German Federal Election 2021 - Who will succeed Angela Merkel?

[Tonitrus]

Greens = centrist?

And I thought American politics had gone mad. 

[grumbler]

That last guy totally looks like a Nazi to me, so not him.  I guess I'd have to go with the dog guy.  How could anyone who speaks German and loves dogs be evil?

Remember, it was a German-speaking dog lover who finally killed Hitler.

[Zanza]

Do they have viable coalition partners?  (I am assuming they would need a few)

I believe they'd previously been junior partners with the SPD in the past, so probably them and/or Linke?

In the state I live in they are the senior partner of the conservatives ("Kiwi coalition"), in the neighboring state, they are junior partner of the social democrats together with the liberals ("traffic light coalition"), in Berlin they are junior partners of social democrats together with socialists ("red-red-green"), in Schleswig-Holstein they are junior partners of the conservatives together with liberals ("Jamaica coalition"). So almost everything goes.

[Maladict]

Seriously.

[The Brain]

That last guy totally looks like a Nazi to me, so not him.  I guess I'd have to go with the dog guy.  How could anyone who speaks German and loves dogs be evil?

Remember, it was a German-speaking dog lover who finally killed Hitler.

A common misconception. He spoke Austrian.

[grumbler]

That last guy totally looks like a Nazi to me, so not him.  I guess I'd have to go with the dog guy.  How could anyone who speaks German and loves dogs be evil?

Remember, it was a German-speaking dog lover who finally killed Hitler.

A common misconception. He spoke Austrian.

Za Fuhrer neva said "baby!"

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Seriously.

you'd think germans would have had their fill with fanatical ideologies...

[Sheilbh]

German Greens are great - and very different from Greens almost everywhere else.

On foreign policy I think they are by some distance a lot better than the other parties/leaders (especially Lashchet who appears to be a right wrong'un).

[grumbler]

All the Greens I know are generally reasonable, not fanatics.  I think they interpret evidence with bias, but not to the point of the anti-Greens and their denial that climate change is even happening.

[Barrister]

All the Greens I know are generally reasonable, not fanatics.  I think they interpret evidence with bias, but not to the point of the anti-Greens and their denial that climate change is even happening.

Not my experience with most (but not all) Canadian Greens.

[Maladict]

Seriously.

you'd think germans would have had their fill with fanatical ideologies...

Yeah, those 11% are mind boggling.

[Valmy]

So tell me about Linke. I always considered them the party for old East German Communists. Is that accurate? Any other reason why one would vote for Linke instead of the Greens or SPD?

[Zanza]

So tell me about Linke. I always considered them the party for old East German Communists. Is that accurate? Any other reason why one would vote for Linke instead of the Greens or SPD?

They have some old school social democrats but also some unrepentant Stalinists and everything in-between. But in general more left then either SPD or Greens. They are fairly strong in East Germany, leading a minority government in Thuringia. When in government in states or communal levels they are reasonably pragmatic at times, but also have some really poor statist ideas in other situations. No idea how they would behave on a federal level.

[Valmy]

So if the results were roughly what we see here and Linke, SPD, and Greens had enough combined to form a government would they do so?

[Zanza]

That's not clear. The Greens in Baden-Wurttemberg had the chance to lead a government with Social Democrats and Liberals after the election a couple of weeks ago. But they opted for the Conservatives instead.