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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1324 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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We recently had our federal elections in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the winners, the CDU and their sister-party CSU, are currently organizing their coalition with the SPD.

The CSU got to pick the future minister of agriculture, and they chose Günther Felßner für the job.

Felßner has now cancelled this plan, because animal rights activists broke into his farm-home to protest against some form of animal abuse or another. Supposedly his wife feared for her life, and he considers his family's safety more important than high political office.

The protest has been condemned by the future government parties, but overall not much is made of it.

First the lefties get Tesla stock prices down through distributed property damage, now they pick off a future minister of agriculture in Germany with trespassing and intimidation. Terrorism works.

Tesla’s share price has declined because sales in Europe and China have fallen.

The sales decline in Europe is at least potentially explainable by the backlash to Musk, what explains China? Preference for domestically-made EVs?

Yeah, the rise of cheap BYD and other competitors with higher quality vehicles.

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