politics – Page 5 – understand-culture

Up to the Minute

Frequency: The rate at which something occurs or is repeated over a particular period of time or in a given sample; the fact of being frequent or happening often; Middle English frequence, originally meaning a gathering of people; from Latin frequentia ‘crowded, frequent’.

Americans like not only to know where they stand as individuals at the workplace and as companies in the marketplace. They want to know where things stand in many national areas of interest such as sports, politics, business. They expect up-to-the-minute information, especially in the form of statistics.

In sports, news anchors and statisticians closely monitor team standings, individual statistics: leagues, cities, teams within a particular geographical area, a player’s individual performance, wins, losses, and historical records are under scrutiny. Viewers and fans use statistics in order to anticipate team and individual player performance. This precise monitoring of statistics allows fans to converse with others about the sport, as well as to bet (gamble) on sports.

In politics, polls, surveys and election results are constantly recorded and analyzed in order to predict voter sentiment. Depending on the election, or on the type of political information sought, polls are gathered from hour-by-hour, within days apart or annually. In the majority of U.S. presidential elections over the past 40 years, election monitoring in eastern states are critical to forecasting election results across the country.

In business, stock movements are so closely monitored that most Americans with smartphones have a stocks app. The World Market Watch app allows users to be kept up to date on all world stock markets with real time quotes.

In business news, major outlets report how business reacts to political events. During the announcement of Elizabeth Warren’s win against Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat in the November 2012 elections the value of stocks on Wall Street decreased as she ran on a platform to greater scrutinize and regulate the financial sector. In August 2011 when Standard and Poor stripped the U.S. of its AAA top credit rating that the country has held for 70 years, stock values immediately fell.

There are currently 239,893,600 Internet users as of June 2010, which is 77.3 percent of the population. The US Census Bureau for 2011 reported that out of 311,591,917 people living in the United States, 232,000,000 Americans are equipped with a mobile communication device, an incredible two-thirds of the population.

Based on circulation the five largest newspapers in the United States are USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. These newspapers publish daily reports of global, national, state and local level events at least daily. The New York Times has Afternoon Updates in their Top News, Opinion, U.S. and Business sections. Online versions offer up to the minute reporting.

In 2012, 81% of Americans in ages between 12-24, 68% between 25-34, 55% between 55-64 and 23% 65+ have a personal profile page on a social networking website. Out of this group, 22% of Americans, roughly over 68 million people check their social networking pages multiple times per day.

Hillary vs. Barack

During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, when individual state in the U.S. have elections to choose the party‘s candidate, there were several interactions between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama which made many feel uncomfortable. The interactions were direct, confrontational, critical, in some cases bordering on personal.

Within a week or so the two candidates had softened their tone. The media reported on it at length, speculating that senior people in the Democratic Party had advised Clinton and Obama to do so. They feared that if the attacks continued the winner of the primaries will be damaged going into the general election.

Candidates in the same party exposes each other‘s weaknesses offers opportunities for the opposing Republican Party. Hillary and Barack were asked to be more discrete.

Hart aber Fair

Hart aber fair – Hard but Fair – is a very popular weekly 75-minute talkshow in Germany about political topics. The moderator, Frank Plasberg, and his guests take on especially current and controversial issues.

As the name of the show suggests the discussions are open, lively and controversial. The show is well prepared and well structured. Ideological speech-making is blocked. Facts and logical argumentation are critical.

Between five and six guests are invited representing politics, academia, non-governmental organizations as well as “the man or woman off the street.”

The guests are carefully selected to represent the specific sides of the argument. The show’s research staff provides background information during certain segments.

“A little humility would have been better”

Germany. Election night 2005. Chancellor Schröder against the challenger Angela Merkel. German television. The heads of the major parties are present to discuss the results, including Schröder and Merkel.

The moderator addresses Schröder with Herr Bundeskanzler. Schröder grins and says with a touch of irony: “How nice it is for you to address me so.” The moderator is taken aback: “Have you already conceded defeat?” Schröder: “No, absolutely not.”

Gerhard Schröders behavior on that September 18, 2005 remains unique in German television history. It is 8:15 p.m. and Schröder’s SPD and Merkel’s CDU are neck and neck at 34% and 35% respectively.

Schröder acts, though, as if he has won handily. siegessicher, siegestrunken – sure of victory, triumphant – were the terms later used by the German media. Schröder went on the attack against Merkel on live television: “There is a clear loser, and that very clearly is Merkel.”

Six years later Schröder looked back on that evening and explained to the German people in an article in the Welt am Sonntag what his motives were. His thinking was “there is now no room for diplomacy. This is the moment of truth.”

But it is not true, Schröder continued, that on that evening he thought the election results could swing in favor of his SPD. The Chancellor admitted that “a little humility would have been better.”

Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 14, 2011.

Scream and Yell

Spectacular was the interaction between Chancellor Helmut Kohl and SPD-Chairman and former Chancellor Willy Brandt on May 12, 1985 after elections in the state of Northrhine Westphalia.

It was a ZDF (Second German Television) discussion and debate about the results which then, however, turned into an argument between Kohl and Brandt about national topics, including German-American relations.

“You’re hurting the German people with these lies”, Brandt screamed while smacking the table with his hand. “I cannot accept this!”

Kohl, sitting right next to Brandt, remained calm: “You can yell and scream at your employees in the SPD, but not here with us in front of the German people.”

Dueling Politicians

American politicians have always had a close link between their politics and their personal lives, even from America’s first days as a nation. According to Gentlemen’s Blood: a History of Dueling by Barbara Holland, “In our early years a man’s political opinions were inseparable from the self, from personal character and reputation, and as central to his honor as a seventeenth-century Frenchman’s courage was to his. He called his opinions ‘principles’, and he was willing, almost eager, to die or to kill for them.”

