Spiral Stages of all German Parties

[Heinrich Faust]

• The list I'm going to share is my personal assessment on the spiral stage of all 40 parties competing in the upcoming federal elections in Germany. If you've got a different opinion, please leave a reply to this topic.
• I didn't pay the same amount of attention to all parties equally. E.g. Bündnis C is a fundamentalist Christian party, which makes it basically stage blue; probably, nobody in here really cares, whether it's mainly blue or has a fair share of orange as well. I tried to give a more accurate evaluation on higher developed parties, as well as the big parties, of course.
• Keep in mind that some political terms might have other connotations than in American English.
• A higher spiral stage is not necessarily always the better choice. Stage green can also be very dogmatic or deluded, even though, it's usually less corrupt. We'll take a closer look at some interesting parties after the list.
• Also note, that these are the stages of the parties. Depending on the particular party, some politicians may be at different stages than their parties, e.g. Angela Merkel, who is much greener than the overall CDU. Some parties attract many voters of other, usually lower, stages, especially SPD and Die Linke.
• The parties are listed as they should appear on the ballots. (Each state has their individual lists, so you can't vote for every single party in every state, though.)

CDU/CSU:
orange-blue-green

SPD:
green-orange-blue

AfD:
blue-orange

FDP:
orange

Die Linke:
green-blue

Die Grünen:
green

FW:
orange-blue

Die PARTEI:
green-orange

Tierschutzpartei (MUT):
green

NPD:
blue-red

Piratenpartei:
green-orange

ÖDP:
green-orange-blue

V-Partei³:
high green

DiB:
green-yellow

BP:
blue-orange

Tierschutzallianz:
green

MLPD:
blue

Gesundheitsforschung:
orange

Menschliche Welt:
green, I'd like to say "wannabe-turquoise"

DKP:
blue

Die Grauen:
green-blue-orange

BüSo:
blue-orange

Partei der Humanisten:
high orange

Gartenpartei:
green

Die Urbane:
green

SGP:
blue

die Basis:
green

Bündnis C:
blue

BÜRGERBEWEGUNG:
green-orange

III. Weg:
blue-red

Bündnis 21:
orange

Liebe:
green

LKR:
orange-blue

PdF:
orange-green-yellow

LfK:
green

SSW:
green

Todenhöfer:
orange

UNABHÄNGIGE:
green

Volt:
yellow

 

Stage Yellow Parties

The party highest on the spiral seems to be Volt. Demokratie in Bewegung (DiB) is pretty stage yellow, too. Both, politicians and electorate are usually not pure stage yellow, but partly green and orange. One could also detect shades of stage yellow within Pirate Party, ÖDP and Partei des Fortschritts (PdF); however, much of that could just be an orange-green trade-off. I couldn't find any yellow elements within the Green Party or other parties represented in the parliament.

 

Deluded Stage Green Parties

There are two green parties which might be appealing to some folks on this forum: the "spiritual" party Menschliche Welt and the alternative medicine party die Basis. Both are very good examples of stage green going bonkers, like falling for conspiracy theories and so forth.

 

See also

 

[Opo]

Thanks! 

"Some parties attract many voters of other, usually lower, stages, especially SPD and Die Linke." 

I've noticed this too. 

What do you think explains it? 

[Heinrich Faust]

There's a bunch of reason. I don't have proof for all of them, but I think, most of it is quite intuitive. And this is not limited to Germany, by the way; there's a load of democracies with similar situations.

SPD is the classic labour party with a long blue tradition. While the élite is mainly stage green nowadays, there's still a considerable blue minority in party base and electorate. This group is slightly ceasing or defecting, which is one reason for the ongoing marginalisation of Social Democracy. The defection could be even higher if there was a more "social" blue alternative like the FPÖ, which is stealing many traditional voters from the Austrian SP. The AfD is too economic-liberal to take big-time advantage of that.
The SPD is also quite popular among immigrants, especially stage blue Muslim immigrants, who more often are attacked by the right, whereas stage blue Eastern European immigrants aren't that shy to vote for AfD.

