Other countries' politics - Germany

The political issues I care about are, generally speaking, uniquely American issues. That's why I enjoy watching other countries have their elections. I don't have to get all upset and grouchy over anything any party over yonder touts or believes. I can be objective and observe with some degree of pleasant detachment. This is especially true of Europe where I can agree with most major parties on most major issues, to a degree.

So Germany is electing a new chancellor, from what I gather, sometime next month. If I understand the system right, they then build a government with enough power to get things done. If they fail, they vote again in a few months, but a lot more unhappily? I envy them that because with only two parties and some wingding groups, the US government has been unable to get anything done for some time now.

So one of their big newspapers, Sueddeutsche, which I read in my eight-year-old level German primarily because of how high it comes up in the Google search for German papers, has a quiz that people can take to find out which Party their opinions most closely align with. Quiz here, enjoy!

Despite my US political leanings, which gambol between liberal and anarchist, I actually align most closely with the CDU and CSU, not with the traditionally cool SPD, which gave us the magnificently earnest, human, and mildly heroic Willy Brandt all those years ago.

Gratuitous Brandt pic:

My German ancestry is rather limited to a few lines on my mother's side, but I have always had an affinity for the language, cuisine, and music. And, alas, for the politics, in as much as I could ever understand the post-war German world.

That said, I am tempted to retake the quiz via Google translate and see if perhaps there has been a misunderstanding. I mean that tongue in cheek. I probably would be a conservative over there.

Anyway, good luck with the election. I wish I could get more mainstream coverage over here. In English. On television. Pooh.

Macht's gut!