Polling for this state election?
Five parties with 5-percent or more.
AfD, 40-percent. CDU, 26-percent. SPD, 8-percent. BSW, 5-percent. Linke, 11-percent.
Coalition in the end? Unless AfD gets close to 50-percent....trend would be CDU-SPD-Linke-BSW. Yeah, awful weak.
Odds of AfD getting near 50-percent? Hard to say at this point.
Interior Minister Dobrindt gave a 'talk'....saying it's time to require civil defense 'classes' in school, and perhaps even adult classes.
Covering? Well.....war stuff, and natural disasters.
"Prevention creates security." Thats the key quote I take from his speech.
If you asked me on how to handle disasters in Germany....I'd have to sit and ponder that for a while. I have my vast Air Force time.....where you knew a strategy for a dozen-odd events. Today....there's mostly a siren 'alert'....if it were real....they'd instruct you to listen to the radio for instructions.
War-stuff....like a Russian invasion? I have no idea. About two years ago....the wife hyped-up this....after public TV suggested the Russians might attack. I told her to fill the car up with beer/water, and drive west. I think she thought there was 'more' to counter-invasion strategy....like handing out rifles/ammo/helmets.
Are there any German prepies? No....not like you'd see in America.
Massive power outages? We are kinda geared to what is normal....six to twelve hours of a outage. If it were five days? No...I can say pretty clearly.....no one in the village has a power generator.
What I see from this strategy.....classes in school? You are going to have thousands of German kids hyped-up and worried about some disaster.
Well....the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) has been locked into a long-term general decline. You can say with authority....the 2025 federal election set them to a historic low vote situation.
Feb 2025? They received just 16-percent of the vote (down 9.3 points from 25-percent in 2021. Yeah....worst numbers since 1880s.
Reasons? I'd give three:
1. They were the working-class party....but if you poll such people today.....half have given up on them.
2. Lot of SPD-likely voters saw the 2021-2024 SPD-FDP-Green coalition as a major failure, and remember the screw-ups.
3. If you were leaning leftward....you have options: BSW, Linke and Greens.
Things improving? It's going to be hard finding a path to bring voters back.
1. Gas price: 2.08 Euro (E-10 fuel).
2. Focus piece from yesterday.....Paderborn region....14-year old girl held in jail-like situation. Authorities consider the radicalized Muslim girl a absolute threat. Upon mental health exam....doctors convinced it's not some bipolar or nutcase issue....she just plainly wants to kill non-Muslims.
State authorities have tried to place her in a facility....so far....no one wants to sign up for this case.
3. Just odd things you notice about voting in the Pfalz....lot of folks are hyped-up on crime. But if you dig into 2025 numbers....lowest rates of crime are in the Pfalz.
Lowest rate of knife assaults: 13 per 100,000 for the state in 2025.
Rural regions/wine districts....extremely safe/low crime.
Public perception? Opposite.
SPD did a crappy job in convincing public of safety.
4. Munich mayor election....SPD long-term mayor gone....Green Party candidate won.
Fairly negative end for SPD running the state gov't currently.
CDU: 30.5-percent
SPD: 27-percent (about 9 points down from last election....lot of folks converted to AfD)
Greens: 7.5-percent
AfD: 20-percent (12 points up over past election)
Linke Party: 4.5-percent (might find some votes to make up...but seems like they will not get seats)
Coalition? Probably CDU-SPD. Probably only 4 parties to get seats.
Five discussion items that oddly came up in this election? First....agenda to prohibit cellphones in schools. Second, starting 'aid' to keep alive pubs in small villages (state-aid)....if there is only one left. Third, some effort to prohibit German Army recruitment. Fourth, creation of citizen-groups....to tell the state assembly folks what regular people think about certain policies (mostly because the state politicians seem unlikely to grasp what people think). Fifth, apartments that have been long empty (by landlord's strategy)....to be taken away and run by the local gov't....paying the guy his rental income.
I tried to make sense out of the apartment thing. My German wife is particular about who rents the two apartments, and she would be hard-ass about this....stalling a rental unit for six months if necessary.
I should note....it was also pushed....if you were a migrant kid and failing to achieve in school....there was a political agenda pushed....where the kid would be put into a special school where only his language was to be used. Now....where he was at 18/19 years old....I have no idea. Seems like this type of agenda....made little sense if the kid was staying in Germany.