Die Linke was a stage blue dictatorial communist party itself, just 30 years ago. So, it's no surprise that they have an ongoing blue heritage. In fact, it's more a surprise how stage green they became. Their blue voters do not just include old GDR nostalgics, but all kind of people who feel economically left behind by modern society, e.g. a significant part of the unemployed population.

The stage blue electorate is quite heterogeneous. There are different immigrant groups and the classic working class, which we already covered. These groups combined are much larger than the usual nationalist far-right. The modern right-winger is a mixture of stage blue and stage orange. There's a smaller group of very religious people with a tendency to the right. And finally, there's a little group of old-school communists, who either vote for Die Linke or their own small parties (MLPD, DKP, SGP).

I assume, the majority of the stage red population doesn't vote at all. They have little use for democracy. If they vote, they either vote for someone they can relate to, which might be a neo-fascist party, or they vote for the party offering the most personal benefits to them. So, if they are businessmen, they could vote for FDP as most liberal party. Since many red people are low-wage earners or on the dole (or dole-spongers with black income), there's probably a significant support for Die Linke.

[BadHippie]

Interesting Take:

Here's mine, as a deluded conspiracy theorist from Germany  only the parties I researched 

CDU/CSU - Blue/Orange -> Virtue Signaling Green

SPD - Blue/Orange 

LINKE - Blue/Green

Die Grünen - Blue/Orange/Green - super ideological and deluded without any systematic solutions for the problems they frame for us; also super bad Sensemaking 

FDP - Blue/Orange 

VOLT - Green/Yellow - sadly deluded regarding climate change and the EU

Die Basis - Green/Yellow - only viable option for me currently, as they are the only ones who truly see "humanity" as a value to fight for

AFD - Blue/Orange/Green/Yellow - probably the most diverse party there is, even if there are some Dogmas 

 

Interesting perspective to see "Die Basis" as an alternative medicine party. I would really like to talk to you about how you came to that conclusion. Is that how most "normal" people see "Die Basis"? 

Edited September 13, 2021 by BadHippie

[Tim R]

58 minutes ago, BadHippie said:

Die Grünen - Blue/Orange/Green - super ideological and deluded without any systematic solutions for the problems they frame for us; also super bad Sensemaking 

58 minutes ago, BadHippie said:

AFD - Blue/Orange/Green/Yellow - probably the most diverse party there is, even if there are some Dogmas 

Lmao?? you say Die Grünen are deluded and ideological? but consider AfD to be stage green or yellow?!! "even if there's some dogma". Uh-huh.. they are racist and sexist and a threat to democracy. They are not diverse. There hasn't been a party as regressive as the AfD in Bundestag since, oh I don't know, probably NSDAP. AfD is a bunch of crypto fascists.

 

Sorry für das dezente Ausrasten aber die AfD ist schlichtweg für die Tonne

[Heinrich Faust]

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

Interesting perspective to see "Die Basis" as an alternative medicine party. I would really like to talk to you about how you came to that conclusion. Is that how most "normal" people see "Die Basis"? 

Well, I could also call it "anti-corona-measures party"; would be more accurate, true. To me, alternative medicine seemed to be their biggest topic besides all that opposition to all the corona measures, and by the way, the point I liked about them.

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

SPD - Blue/Orange

That's their programme (in German): https://www.spd.de/zukunftsprogramm/ It's hard to find non-green ideas.

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

Die Grünen - Blue/Orange/Green - super ideological and deluded without any systematic solutions for the problems they frame for us; also super bad Sensemaking 

It's totally possible to be stage green and still ideological and deluded (one could accuse you of exactly that). Literally no examples of orange or even blue aspects whatsoever.

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

FDP - Blue/Orange 

I can't find any blue aspects on them.

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

AFD - Blue/Orange/Green/Yellow - probably the most diverse party there is, even if there are some Dogmas 

Climate change denial, nationalism, anti-globalism including proposed EU exit, economic liberalism, no responsibility for fight against Covid, Third World countries or whatsoever, no empathy for minorities, reactionary view on family, society, and culture, xenophobic, us vs. them thinking, support for corrupt systems like Russia, promoting liberal smoking laws, but against legalisation of cannabis or psychedelics, protectionism, and overall no progressive ideas whatsoever. This party is just blue with a bit of orange, and it cooperates with hardcore stage blue parties like Rassemblement National.

