So,… It’s Day 2 after the election and I’m not sure how to feel about it. Quite frankly, I’ve been exhausted and drained since Sunday evening, especially as I was constantly hitting F5 on that election page with the current results and stuff. Either way, the SPD “won” with 25.7% of the votes and 206 seats in the parliament. The CDU earned 196 seats and had about 24.1% of the votes. The Green party was close at one point but eventually ended up at 14.8% and 118 seats (which is still pretty rad). The left party technically didn’t make it (4.9%!) but because of the direct mandates, they still got 39 seats in the parliament. And well, FDP and AfD had around 10% as well, which is worse than before for the AfD and better than previously for the FDP, as far as I am aware… My issue with the result is that it’s the same as always. I thought that people would wake up nowadays with all the talk about climate change, 1.5°C, Fridays For Future, and with all the information around Laschet’s and Scholz’ scandals… But Nah. It’s still the CDU and the SPD that are “at the top”.
Now, since Germany’s political system isn’t common knowledge for everyone… Here’s a quick rundown: Every four years, we vote for a new parliament (the “Bundestag”). To do so, we voters have two votes: One goes to a specific candidate from our district… and the other goes to a party. So, I for instance voted for a candidate from the green party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) using my first vote and then I voted for the left party (Die Linke) using my second vote. The second vote basically can help a lot of smaller parties to actually make it into the parliament using a direct mandate. To make it into parliament with a certain amount of seats, you essentially need to hit at least 5% or you need to have enough second votes to basically get into parliament via direct mandates, like the left party who are now there with 4.9% and 39 seats! By voting for them, I basically contributed to them potentially making an impact in the climate policies – after all, their policies were actually gonna be radical enough to keep us under 1.5°C. My first vote for them wouldn’t have done shit though, so I voted for the greens because I wanted them to win against the CDU and SPD.
Back to the topic. SPD and CDU won’t go for a coalition, so we’ll essentially have the option of the “Traffic Light” coalition, Red-Yellow-Green aka SPD+FDP+Green, making Scholz our new Bundeskanzler… OR we get Jamaica, Black-Green-Yellow aka CDU+FDP+Green, making Laschet the new Bundeskanzler. The latter would be bad because the CDU sucks ass and the FDP sucks ass. The SPD also sucks, obviously, but we don’t want Laschet as our new Bundeskanzler. He not only looks like Palpatine but he’s also a liar, incompetent and an old fart that shouldn’t be in power. He’s been sabotaging wind energy for ages now and still has the nerve to proclaim that he’ll stop climate change… all the whilst, destroying plenty of villages for the sake of more coal power… because he’s on the RWE’s payroll. Scholz also has issues but he’s the lesser evil. Ideally, I would have wanted Robert Habeck to become the Bundeskanzler but then they decided on Annalena Baerbock who’s still better than Scholz and Laschet… and now we’ll probably end up with Laschet. The FDP is effectively the party for the rich people that want the rich to get even richer, so them pairing up with the corrupt CDU would end up in a disaster. Hence, it won’t happen since the greens have morals, too, and since they won’t be able to change anything if they were to work with the CDU. Hence, it’s most likely gonna be the “Ampelkoalition”/Traffic Light coalition…
But I still feel drained because my future essentially has been decided like that. I don’t know how long Scholz will stay Bundeskanzler but effectively, for the next four years, there probably won’t happen too much to stop climate change/to slow it down. They’ll just continue as per usual. It will suck. In Germany, the people with the most power in terms of the votes are the old farts that will die when their votes’ consequences manifest. They’ll continue to vote for the SPD and CDU because they’ve always voted for them… and their parents have done the same. They don’t care about anything else. And this sense of “my vote doesn’t matter” has plagued me since Sunday. I’m glad that the left party still got some seats and I’m glad that the AfD didn’t win any votes. In a way, I’m looking forward to some education reforms by the FDP, potentially, since they’ll end up in the coalition either way, and I hope that the greens will still keep some power, but at the same time, I feel defeated. I feel frustrated and exhausted and drained and powerless.
And well, I don’t know if it’s just that political stuff or if it’s just my mindset or the upcoming semester or whatever but I feel lonely and anxious and just bad. Yesterday in the night I had this sense of anxiety and exhaustion and I was helpless. I just felt bad and there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to ask anyone for help really but I’m not sure if I have friends that I could call at four in the night. I mean, I have two friends IRL that both have to work right now, so they’re not available. My better half also has work and her studies and generally tends to sleep in the night. I just couldn’t do anything about it last night and hence, it stretches on into some sort of depressed episode again and I’ll continue to feel “bad”, “good” and “okay” without knowing what’s wrong with me. I think I’m feeling better? But I’m not sure. It’s weird and it’s scary and I don’t really know how to deal with it right now… but I know that I’ll just hang in there and that I’ll just deal with it somehow. Luckily, I’ll be at my parents’ over the weekend from Thursday until Sunday. I may be able to draw a little bit and practice some animation in Krita again. I’ll also write some blog posts and basically, I’ll just hang in there and get shit done, relax a bit at my parents’ and I’ll just try to get my shit together before university continues and that sorta stuff.
Anyway, just figured I should share some of these thoughts today. I struggled to write any post yesterday or today because of this episode of mine, so I basically ended up procrastinating most of the time… I’ll just have to see how I’ll feel once I’m back from my small break. Oh well,…
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!
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