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I’ve been saving for a down payment for a house for two years. It would appear my money is not wanted in the USA. I also have dual EU citizenship. My plan is to improve my spoken German and take my family overseas.
As an atheist married to a Salvadoran woman with whom I have two hispanic children, I feel like after they run out of illegal immigrants we’ll not be far down the “committing suicide with two bullets to the back of the head” list. Or maybe we’ll just get sent to a camp that treats ADHD if you catch my drift.
I visited Germany in 2022 and was very impressed with the walkable/bikeable infrastructure and ICE trains even if they were late on occasion. The food wasn’t my favorite but the culture and people were kind and they still seem to value rule of law and societal decorum to a certain degree. The idea that making a nazi salute in public is jailable/fineable is really how it should be everywhere but “free speech” yadda yadda…
I have wanted to leave the US since 2003. Just didn’t have skills or money until now. I’m still going to struggle with a language barrier and finding a job with A2 level German. That’s my biggest issue right now I think.
My mom moved to the US not knowing English. How the turntables have turned.
As a German: You'll be welcomed and appreciated, just know that we too are fighting a political right shift and that the neonazi AfD might emerge as one of, if not the strongest party next election cycle. Especially if Trump wins this will float nationalist and fascists in Europe on the rising brown tide. It's extremely unlikely they'll end up in government though.
Generally immigrants from the US are quite happy over here and report high satisfaction with their move if they have a) children or b) health issues that cost an arm and a leg in the US and also bring a patience for German bureaucracy and good language skills.
Since you have German citizenship you are free to also consider the Netherlands (easier finding a job with only English, way higher cost of housing) or other EU countries, since you can settle in any one thanks to freedom of movement (Spain might be easier on your wife, since she'll speak the language).
So because I’m in a first past the post system over here, how does that work? You will still have other parties that can form a coalition against the right at that point? Assuming they don’t get 50+% of the vote, correct? The courts here are already fascist and preparing for the takeover due to Trump’s judge appointments during his term. Congress is deadlocked and useless as usual, and Biden is circling the drain figuratively and literally. There is no run off here. No coalitions to be had. Trump gets 47%, Biden 46%, and Kennedy 7%? Trump becomes president even though over half the country doesn’t want him. What’s worse is that he only needs percentages of the electoral college and not actual votes.
Germany, at least from my outsider perspective, seems to understand its history enough to be minimizing the right wing to its true proportions. But yeah, I’m well aware the developed world is going to shit. I’m not really sure what to do about it or where to go. The USA feels like ground zero for this shit due to Trump being in Russia’s pocket. That propaganda op worked better than anything they’ve ever done in the past. Even they probably can’t believe how successful they’ve been.
We looked at Spain, but ultimately the salaries are so low that we wouldn’t be able to afford to fly home to visit relatives and friends assuming we can still do that post Trump. I guess I’m not writing off the US entirely just yet but it’s not looking too great.
Thanks for your advice and well wishes. I hope to vote against AfD if/when I get there.
We have Senate and House of Representatives analogues, the AfD will be very influential in the Bundesrat (roughly equivalent to the Senate) because they will be the strongest party in some States but in the Bundestag (HoR), where representation is proportional it's extremely unlikely that they will be able to create a governing coalition, because if the CDU/CSU does that, they imho. will bleed voters all over and not win any election for decades.
But forcing the democratic parties to form an all-encompassing coalition will also be bad for all of them. Still better for the country, but really unstable and basically grind government operations to a minimum consensus for four years.
Our courts are... well okay-ish. They might have some hard conservatives (and will get worse with the AfD able to put judges forward), but generally the courts are seen as stable, fair and guardians of the democratic process. But the democratic process might just not be as crucial as democracy itself, when it's tools are used to get rid of democracy.
All in all, even with Russia puppeteering the AfD, I have way more confidence in the gernan, than in the american public, mostly because the "culture war" hasn't yet overcome the political need for cooperation in our proportional representative system.
The afd is curently the 2nd strongest in the polls but the strongest ist also the very right leaning cdu/csu, together they have the potential of 50% for the next election and there are forces in the cdu/csu that are not strictly opposed to that idea (like the current head of the party: Merz). Some other parts are but the cdu/csu is also very keen on not looking like they have internal struggles, so it's anyone bet if they will actually keep the tadition of being the self proclaimed right most acceptible party and therefore only forming coalition with parties left of them (or arguably on the same level in the case of fdp), or if they give into their own extremist wing.
i hope that afd and cdu/csu just don't get 50% so they have to do cdu/csu + spd + greens or cdu/csu + spd + fdp (sadly the only realistic option atm)
Regarding the forming of a coalition: Even if the AfD gets below 50%(which is very likely) this means, that its not unrealistic that they get into lawmaking. The CDU which currently is the strongest party(before AfD) has a policy to not form a coalition with our leftist party. They also hate the green party and would do reelections before forming a coalition with them. This eliminates(I use the results of the EU elections) about 14% of votes from a CDU coalition. Our current coalition is also very far away from 50% so we ain't gonna have a coalition without the CDU. This wouldn't be to much of a problem, if the CDU wouldn't have transformed into an AfD light party. They uncritically copy points from them and talk about virtually everything they talk about. Initially they declared to not work together with the AfD in any way, but this phrase lost all meaning in the last few years. The current leader also declared, that they are willing to work together with the AfD on lower political levels,because "the citizen wanted them so we will work together with them". This means, that it is not unlikely that they will form a coalition with the AfD. If they manage to get more than 50% of votes in total it is the only viable option of a coalition(OK, to be fair they also might include the BSW).
you have to admit, moving to germany to avoid deathcamps has some hiarlous irony