[Preety_India]

So when you talk about Blue you call them blue and when you talk about Green you use the description as Deluded Green. 

Can you see the bias? 

The parties I'll vote for - 

 

 

SPD:
green-orange-blue

 

Die Linke:
green-blue

 

Die Grünen:
green

 

Die PARTEI:
green-orange

Tierschutzpartei (MUT):
green

 

Piratenpartei:
green-orange

 

V-Partei³:
high green

 

Tierschutzallianz:
green

 

 

Menschliche Welt:
green, I'd like to say "wannabe-turquoise"

 

 

Gartenpartei:
green

Die Urbane:
green

 

die Basis:
green

 

BÜRGERBEWEGUNG:
green-orange

 

 

Liebe:
green

 

LfK:
green

SSW:
green

 

UNABHÄNGIGE:
green

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Preety_India

[BadHippie]

Quote

Lmao?? you say Die Grünen are deluded and ideological? but consider AfD to be stage green or yellow?!! "even if there's some dogma". Uh-huh.. they are racist and sexist and a threat to democracy. They are not diverse. There hasn't been a party as regressive as the AfD in Bundestag since, oh I don't know, probably NSDAP. AfD is a bunch of crypto fascists.

 

Sorry für das dezente Ausrasten aber die AfD ist schlichtweg für die Tonne

As I said the AFD is ideological and dogmatic as well (maybe "some" was the wrong word). At least a big part of it. It´s jst super diverse if you listen to the people in the AFD there is actually some systematic thinking, which is pretty rare in other parties. 

You can only be triggered if you don´t understand something. Try to see the nuance in the AFD. They triggered me as well a few years ago. I really hated the AFD and got triggered whenever someone said something "not bad" about them, because I didn´t see the nuances.

 

Quote

It's totally possible to be stage green and still ideological and deluded (one could accuse you of exactly that). Literally no examples of orange or even blue aspects whatsoever.

Yeah I noticed we have a completely different approach / perspective on Stage Blue. For me a lot of people who are fighting against climate change (friends of mine who go to these FFF-Demos and stuff) are doing it out of a strong dogma and subscription to a belief-system. Which is stage Blue to me. 
 

Quote

Climate change denial, nationalism, anti-globalism including proposed EU exit, economic liberalism, no responsibility for fight against Covid, Third World countries or whatsoever, no empathy for minorities, reactionary view on family, society, and culture, xenophobic, us vs. them thinking, support for corrupt systems like Russia, promoting liberal smoking laws, but against legalisation of cannabis or psychedelics, protectionism, and overall no progressive ideas whatsoever. This party is just blue with a bit of orange, and it cooperates with hardcore stage blue parties like Rassemblement National.

Climate-Change-Denial: They are not denying climate-change, they´re simply arguing that it´s not 100% man-made (which I agree on). They say it´s bullshit to "save-the-climate" we should rather focus on "saving-nature" in general, as that is what is smarter in that regard.

Nationalism: Well yeah they´re nationalist, to a dogmatic degree, which I also don´t like. Though I see the partial truth in nationalism. The function of a nation is to protect it´s people and their desires from outside influences which want to force them to do something they don´t want.

Anti-globalism including proposed EU exit: Yeah and I am for that as well. The EU in it´s current form isn´t really doing "politics" for the people anymore, but rather for big corporations. E.g. there are laws which forbids supplement-producers from doing advertisement in a meaningful way, there are EU-Laws which make it nearly impossible for farmers to survive without working themselves to dead.
All in All: I am all for globalization is a conscious and smart way though.

Yeah we could argue about all the other points as well, but I don´t really have the time right now  maybe I will continue later.

