Election calls are boring. The same educational index finger that warns us to comply with our civic duty and not to give away our voice.
And yet. It is more true than ever: This choice is important.
That none of the democratic parties is 100 % likeable and none fits their own views 100 % – a luxury problem. We have every four years (ok, this time after three years). But a high turnout and a proportion of voices that are not going through the ceiling for the right -wing extremists can show that democracy is worth something to us.
Every vote for a democratic party is a voice against the right -wing populists
Because that’s what it’s about on Sunday: Defending democracy. Pluralism in which we live is threatened from all sides. There is (as one is so beautifully legally clean: in parts) right -wing extremist AfD, which wants a different republic with Trump/Musk/Putin: nationalist, authoritarian, illiberal. It will presumably become the second strongest force in the Bundestag on Sunday. Anyone who has seen the voting commercial with Alice Weidel in the snow -covered mountains (with her in Switzerland?), In which she puts off the oath as a chancellor with a smile and afared manner, can be freezing. Every vote for a democratic party is a voice against the right -wing populists. A minimal consensus, nothing more, nothing less.
Because the crumbling, Europe-wide: In nine EU countries, right-wing extremists already (sometimes clearly) have more than 20 percent of the votes, in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands; In Finland, Sweden, Croatia, Belgium and Slovakia they rule; In Austria you put the strongest party and in the UK you are at least in the surveys in front of Labor and Tories.
Almost all parties surpassed in the number of deportation and the reinforcements
Trump and Musk fuel this. Your crazy mixture of ideology and opportunities, like to read as “unpredictability”, follows a clear line: create disruption, get maximum profit out. At a breathtaking pace, the authoritarian Trump government limits bourgeois freedom, tears off the state and democratic certainties, friendships with duty dictatorships and despises the socially and politically weak.
Self-determination rights, minority protection, citizen and human rights? Fuck it.
What does that have to do with the Bundestag election on Sunday? A lot. We don’t live in any vacuum. Despite the enormous difficulties that are based on us due to the demographic and climate change, the defense against anti -democratic, nationalist mood, including all implications (right -wing fractions, border shifts, atavism, wars) will be central in the coming years. But in the short and terrifying empty German election campaign, it was mostly about migration. Almost all parties surpassed themselves in deportation figures and revenue, and those who demonstrated against the right have been admonished by the designated Chancellor Merz, but rather to take to the streets for the victims of the latest attacks.
Nice that someone reminded that not all immigrants are social parasites and criminals
Migration is a more convenient topic for many campaigners than pension financing and climate change. Because it is supposedly about the “others”. It was only in the very last TV election duel that the failed Chancellor Scholz pointed out that there were migrants among the victims of the terrible attacks of the past few weeks, and that many of the rescue and nursing staff they provided have migration stories. It’s great that someone reminded that not all immigrants are social parasites and criminals. This is Trump and Weidel speaking. And despite all the problems associated with migration, just as wrong as the image of a dictator Selenskyj, a peace -loving Putin and that of a Palestinian Riviera.
To deal with the new false “truths”, with a misleading US president and right-wing populist Mood, will perhaps the biggest challenge for a new federal government. (In addition to pensions, care, digitization, inflation, climate, defense, dilapidated railway and rising rents – you name it. The new federal government cannot be envied.)
So, keep an hour free on Sunday and choose!