As such, any insult to or disagreement with a politician was seen as a threat, and the politician usually responded by challenging his opponent to a duel. According to Joannie B. Freeman in Affairs of Honor, “Longtime political opponents almost expected duels, for there was no way that constant opposition to a man’s political career could leave his personal identity unaffected.”

The best known example of a political duel was the Burr-Hamilton Duel of 1804. Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had been political enemies for some time, when rumors that Hamilton had been saying “despicable” things about Burr prompted Burr to challenge Hamilton to a duel.

The accounts of the duel are somewhat conflicting, however, it is generally believed that Hamilton fired first, aiming high and missing. Burr then returned fire – his bullet pierced Hamilton’s torso, lodging in the man’s spine. Hamilton died the following morning.

Other famous American political duels included the Jackson-Dickinson Duel, the Clay-Randolph Duel, and the Lincoln-Shields Duel.

Presence During Crisis

After the successful raid that killed Osama bin-Laden, the White House released a photo of the scene in the Situation Room during the raid. The raid was planned over a period of several months, during which the President was involved in the details of the raid.

According to counterterrorism chief John Brennan, “The president had to look at all the different scenarios, all the different contingencies that are out there,” he said.

In times of domestic crisis, U.S. leaders often make public visits to the stricken area to show personal concern for the affected people and to depict themselves as someone who leads from the front.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, President Bush was criticized for his slow response to the storm. Rather than landing in New Orleans to look at the devastation from the ground, he viewed the damage from the air on the way from California to Washington. Many analysts criticized his leadership for failing to survey the damage on the ground.

In contrast, after Hurricane Sandy struck New York and New Jersey in 2012, Obama quickly visited the affected areas multiple times to meet with local leaders and affected families. President Obama was praised for working with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican who in the past has been extremely critical of Obama’s leadership.

Obama’s rapid response and both leaders’ willingness to put aside partisanship was put forward as an example of effective leadership at both the national and state level.

“Teutonic Obsession“?

The British newspaper The Telegraph published an article by Jeremy Warner about the geopolitics of the European Central Bank and the Euro-Crisis. The fact that the bank had only now started the process of quantitative easing was in large part due to Germany’s previous efforts to resist this.

However, the German’s resistance against these measures taken by the ECB was not due to the German’s experiences with hyperinflation during the time of the Weimar Republic, but rather traces back to much profounder factors found deep within the German psyche: the ancient Teutonic obsession with legality and rules.

Could this also be the reason why the German response to proposals for money-saving measures, bail-outs, and troika made by the Greeks is a always the same resounding statement: “The Greeks must stick to the rules”?

But where do rules become necessary, in order to assure reliability, stability and continuity, and where must one deviate from them due to changes in circumstance? Does not every change in strategy incorporate breaking the rules of a time gone-by?

Is Jeremy Warner’s statement about a so-called ancient Teutonic obsession with legality and rules even historically accurate?

Political Consensus

Gerhard Schröder was chancellor of the red-green – Social Democrats plus Green Party – government from 1998 til 2002, and then after reelection from 2002 til 2005. In his first term the Social Democrats and the Greens had a majority in the Bundesrat, the Upper House, where the sixteen German states are represented to co-decide with the federal government on national policy. The Schröder government had little difficulty passing the legislation they had proposed during the election campaign.

In 2002 the situation began to change, however. Federal elections led to another majority for the Social Democrats and the Greens. But at the state level they lost their majority within a few years. The opposition – Christian Democrats and Free Democrats – had gained the majority in the Bundesrat and were able to block legislation proposed by the Schröder government.

Nonetheless, Schröder‘s coalition was able time and again to craft legislation in a way which served the interests of those state governments led by opposition parties. His government was able to compromise and collaborate with those critical German states led by the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats.

Parliamentary Democracy

In a parliamentary democracy the government is created out of and by the parliament. It is dependent on the support of the parliamentary party factions. The government, created by a majority coalition in the parliament, can also be deposed via a vote of Mißtrauen, mistrust. On the one side this gives the parliament a high degree of control over the government. On the other, however, the government can only govern by passing laws, which in turn requires strict discipline among the coalition parties in the parliament.

The presidential system is a different approach to democratic government. It‘s government – or administration, the executive branch of government – is elected directly by the people, and is therefore independent of the legislative branch, the Congress (Senate, House).

The United States is the most prominent example of the presidential system. There are also democratic forms of government which have aspects of both the parliamentary and presidential systems, such as France.

Germany is a classic parliamentary democracy. With one exception, federal elections have never produced a party with an absolute majority. Governments are always based on a coalition of two parties, who elect a chancellor to form a government. The chancellor then, in close negotiation with the coalition partners, chooses members for the cabinet. Traditionally these are the most powerful leaders of the coalition parties in the largest German states. They are power brokers in their own right and are considered to be capable of replacing the chancellor at any time.

Since all laws must be passed by a majority of the parliament, the government and its majority coalition in the parliament must work closely together. Any failure to pass a law is a clear signal of a possible break in the coalition.

Should the government, however, misuse its power over and against its colleagues in the parliament, the parliament can at any time dissolve the government via a vote of mistrust, which in turn leads to new elections. The government, should it not have the necessary support of parliament, has the same power to dissolve the parliament and force new elections.

In this sense, the chancellor‘s power is based on close cooperation not only with those cabinet members with their own independent political power base, but also with the influential factions in the parliament. The German chancellor is in the cabinet a primus inter pares, a first among equals.