[peanutspathtotruth]

@Heinrich Faust Wow, thank you so much for sharing this! I'm a German political noob and haven't spent much time researching, even though I'd really like to. It just feels quite overwhelming for me, all these Wahlprogramme from all these many parties, and then seeing all this in proper context. 

So your evaluation is super helpful. I thought "well I'm just gonna vote for Die Grünen, seems good enough", and I know how naive and uninformed I am. I'm now reading into the Volt Wahlprogramm and I'm impressed. Do you have any other tips regarding what I can do to make the best possible decision when voting? I don't have too much time to research all of it though 

[Tim R]

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

You can only be triggered if you don´t understand something. Try to see the nuance in the AFD. They triggered me as well a few years ago. I really hated the AFD and got triggered whenever someone said something "not bad" about them, because I didn´t see the nuances.

I do see the nuances and I do recognize if they have something valuable to say. But it doesn't really matter if they have 1 or 2 decent points in their whole 230 page Parteiprogramm and 10 absolutely reprehensible and or regressive ideas. 

8 hours ago, Heinrich Faust said:

Climate change denial, nationalism, anti-globalism including proposed EU exit, economic liberalism, no responsibility for fight against Covid, Third World countries or whatsoever, no empathy for minorities, reactionary view on family, society, and culture, xenophobic, us vs. them thinking, support for corrupt systems like Russia, promoting liberal smoking laws, but against legalisation of cannabis or psychedelics, protectionism, and overall no progressive ideas whatsoever. This party is just blue with a bit of orange, and it cooperates with hardcore stage blue parties like Rassemblement National.

This is spot on. They are stage blue through and though with some stage orange so as to not be completely backwards. 

1 hour ago, BadHippie said:

Climate-Change-Denial: They are not denying climate-change, they´re simply arguing that it´s not 100% man-made (which I agree on).

Well in that case this discussion is pretty much over for me. Climate change is almost entirely man made and if your denying that, you might as well deny climate change itself, not to mention that you're denying decades worth of science on this issue. Please understand, I'm not being dogmatic on this - I couldn't care less whether it is man made or not, but I choose to side with science on this issue and it is clear.

 

@peanutspathtotruth

2 minutes ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

Do you have any other tips regarding what I can do to make the best possible decision when voting? I don't have too much time to research all of it though 

I suggest you give this a go: 

https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2021/app/main_app.html

When you get to the last page, scroll all the way down and tick the box to select all the parties. 

[peanutspathtotruth]

13 minutes ago, Tim R said:

@peanutspathtotruth

I suggest you give this a go: 

https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2021/app/main_app.html

When you get to the last page, scroll all the way down and tick the box to select all the parties. 

I just did it, but it's not really saying that much in my opinion. I find the topics specific and too few (and on some I don't have a strong opinion) to really give me a picture of who I wanna vote for. But still interesting, thanks! 

[RareGodzilla]

I'm not a German. But on the Internet I have noticed pretty strong support for the AFD from far right circles, especially alt right neonazis. 

I seriously doubt that these deep blue circles would ever touch anything remotely green.

[BadHippie]

Quote

Well in that case this discussion is pretty much over for me. Climate change is almost entirely man made and if your denying that, you might as well deny climate change itself, not to mention that you're denying decades worth of science on this issue. Please understand, I'm not being dogmatic on this - I couldn't care less whether it is man made or not, but I choose to side with science on this issue and it is clear.

Lmao This seems to me like dogma at it´s finest. Dogma always says it´s not dogmatic. I did my own research, e.g. reading the IPCC-reports which are pretty bad to be honest, other studies, perspective from physics, chemistry, and so on. If you check out how they work you will understand how they come to these conclusions. As you probably are following some autority, if you did you research on climate-change you would at least know it can´t be almost entirely man-made, if you take into account more of the probably infinite factors, which are affecting the "climate". 

Not being open for different perspective is also a strong sign for dogma. Why do you think so many people don´t buy into this narrative that humanity is 100% responsible for climate-change? Are they all deluded idiots? Or could it be that you are the deluded one?

Edited September 14, 2021 by BadHippie

[Heinrich Faust]

8 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I am so jealous of how other countries, especially Germany and Israel, have such a wide variety of Political Parties to vote for while we American citizens only get the Republican and Democratic Party.

