Small title correction: it’s 1902 and 2015, not 2025.

Germany has some 3700 km of land borders, more than the US’ border with Mexico. German politicians and media have not been honest about the funding and personnel that would be required to seriously control immigration.

Technically, there’s a two-week period during which he or others can try to be elected by absolute majority (316 of 630 votes). After that, the requirements would be lowered to simple majority.

So Merz may still be elected in a second vote. If he fails again, we will likely see a snap election, with the extremist right AfD gaining even more.

A big danger about a second vote could be the AfD voting for Merz for troll reasons. They’ve done this kind of thing before in the state parliament of Thuringia. If Merz got, say, 461 votes in a second vote, it would be obvious that he got the majority not from SPD + Union but by the votes of the AfD. This would trigger massive debates about whether the coalition partners should go ahead with government formation or not.

Another possibility is that of a different coalition forming, either Union + SPD + Greens (so including the Greens in the current planned coalition), or Union + AfD. While I could see the former happening in some scenarios (though probably with a different candidate from the Union), I think the latter will not occur at this point in time, as too many Union members and voters are still strictly opposed to cooperating with the AfD. (But I think it is a realistic scenario in future elections.)

Yes, but mostly PoC so far, from what I read.

My friends are going there in June. They had booked the trip before Trump was even elected They have little kids and look as Aryan as it gets so they should be fine. But honestly in their place I would still seriously consider cancelling.

Sure, I agree with you. Although I have to say that personally, I believe the US isn’t coming back from this any time soon, if ever. I say this because in my opinion the causes that led to the (repeated) Trump presidency (e.g. a terrible election system, money in politics, a culture of turning everything into a show, a deeply ingrained skepticism towards knowledge and science in large parts of the population, extremist capitalism etc.) go much deeper than just these past ~10 years. And I see no willingness and/or capability on the side of the opposition to really tackle any of these factors at the root.

That was an understandable reaction for 2016 to 2020. But not anymore.

First time I realised it has these initials. Is that on purpose?