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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1306 thread views

Transnational Thursday for April 10, 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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Germany: The new federal government coalition has formed, and it is the maximally unsurprising fifth iteration of a Conservative CDU/CSU plus Social Democrat SPD compromise deal.

Also Germany: The populist-right AfD is now matching the CDU in polls at 24%.

I wonder if the people picking AfD in polls now have finally discovered conflict theory, or if they are still mistake theorists that will all evaporate next election when the CDU lies to them again.

As I said last time - a large part of the AfDs policy plans are sufficiently unappealing for many people so that it's easy to rather grit your teeth and give the CDU a last chance. But the CDU has been rapidly exceeding even the most cynical expectations.

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