President Neelix Spends 60% of his time fucking around

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Two parties are better than one.

You know that people often joke about the US party system being a system where two right wings of the same party are up for election? Given the US election system, both parties are effectively trying to attract the exact same people. Those two parties are just as good as one. It's shades of beige.

Can I get a brief rundown of the left-wing provisions in Germany (if that's where you're from) that contrast to the US?

In Germany, Angela Merkel, the European Pan Nationalist Globalist, is considered center right.

I just meant this international sans America worldview that America is predominantly right-wing. Our affinity with capitalism is undoubtedly telling, but what is the makes of Germany or perhaps some other place -- not Switzerland -- that makes left-wing in America not particularly substantial in comparison.

[Darth Wedgius]

Rome worked well for an incredibly long time, that didn't stop it from collapsing. Right now we're in a situation where all gentleman's agreements that made Democracy Alpha version workable have been systematically destroyed by the republican party.

Pretty much, I mean they've only managed to lose the popular vote once in the last 30 years and that was against a still popular incumbent president.

I'm not sure what that means in this context as Trump has consistently pushed unpopular policy.

I'm not even talking about the general Russian disinformation campaign, I'm talking about his connection to Roger Stone who has been Arrested for his connection to the DNC hack which Russia has stated was a military action of the Russian government if it occurred.

Literally guilt by association? Really?

[Madner Kami]

Can I get a brief rundown of the left-wing provisions in Germany (if that's where you're from) that contrast to the US?

Oh dear, I don't think I can break that down in just a few sentences and truth be told, I don't really want to even try at the moment. I'll see if I can find the time tomorrow, but one corner-stone was already mentioned by ABS: Our current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is indeed considered Center Right. Politically, she and her party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), are possibly best compared to the more leftist elements (mind you, not extreme left, but leftist) of the US' democractic party and her partner-party, the CSU (Christian Social Union), which is basically the Bavaria-only off-shot of the CDU is roughly equal to the more rightish elements of your Democrats.
In terms of economic policy, both parties advocate a mix of liberal and socialist elements, unintuitively, the CSU is less socialist in her policies, then the CDU.

As a rule of thumb, CDU and CSU (they act as one common fraction in the Bundestag, our parliament) get about one third to one one half of the votes in every election.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Can I get a brief rundown of the left-wing provisions in Germany (if that's where you're from) that contrast to the US?

Oh dear, I don't think I can break that down in just a few sentences and truth be told, I don't really want to even try at the moment. I'll see if I can find the time tomorrow, but one corner-stone was already mentioned by ABS: Our current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is indeed considered Center Right. Politically, she and her party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), are possibly best compared to the more leftist elements (mind you, not extreme left, but leftist) of the US' democractic party and her partner-party, the CSU (Christian Social Union), which is basically the Bavaria-only off-shot of the CDU is roughly equal to the more rightish elements of your Democrats.
In terms of economic policy, both parties advocate a mix of liberal and socialist elements, unintuitively, the CSU is less socialist in her policies, then the CDU.

As a rule of thumb, CDU and CSU get about one third to one one half of the votes in every election.

Well alrighty that may be a start. Until you get back in later time though, just a few things on my mind: firstly out of the way, I'm not really aware of any religious foundations with the Democratic Party outside of an overarching agenda of tolerance that, while inclusive to Christianity for any given consideration of course, serves well for any other practical religion. My sense is that they're actually more conscious of the separation of church and state not so much like the Republican party here (at least in national sentiment maybe); and also though that those two parties seem to be correlated to the Democrats otherwise, but are you saying mainly that Germany doesn't really have a "Republican party" so to speak?

[Madner Kami]

Well alrighty that may be a start. Until you get back in later time though, just a few things on my mind: firstly out of the way, I'm not really aware of any religious foundations with the Democratic Party outside of an overarching agenda of tolerance that, while inclusive to Christianity for any given consideration of course, serves well for any other practical religion. My sense is that they're actually more conscious of the separation of church and state not so much like the Republican party here (at least in national sentiment maybe); and also though that those two parties seem to be correlated to the Democrats otherwise, but are you saying mainly that Germany doesn't really have a "Republican party" so to speak?

Both CDU and CSU are pretty much christian in name only, if that's what triggered you mentioning religious foudnations. It's a remnant of a different time, where religion actually still mattered. Of course it's regularly brought up as a talking point by the more social-conservative elements of both parties (usually more by members of CSU), but that is neither here nor there. For everyday life, the C is absolutely inconsequential and you don't even need to be a Christian to become a member of the party.

As for whether we have an equivalent of the Republicans. Hm, kind of, but not really. The party calls itself FDP (Free Democratic Party). They have a strong leaning towards (neo)liberal policies, but fip-flop a bit between social liberalism and economic liberalism, depending on the time of the day. They tend to lean more towards the right and there's a streak of nationalim in their member's makeup, but you'd be hard-pressed to find extreme elements of that colour there, even though they occasionally flirted with that direction. The party itself does support LGBTQ-rights btw. and their former leader, Guido Westerwelle (2009-2013), was and is openly gay.
The party generally has a hard time getting up to 10% of the votes.

Also, there's currently a New Right movement going on, culminating in the foundation of the AfD (Alternative for Germany). The party hasn't yet really found their direction, but they combine extreme and more moderate elements of the far right. Regarding their economic stance, they are strongly (neo)liberal, even though many of their supporters do not realize it or ignore it conveniently, in order to "do the Trump", regarding immigration. They put a large emphasis on their opposition to the EU.
The party is in constant turmoil, being dragged to the extreme right as pretty much all extreme right parties ceased their work and conglomerated into this monstrosity, smelling the chance to get elected instead of being broadly irrelevant. A large part of the voter-base does not want to be extreme right or vote (neo)liberal though and in regards to economic policies, it's a mess of national-socialists and national-liberalists. It's hard to put them in an exact corner at the moment and there's some potential to end up with 10-20%. But it also could go the exact other way in the next elections, once the immigration crisis has cooled down or people realize, that they'd rather vote for a social party instead of what is essentially an ultra-nationalist anti-EU FDP.

[Madner Kami]

P.S.: I should probably mention, that neither the FDP nor the AfD argue against our social welfare system on a principal basis. The FDP may criticise it, but they wouldn't abolish it.
It's pretty much impossible to end up homeless and without food or even a baseline income here in Germany. Those who do, either do so by choice, by sheer idiocy (as long as you apply for jobs, you won't have to fear getting cuts on your welfare income) or because they fell literally through the seams of the security nets (e.g. not having a fixed residence or banking account are a huge problem, if you want social welfare).