#in Germany we have these sayings:

[lesamis]

If you're up for it could you explain what is making the Germany government stuff so funny? I can find news articles about it (a coalition is dissolving? There's been tension for a while?) but they're all fairly serious. Thx!

ohhh, sure thing! i'll do my best!

i'll say upfront: this is a pretty serious thing to happen. our chancellor fired our minister of finance, Lindner, which definitively breaks up the governing coalition. germany will likely have snap elections at a moment in which far-right parties are polling extremely well. if news coverage about it seems like people are Worried, that's because, well, they are.

however. the reason it's funny is because our minister of finance was fired. ministers aren't really... ever fired. like, it's not a done thing. i'll fully admit i didn't even know it was an option until yesterday. and our minister of finance wasn't just anyone, he was one of the most mocked and hated figures in politics to germans who vote anywhere left of center.

the coalition that governed until yesterday was made up of the green party, the social democrats, and the neoliberal party (FDP). the FDP is infamous (and i mean, my parents already raised me to hate them for that) for playing kingmaker in coalition governments: they never get all that many votes, but they get just enough that whoever they agree to form a government with will probably succeed. they then tend to force extreme concessions from their coalition partners, because hey, if we walk off, you can't govern at all! so you better play along!

for the past three years, this behaviour has been extremely frustrating for germans who voted for greens or social democrats, because policy from their faction was constantly being blocked by the FDP and often by Lindner personally. the FDP received 11,5% of votes in 2021, but to many of us, it felt as if they were the only party who really had any say in the governing coalition. it made the green and social democratic coalition partners look spineless and passive.

and now, i invite you to imagine how on the day of the US election results, the day the whole world rolled their eyes at the sheer fucking stupidity and pointlessness of it all, at NINE IN THE EVENING, just as germans are getting ready to settle in to bed to dream of nightmare global politics -

the news suddenly breaks that our notoriously invisible chancellor just decided to fire Lindner for that exact behaviour. this chancellor comes out and says, on camera, to the entire sleepy nation, that acting the way Lindner did - blocking necessary policies, refusing to approve budgets unless his party's interests were met - was childish, selfish, irresponsible, and unfit for government, so, whoops, he had to go. shame. coalition over, i guess.

so, politically, that was a long-needed but never-expected moment of triumph for those of us who think the FDP is a clown show made up of human TESLA shares, and it came at a hysterically funny moment.

on a personal level, i can barely explain how uniquely hateable Lindner has always been. he's what would happen if a stock index graph came to life. he hates poor people with a relish; he mocks welfare recipients and would ax minimum wages in a second. he's everyone's business major roommate who shows up in boat shoes fresh off a yacht to discuss NFTs with you. throughout the entire time that he's used his rich boy policy blackmail strategy, he's been smug about it, and he was never taken to task for it, and millions of germans have been longing to throw rotten fruit in his face since 2017. and now we finally get to do it. via memes. on the day of trump's election win.

so that's why it's funny.

[ganondoodle]

now that im off work, im just gonna say .. no

im not believing it for the next few days, until then i refuse to accept that things can only ever get worse, i dont want a world where it only ever gets worse, i have just been getting a grip at one of the worst relapses of depression of my life, i cant just let go and play into the doomerism that plagues everything enough already.

[phantomsies]

getting all the education/degrees I can and planning so I can get the fuck out of this country >>>>

[marietheran]

Add what country you're from in the tags.

[hanakihan]

me continuing with au brainrot and yes garden party scene rook when he’s groomed properly by his family and vil probably goes ah fuck—

it’s like really bad I had less than a hour and a phone during lunch at work so here we are lmao

[brick-van-dyke]

If there's one thing I've respectively noticed from Zionists and defenders of Israeli war crimes, it's that every source, argument and potential avenue to explore each explanation is riddled with cherry picking, moving the goalposts and mental gymnastics to explain why their conclusions, which typically are barely even related to the sources they use, somehow overshadow literal reality and what we see with our own eyes.

While scrolling, one example I came across was the repetitive misrepresentation of BLM, antifa and quotes from Martin Luther King Jr, as well as statistics, scholarly journal articles and government website information. These are all good sources, yet every single time they're mangled completely until the only possible "interpretation" of any of them is "well Israel is right to defend itself after shorting rockets beforehand because the retaliation was brutal and all Arabs are bad by default therefore". As if any of these sources are even about individual exceptions of Israel versus hatred towards Arabs.

I think what I find most absurd, as someone in the middle of their own studies, is how every bit of critical thinking and logic goes out the window as they do every single thing possible to do what professors worldwide say NOT to do when evaluating sources. It's like watching a race to see who can tangle and misconstrue scientific information to fit their world view the fastest. Then said people say "um actually I studied at university before so it's actually not wrong that I'm doing this exact this everyone is warned not to do because I have a permit". Ignorance I can forgive, but willful and arrogant manipulation? That's another thing entirely.

[the-deadlock-south]

we lost the game but i won in looking cracked in front of strangers so did we (i) really lose (yes)

[foggyfanfic]

There comes a point when you are doing too much research for fanfic, and that point is probably way before you’re looking up the interactions between the Cocos and Nazcas plates in order to decide where you would put a fictional island if you want it off the coast of Colombia.

[gophergal]

That steven universe meme but it's the current Blorbo I have on rotation and my earliest fandom Blorbo

[sweet-dining-car]

The more I find out abt the new production the more confused and embarrassed I am 😭 Like these names are so similar to the names I came up with for ocs when I was in my tweens like what is ALW on??? He is reverting back to an awkward homeschooled middle schooler instead of pumping out the good stuff that we all want(what he originally had)😭

[ermuellert]

england in another final ...

[vampmilf]

german bureaucracy is proof that true evil does exist

[bossbabyofficial]

i fucking hate the attitude of germans online being all "well at least we learn about our bad history 😌" because. we only about the One thing and we're not even good at it.

[whitehartlane]

hahaha ran into my friend today who also supports spurs and we commiserated over the game yesterday 😭 he said “i’m glad city won but after the game when i saw ange’s interview i felt like an 8 year old cheating on a test and the teacher knows and everyone knows”

[badolmen]

Some of you think a Fascist™ country is defined by an oppressive dictatorship that results in a greyscale dystopian society and it shows.

[riheinorn]

of fucking course the west european countries + us reject the icc warrant