There's so much in the important lessons this election teaches us that I'm going to talk a
little bit about it, about what German politics looks like, how it's different from the United
States and what we might draw as inferences from that. First of all, in Germany, there are six-
count em- six political parties that struggle to win elections. None of them comes close to winning
fifty percent. If they did, they could govern the country alone. They'd have the majority,
but they don't. And they rarely do. For example, many of you know that Angela Merkel was,
and to this day still is, the leader in Germany, but her party, the Christian Democratic Union,
is not a majority party. So, for the last many years, she's had to govern in
a coalition to get up to 50 percent of the seats in parliament. The party she runs, which got about
somewhere between 25 and 30 percent last time, has to be in coalition, and they were in coalition.
And here comes one of the first pieces of news that the mainstream media in the United States
tries desperately hard not to report. Who was the coalition partner of Angela Merkel? Who made
it possible for her to be the government? Answer: the German Socialist Party. That was her partner,
and in the elections on the 26th of September, they changed roles. She is now the second party,
her Christian Democratic Union, and yep, you guessed it. The number one political party
in Germany is the German Socialist Party. Think about it, but before you think too much, let me
tell you about the government of the Christian Democratic Union- that is the major right wing,
right-of-center let's call it, political party in Germany. It might surprise you to know what the
conservatives in Germany do when you compare it, say here, to the United States. I'm going to read
you a list of comparative statistics between Germany and the United States. And remember,
it's the German conservatives who are responsible for what I'm about to list for you.
Gun deaths. Most recent year in the United States: 19,379 gun deaths in 2020. In Germany in 2018
(the most recent year I could get numbers), 815 gun deaths, compared to United States 20,000 gun
deaths. Public higher education in Germany is free. The vast majority of Germans go to
public universities for higher education. Tuition and fees: zero. Here in the United States? Well,
it's off the chart. That's why we have the debts for our students that we do. Prison population.
In the united states, 810 people per hundred thousand. In Germany, 78 people per hundred
thousand, right? Less than 10 percent of the population in jail compared to the United
States. The top income tax bracket in the United States: 39 percent. In Germany 50.5 percent. Paid
sick leave. In the United States, the law mandates nothing in the way of paid sick leave. In Germany,
the law mandates you must be paid 100 percent of your salary for up to six weeks of paid sick leave
per year. Think about it. Annual vacation required by law in the United States: none. In Germany,
you must be given, every person, 24 work days of paid full, 100 percent paid vacation plus
9 to 12 holidays that have to be paid on top of the effectively five weeks of paid vacation. The
standard work week by law in Germany: 35 hours. In the U.S.: 40. In Germany, every company with more
than 2,000 workers has to give the workers the right to elect a little bit less than half of the
members of the board of directors. I could go on. All of these things were captured, these benefits,
by the socialists at various points in German history, but the conservatives don't undo them
because they dare not. They can't. Conservatives in Germany would be considered Bernie democrats or
more to the left in this country. That's how different these two societies' politics are.