Yes, the American two party democracy is somewhat retarded. (Just the Singaporean one party democracy is worse.)

Germany is quite moderate, though. There's a 5% threshold, meaning that all but the first six parties are most likely not be able to win any seats. In other systems, like in Israel, Switzerland or the Netherlands, there is much more variety represented in the parliaments.

8 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

More like Blue-blue.

They have clearly orange aspects as well, especially in their economic policy. The party is very popular among libertarians, by the way.

8 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Of course they are not Fascists, but who else are the Fascists going to vote for?

Some for AfD, some for the small fascist parties (NPD and III. Weg). But there are not enough real fascists to carry weight anyway.

 

5 hours ago, Preety_India said:

So when you talk about Blue you call them blue and when you talk about Green you use the description as Deluded Green. 

I called two of the stage green parties deluded for playing around with stupid ideas spun around conspiracy theories. Whereas I'd call all of the stage blue parties deluded, so it's not even worth emphasising that.

 

2 hours ago, BadHippie said:

It´s jst super diverse if you listen to the people in the AFD there is actually some systematic thinking, which is pretty rare in other parties.

Examples, please. I only can see nationalist and neoliberal thinking.

2 hours ago, BadHippie said:

Yeah I noticed we have a completely different approach / perspective on Stage Blue. For me a lot of people who are fighting against climate change (friends of mine who go to these FFF-Demos and stuff) are doing it out of a strong dogma and subscription to a belief-system. Which is stage Blue to me. 

It's stage green, though.

2 hours ago, BadHippie said:

They are not denying climate-change, they´re simply arguing that it´s not 100% man-made

That's picking on words, not on content.

2 hours ago, BadHippie said:

The function of a nation is to protect it´s people and their desires from outside influences which want to force them to do something they don´t want.

Anti-globalism including proposed EU exit: Yeah and I am for that as well. The EU in it´s current form isn´t really doing "politics" for the people anymore, but rather for big corporations. E.g. there are laws which forbids supplement-producers from doing advertisement in a meaningful way, there are EU-Laws which make it nearly impossible for farmers to survive without working themselves to dead.

Stage blue thinking.

All in all, I think you're mainly at stage green, but trapped in some conspiracy theories around climate change and Covid. That corrupts your overall view on these topics, and you rationalise green as blue and vice versa. Maybe ask yourself: How come that your stage green(?) friends and the vast majority of all people with higher consciousness agree on topics like man-made climate change, whereas you share your views with the vast majority of representatives of the lower stages? Couldn't it be that you're the one who made a wrong turn at one point?

7 minutes ago, BadHippie said:

Why do you think so many people don´t buy into this narrative that humanity is 100% responsible for climate-change? Are they all deluded idiots?

Yes, most of them are! If you take a closer look at who exactly is on which side, it's quite obvious who are the deluded ones.

[BadHippie]

Quote

All in all, I think you're mainly at stage green, but trapped in some conspiracy theories around climate change and Covid. That corrupts your overall view on these topics, and you rationalise green as blue and vice versa. Maybe ask yourself: How come that your stage green(?) friends and the vast majority of all people with higher consciousness agree on topics like man-made climate change, whereas you share your views with the vast majority of representatives of the lower stages? Couldn't it be that you're the one who made a wrong turn at one point?

Yeah obviously that´s a possibility. But one I think of highly unlikely.
My friends / other people I know aren´t even able to view topics like the deforestation of the rainforest as a systematic problem, which can´t be solved by simply stating "just stop". Why would they stop? There are 9 countries which are doing it. If a president decides to stop, he won´t get elected in the next election, too many peoples survival depends on the deforestation of the rainforest.
They are unable to talk about certain topics, get triggered by it and so on. Use name-calling and other low-conscious behavior.

