I am also not a Fan of the Green Party, but u need to drink a lot of alcohol to See brown wings on them..
you're so dump! Seriously, do u like blue hearts? I feel right afd vibes
Reunification has only harmed West Germany! Financially, it was just a disaster! The national debt of East Germany alone now had to be taken over and paid for by the West. In addition, the West had to bring the completely dilapidated infrastructure in the East up to European standards, which cost countless billions more. Furthermore, all the millions of Eastern citizens had to be taken over overnight into the Western social system. People who had never paid contributions and taxes in the West were treated like Westerners of the same age and were fully entitled to all benefits, which again cost countless billions. But the worst thing is that we got all these communists and Nazis into the country. Before reunification, Communist parties and Nazi parties played no role at all in the West.After the 2nd World War, reunification was the biggest mistake in German history!
Really, that is your 2nd biggest mistake?
Economical you are right but germany is more than just economics and money.
Think about how painful it must have been to visit your relatives, if it was even possible.
Every year of the separation widened the gap in norms and shared experiences that form a cultural identity.
I would rather argue that it took us to long to reunify.
The standards of living and our hugh economic growth after the war was partialy artifical.
The big influx of american money and the ban on migrant workers from the east supercharged the western economy and ensured stable wages with little inflation.
To reduce the reunification purly on the economic impact is a little bit narrow.
Yes, kommi and nazi groups got some new recruits from the east.
But to be fair, the claim that NPD, APPD or DKP didn´t exist before reunification is wrong. All were founded before1989.
The AfD wasn´t founded by Ossis.
The sad truth is that extremists partys get more votes in the former east states but it is also pretty clear why kommi or nazi ideologie get more traction there.
Either you are not from Germany or you don't know your own history.
You're aware that the origin of the SPD was decidedly marxist and socialist, before Germany was divided in the first place,
there have always been socialist and also nationalist movements in Europe, including Germany.
The people in the East paid their taxes to the Eastern German government, financially it added a large population easy to exploit with lower wages for the west, cruel but economically beneficial.
As for debt, not really a concern, pretty much all of the East German debt was held in it's own currency and issued by it's own government, it wasn't foreign debt.
It is literally impossible for a state to go bankrupt in it's own currency.
@@jancleve9635 It would have been enough to relax the travel restrictions in the GDR. The reunification came decades too early and completely haphazard.Kohl promised the FRG citizens that the reunification would take place for them without financial burden, and that was probably the biggest lie of his career.
@@witthyhumpleton3514 If you really believe that, then you are either from the East or have never lived in Germany. The reality is quite different. And what did the FRG gain from the fact that the East Germans had paid taxes in the GDR? Nothing, it has only burdened the public coffers and every single citizen of the FRG excessively. By the way, the fact that you compare the SPD of modern times with its past from the beginning of the 20th century shows that you have no idea about our country.I am sorry, but the foreign debt of a state was calculated in US dollars at that time. And that was no different in the days of the GDR.
@@witthyhumpleton3514 Also true but don´t forget the "Solli-Beitrag".
The east was a financial burden.
The lower wages in the east didn´t benfit whole west germany. Mainly some entrepeneurs and companys.
I would rather say, it was worth the price.
Political we simply can´t blame the east german population alone.
Also good information the NSDAP the Nazi party in the 1933-45 was like all fascists party's hard left not right how most people think
Fascism and National Socialism see themselves emphatically in opposition to liberalism, democratic republicanism, communism, social democracy/democratic socialism. Considering all those are, historically speaking, leftwing ideas, and that it shares this tendencies with classical conservatism, I would argue that both are to be located on the right-wing - IF one wanted to apply our modern left-right dichotomy to those movements, which is by no means necessary.
@@jan-matthisweng4437 same for communisem (allways will become faschisem in the end)
@@asddasdasdasdadsa I'm sorry, I do not understand what you mean.
@@asddasdasdasdadsa Did you mean that communism, too, is "emphatically in opposition to" the ideologies I mentioned? If so, I would disagree insofar as communism does see itself as an _improved successor_ to liberalism, republicanism, socialism, democracy, etc., while fascism and NS do not.
Fascism, for example, is, as far as I can see it, in it's own view not a better, more consistent, or more mature version of other enlightenment ideas, but the rejection of them.
I would also disagree that communism "will become fascism in the end". If we look at Italian fascism as the prototype, communism seems to lack a lot of characteristics, e.g. the corporativism, the ultranationalism, or the glorification of the past. (All of them it shares with parts of classical Right, by the way.)
@@jan-matthisweng4437 no communism and faschisem are more or less the same thing communisem is a theorey that wont work in real life (with humans atleast)so it allways will become faschisem (musolini and hitler where both "communists" before the become faschsits musolini sad faschisem is what comunisem would be if they ever would do anything, the only reason why we thing faschisem is radical right and not left is because the udssr spend a lot on propagnda that faschisem and communisem has nothing to do with each other. Alone the basics of a fascists state are funny (faschsits means btw everything for the state, reason they switched from is for everyone to everything for the state is really simple if the state is happy most people are happy but making all people happy is impossibil) state owend company, leading party where "socialists", if you criticed the leaders you got harsh punishment and so on its 99,9% the same
Beitrag des Freitages, 31. März 2023
political spectrum
equality..........................................................................................liberty..........................................................................................................inequality
extreme left.......................................moderate left.....................centre................................moderate right...........................................extreme right
On 6th February 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland was founded in Uberursel, through economically liberal men.
Beside the liberals, also conservatives and some lefties became members.
The AfD is forecasted to reach 14 % points in the next Federal Diet Election, which is to held, in September 2025 or earlier.