I sat and watched a mid-day report off ARD (Channel 1, public TV) today. Subject? A new study on Germans by the University of Leipzig (the Else Frenkel Brunswik Institute).
Basically, they went out and found in eastern Germany (the remains of DDR)....that skepticism on democracy is now a big deal.
Near half of the people that responded....said 'no, they were not happy with the state of politics in Germany today'.
The respondents also said (roughly two-thirds) it was ridiculous to get involved in politics.From the older folks....most said they were happy to have experienced DDR (the old East Germany).
I sat and pondered over this. Generally, even in the western part of Germany today...if you just talked to working-class people....I think that half of them would also say to avoid politics.....you just end up getting stressed out over promises that never seem to occur.
From the 1980s.....I can remember watching the 8 PM German news and they usually limited political chatter to three or four minutes out of the 15 minutes. Today? If you view the 9:45 PM news from either ZDF or ARD (both public TV networks)....an enormous amount of coverage is devoted to politics. I suspect in their minds (the TV journalists).....people get all captivated and pumped-up over politics. In my mind, you gear people to expect something, and if you related it to a 3-scoop Italian-made ice cream....this usually turns into a marginal 1-scoop of ice cream that seems to be over-priced.
Why the East Germans are less convinced? Well....in DDR, they got BS every single night, and could easily detect the fake promises.....so they view the modern era and see the same BS and fake promises.
Will this end up being a topic on a public forum show? Probably....because you have to explain to a West German why the East German thinks BS when they hear political topics. This should be interesting to watch and see how the journalists explain this.
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