Still unsure who to choose?

It's getting tight.

Perhaps the “Ten Minute Decision-Making Guide with Till Reiners”, a regular guest at the heute-show on ZDF, will help you.

In the YouTube video, the satirist strolls past the party headquarters in a good mood and reduces the party programs to chattering anecdotes.

The FDP receives most of the ridicule: “You cannot invite Hannibal Lecter to dinner and then be surprised that you are missing an arm.

The comparison was a bit crooked, of course, nobody should accuse the FDP of liking poor people. "

Patrick Schlereth

Editor on duty at FAZ.NET.

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And the CDU?

They have a “very clear measure for climate protection that is obvious: Exactly, build highways.” What are the most important issues for the next few years?

Exactly, social justice, and above all climate protection.

"The left, then the Greens, then the SPD," says Reiners, wants to do the most for the climate, while the CDU and FDP say: "Hey, let's see."

One thing sticks to the viewer: if you are not completely stupid, you do not vote for the CDU or the FDP.

But shouldn't good satire be independent and non-partisan?

That was the promise of the opening episode of “ZDF Magazin Royale” after the summer break.

Jan Böhmermann announced, with a wink, "the only politically 100 percent balanced program on German television".

Allow yourself only jokes about “those up there, so no jokes about Armin Laschet today”.

Böhmermann accuses Lanz of inviting Streeck

Böhmermann's jokes are not only directed against “those up there”, but mostly against those in and to the right of the middle. The ZDF presenter has gone from being a harmless joke to a political activist who transports a left-green worldview in the mode of the thigh knock. When the FDP wrote in its electoral program that it wanted to curtail public broadcasters and lower the broadcasting fee, he reviled the liberals on Twitter as "AFDP" and moved them closer to a party that has right-wing extremists such as Björn Höcke in their ranks. When the Union's SME association called for a merger of ARD and ZDF, Böhmermann tweeted: “The CDU's SME association should merge with the far-right AfD. That would be cheaper, meaningful in terms of content, and unnecessary multiple structures would be eliminated.“That wouldn't be very interesting if Böhmermann didn't have more than 2.3 million followers on Twitter. He is one of the most influential influencers of an entire generation, and he works with those methods of flattening discourse that are characteristic of the Twitter medium.

Is it all just kidding? Isn't it satire, FDP and Union have to endure it? Maybe. But that Böhmermann is serious about excluding unloved voices from the discourse, was shown at a panel discussion of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. There, Böhmermann accused ZDF colleague Markus Lanz of inviting virologists like Hendrik Streeck and Alexander Kekulé, even though they "technically say that this is not a good thing". Lanz asked back who decides on professional suitability. Böhmermann succinctly: “The people who have a clue.” The accusation is therefore to promote a “false balance” in favor of the audience rating. But it is important: Kekulé and Streeck were wrong with their assessments and were rightly criticized, but they are not lateral thinkers who deny the existence of the virus or consider the vaccine to be the work of the devil.

Traditionally, satire is more left-wing

After the discussion, Böhmermann followed up on Twitter: “Opinions in the public space should withstand strict, comprehensive media and social quality control.” Anyone who sees it differently should “like to write their opinion in the reply” - but only users from Böhmermann were mentioned, for the rest the comments are invisible.

Either way, the question of which ominous commission should carry out the "quality control" remains that Böhmermann fantasizes about.

Bild editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt accused Böhmermann of “political propaganda” and complained that we all have to pay “for this nonsense” in public law. One can only be happy that one does not have to pay for the much bigger nonsense in the picture, one smiles at the "journalistic standards" that Reichelt ascribes to his paper. But he is right about one thing: "In satirical shows, a political direction is clearly preferred, namely a left-green direction."

Traditionally, satire is more left-wing.

But if it becomes pure influencing and wants to exclude unpleasant speakers, this should also give left-wingers to think about.

Especially in times when the evening satire show should act as the first source of information for viewers with little news affinity, as it were as a “show with the mouse for adults”, as Claus von Wagner from “Die Anstalt” says about his political cabaret on ZDF.

If the left-liberal program is equated with common sense or the good cause, the worst case scenario is that everything that is not left of center is thrown into one pot - as with Böhmermann's “AFDP”.

But it does not matter whether you are dealing with democratic parties like the FDP or the CDU or the AfD, which would like to abolish our basic order.