How do I explain this?
Well most people live in their bubbles. Don´t have a grip topics like history (or only the history in school), consciousness, money as a system, systems thinking in general, psycho-technologies, ego, health, nutrition, bias, dogma, self-deception, and so on. 
Also our society "breaks" peoples self-esteem. I made a pretty interesting discovery regarding that. People who are "Stage Green" as you call it, are giving away their sensemaking to "experts" like the IPCC, Mailab (super deluded chemist, or she´s doing it on purpose), Mister Wissen2Go, ... 
They aren´t thinking for themselves. Whenever I talk about a certain topic and ask them to explain something further they can´t - because they don´t really understand what they are talking about. They are just pointing to some authority. 

How many people truly do their own research? Not that many in my opinion. Most peoples lifes are bubble-centric - meaning they have their topic - mostly what they´re studying. They are able to tell you a lot of "book-knowledge" about that certain topic, but are unconscious about the most basic things in life like nutrition and health.
They never questioned who they are and so on, what society is, ...

Basically what I see here in you again - you use this label "conspiracy theory" to explain why I think the way I think. Meanwhile I believe all "conspiracy-theory"-labeling is just because people don´t want to understand where someone else comes from, because it is dangerous for their own narrative.
You basically argue I didn´t do my own Sensemaking, just bought into some "idiot" telling me lies without checking it for myself. I don´t do that. I am not certain with things I can´t be certain about.

Even what I said about climate-change, shouldn´t be taken as Dogma, it´s simply what my current research showed me. Maybe it will turn out as wrong. But what I am sure about is that we won´t be able to "stop" climate-change by introducing a CO2-Tax or reducing our carbon-footprint to zero. That will just destroy mid-tier business, because the companies who are actually doing most of the pollution will simply be able to pay it. 

 

Quote

Yes, most of them are! If you take a closer look at who exactly is on which side, it's quite obvious who are the deluded ones.

I don´t dismiss a side just because a certain person is on a specific side lmao. That´s really bad Sensemaking in my eyes

Edited September 14, 2021 by BadHippie

[Tim R]

45 minutes ago, BadHippie said:

you would at least know it can´t be almost entirely man-made, if you take into account more of the probably infinite factors, which are affecting the "climate". 

I did never say that it was "entirely man-made". But it's mostly man-made and there is just no credible research that says otherwise. 

50 minutes ago, BadHippie said:

Why do you think so many people don´t buy into this narrative that humanity is 100% responsible for climate-change? Are they all deluded idiots?

First of all, people who "don't buy into the narrative of man-mad cc" are a minority.

Secondly, yes, I think that most of them are either somewhat deluded or don't know how to conduct proper research and are extremely gullible for pseudoscience. 

I don't know what "research" you have done, but I can guarantee you that it goes against around 97% of scientific consensus. And that's a pretty damn bold stance to take, especially if one hasn't had any deep academic education in this field or even any scientific education at all. 

 

I'm not a climate scientist or ecologist, I'm a biologist. And if I am not a researcher in a certain academic field which is not at the frontiers of science itself (like for example research on consciousness or quantum physics would be), there is almost no good reason for me to believe that the petty "research" I have done on my own is in any way trumping that of hundreds of thousands of much, much more educated people than myself who have been studying this topic for more than a century.

So please don't try to intellectually gaslight me with calling me dogmatic. Of course science isn't always right. Of course science can be dogmatic. Of course one has to be open-minded. But after a certain point you really have to ask yourself whether your opinion has any footing.

As they say, "be open-minded, but not so much that your brain falls out". 

[Heinrich Faust]

On 14.9.2021 at 10:02 AM, peanutspathtotruth said:

Do you have any other tips regarding what I can do to make the best possible decision when voting?

In my opinion, there are three different strategies:

1. Trying to get the government as conscious as possible. This can involve tactical voting and is risky, because you never really know which coalition will be made and how the election results influence the coalition building process.
2. Trying to get the parliament as conscious as possible. This is much simpler: just voting for the most conscious party, which is going to get seats.
3. Supporting the most conscious party.