If you hang out around train stations in Germany....BULLSHIT stuff often happens, and you just stand there admiring how the mess went from one situation.....to another....in a matter of minutes.
So I read up on this episode that occurred in Frankfurt's train-station (mega-sized) district....about a block away....early this AM (Sunday).
Two guys met up and there is a talk about how one is supposed to hand over a E-scooter to the second guy.
There is a argument to start up.
So, one guy pulls out a pistol and fires nine rounds (whole clip) at the other guy.
Oddly....not a single round hits the second guy.
I pondered over this....odds of this....if the guy was within 30 meters? At least one round should have hit. Second guy is fairly lucky.
What the argument was about? Unknown. Drugs/booze involved? I'd speculate highly on that.
Cops showed up....arrested both.....charged.
Wild west mentality? Well....no, not yet....but you just see BS like this and wonder....where did all of this develop?
German Chancellor Merz gave a hyped-up CDU speech this week....touching on MAGA.
The basic quote? Something to the effect: 'The MAGA movement is not our movement. What they are doing with culture and media, how they deal with each other, is not our understanding of democracy.'
AfD? They have a theme that goes along the line of 'make-Germany-great-again'. I'd say of conservative voters....two out of five....would go to AfD....rest to CDU.
The problem here is....if you sat in a group of ten working-class Germans....asking for 'hot' political topics....it's going to financial woes, job-safety, price of grid-power, crime, negativity over migrants, and taxes.
In particular....a lot of German women are hyped-up (negatively) about safety of walking in public at night.
A lot of this commentary goes back to the idea....there was a 'time' when job-safety was not a issue....where the grid-prices were acceptable...where you could walk safely at night....and crime wasn't a big deal. This draws the typical German back to 'making-Germany-like-it-was'.
1. Mainz/RP state election; Today's election is a tough one to figure. CDU slightly ahead....figure 28-percent....with the SPD at 27-percent (last poll).
AfD at 20-percent. Greens at 9-percent. Linke and FDP at 5-percent (marginally).
If Linke and FDP fail....then it's just four parties having seats....mostly right-leaning, but the coalition would be CDU-led and SPD.
2. 2025, more than 121,000 lawsuits from air travelers were registered across Germany for court action.
Curiously....the justice system does not consider itself developed enough to handle this much 'traffic'.
3. Bavarian Premier President Söder is now asking for mini nuclear power plants in Bavaria.
At the same time....the EU wants to increase its investment in nuclear power again.
I read through the lecture....German states can't proceed on this idea....only via a fed-permission vehicle.
4. Uli Hoeness....sports 'boss'.....convicted tax evader....gave a speech this week.....telling the news media not to criticize the government anymore, lest the AfD comes to power.
Yeah, if you think about it....public TV and newspapers should cut as much political analysis as possible....if the goal was to prevent public frustration with the CDU-SPD gov't.
5. Berlin-City gets 500 reports daily now (on average) of people doing public 'waste' dumping.
6. SPD Party calling for higher tax rates for top wage-earners....to fill up the revenue 'buckets'.....CDU questions the idea.
7. EU talking of more regulation over used cars.
The hint? If you were a project-guy, and took a meticulously maintained 2005 VW Polo with accident damage but no valid roadworthiness certificate (TÜV)....then the rules would be that the car can't be sold (basically taken to a junkyard to be crushed.
8. Next week....if you live in the states of B-W and Bavaria....snow predicted, and temps back down to freezing for 3 to 4 days. Even in central region....no snow, but it'll hit 0 C in the evenings.
9. State of Bavaria putting pressure on....to end financial support for Ukrainians.
The chatter mostly goes to a 'end' around 1 July 2026.
Roughly 1.2-million Ukrainians are in Germany (legally).....I might go and suggest another 100,000 are here (not declared). No statistical data to say state-by-state population.
The suggestion is....if you need to stay....you need to find work, and not draw off welfare payments.
10. My observation over Gulf request support for more naval assets, and Germany declining.
Look....even if Merz took a neutral view and wanted to help....Germany only has a couple of frigates (11), two mine-sweepers, and a couple of corvettes. If they were to send one....it'd probably take a month to prep for the mission, and I doubt if they could be on duty for more than 6 to 8 weeks.
Besides....you'd need these assets to save Germany if Putin were to invade Europe (10-percent of Germans still believe this idea).