There's this common misconception that votes for smaller parties are just wasted. Of course, a party outside the parliament will never have the same influence, not even as the opposition. However, there are several reasons why it can make sense voting for a small party:

• It will get them some public attention, especially if it's a decent result.
• It's communication with other voters and can help the party to get better results long-term.
• There might be this little chance for a surprise result. Most recent German example: FW in Rhineland-Palatinate.
• As most European countries, Germany funds its parties generously. But only parties outreaching 0.5% in federal elections or 1% in any state elections! The more votes, the more financial support they get.

The big question is: When will a stage yellow party take hold in the array? I hope soon, but I really don't know.

Also take into account that these elections aren't just about Germany. Germany is the leading power of the EU, so German federal politics have impact on whole Europe.

[peanutspathtotruth]

1 hour ago, Heinrich Faust said:

In my opinion, there are three different strategies:

1. Trying to get the government as conscious as possible. This can involve tactical voting and is risky, because you never really know which coalition will be made and how the election results influence the coalition building process.
2. Trying to get the parliament as conscious as possible. This is much simpler: just voting for the most conscious party, which is going to get seats.
3. Supporting the most conscious party.

There's this common misconception that votes for smaller parties are just wasted. Of course, a party outside the parliament will never have the same influence, not even as the opposition. However, there are several reasons why it can make sense voting for a small party:

• It will get them some public attention, especially if it's a decent result.
• It's communication with other voters and can help the party to get better results long-term.
• There might be this little chance for a surprise result. Most recent German example: FW in Rhineland-Palatinate.
• As most European countries, Germany funds its parties generously. But only parties outreaching 0.5% in federal elections or 1% in any state elections! The more votes, the more financial support they get.

The big question is: When will a stage yellow party take hold in the array? I hope soon, but I really don't know.

Also take into account that these elections aren't just about Germany. Germany is the leading power of the EU, so German federal politics have impact on whole Europe.

Wow, this is very insightful. Thank you very much! I was feeling this conflict of voting to get the "best possible coalition today" or voting for the most conscious party. Somehow, the former feels kind of wrong, because I'm not directly signaling that I'm supporting the party I actually want to rule. It's good to know that it still helps. Especially regarding your last point, at the moment I'm inclined to vote for Volt. Thanks again, I'm really new to all this!

Edited September 17, 2021 by peanutspathtotruth

[Windappreciator]

No party that doesn't include green morality is really yellow. 

It would be nonsensical to even be one.

Yellow should see the green value needs for society and hence further those.

The party closest to it as far as I know by members is DIE PARTEI even though the majority of their members are green/orange.

DiB is probably also more green/orange.

MLPD is also not blue, but a reddish version of green.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Windappreciator

[Heinrich Faust]

4 hours ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

Wow, this is very insightful. Thank you very much!

You're welcome! Great, that you want to take more responsibility for society.
 

2 hours ago, Windappreciator said:

No party that doesn't include green morality is really yellow. 

Are you talking about any particular one? All the parties I classified as yellow do include green morality, from what I can tell.

2 hours ago, Windappreciator said:

The party closest to it as far as I know by members is DIE PARTEI even though the majority of their members are green/orange.

Die PARTEI is difficult to rate. I classified it as "green-orange", because their electorate tends to be green, and the very idea of a party parody itself is orange. I don't really notice any yellow features. And, I doubt, there are. Spoofing democracy is not stage yellow, it's pretty arrogant orange behaviour. I even met some PARTEI-voters at my university in Germany. They felt really smart about not voting a "stupid, lying normal party". In fact, it's just refusing to take responsibility and blaming the society - nothing conscious about that at all.

3 hours ago, Windappreciator said:

DiB is probably also more green/orange.

I mainly judged reading their programme. It's very green, and it felt really conscious and pragmatic to me, that's why I rated them yellow, too. Plus, there are huge similarities to Volt's programme.

3 hours ago, Windappreciator said:

MLPD is also not blue, but a reddish version of green.

Well, there was no party that seemed bluer to me than MLPD. They glorify Stalin, they want to quit the EU, they don't even support Germany's democracy. This party is a prime example of stage blue left-wing extremism. There might be a few unconscious mainly stage green radical leftists voting for them, but the party itself is blue, blue, blue.