It would help to look in more detail at the other items on the website cited in the OP - about ‘Brilliant Ann Coulter’, ‘The Bulgarian Trump’, and so on.
Not to mention that a website proclaiming “uncensored news” is curiously lacking in transparency about who they are, where they’re based, and what their sources are. But a bit of googling turns this up:
Never, ever, just take for granted what you read on the internet, any more than you would a newspaper that doesn’t give you information about itself.
PS. If you go back to the report in “Die Welt” (a more or less reputable conservative newspaper they link to), that reports that it comes from a YouGov survey (also a reputable source). However, Die Welt breaks the results down more than a little differently (my translation):
Don’t forget that last year’s general election gave the parties an almost impossible job in forming a government that would be able to do any more than keep the business of government ticking over, with almost constant talk about how long it can last, and who comes after Merkel.
Thanks everyone for putting in the time on this one. I appreciate it. About the link…understand, I found that, when I was doing a search on what was being asserted (i.e. that ‘more than half of Germans want to emigrate’), it didn’t come from anyone. It was one of the first hits on Google, so I used it. I didn’t know anything about that site, but I assumed if they were making the claim it was probably coming from similar sites. I appreciate someone going in and translating the linked survey…I don’t speak German so had no idea what that part was saying.
Anyway, you all have given me plenty of ammunition. I have to admit, I was hoping it would be crazy right wing racists, but it is what it is and I’m better informed for the next time this subject comes up in discussion.
I meant to add to my post above that, as others have noted, that it could be no more than older people who, when asked, say they fancy the idea of retirement in another country that’s peaceful and warm, and younger people fancying the idea of trying out work experience in another country for a while - something that EU membership already makes possible and substantial numbers take advantage of, more or less as people in the US can and do move interstate.
It’s overloading the interpretation to draw any perception of deep political discontent or a burning desire to turn to the extreme right, nor is the extreme right likely to be keen on, or to expect support from, people who find the nose-to-the-grindstone working culture increasingly wearisome, especially when combined, as it now is, with a greater measure of job insecurity as a result of labour market reforms.
That poll is from October 2016. I can’t find a single poll of Germans on the YouGov site from October 2018, except one about cars. In fact, that appears to be the only poll of Germans YouGov has ever done.
Just a couple of nitpicks to the translation here. The more minor one: the second word above should be ‘representative’ rather than ‘presentative’ [As I said they repeat “representative” all the time so it must be so]
The (only somewhat) more significant one: the “2109” does indeed look like a screwed-up year, but it’s not…as mentioned in my post #34, the number 2109 refers to the number of respondents:
In Deutschland wurden zwischen dem 19. und 21. September 2109 erwachsene Menschen befragt =
In Deutschland wurden /// zwischen dem 19. und 21. September /// 2109 erwachsene Menschen befragt =
In Germany, between the 19th and 21st of September, 2109 adults were asked…
I see why it looked like a typo to you, with the close connection of “September” and “2109,” but that’s a red herring.
They actually have a link to the Die Welt article on their website, but I suspect that it’s auto-generated. I am going to email them, since I suspect that they would care that someone has misrepresented their data.
Also the Erasmus program: millions of European college students spend half of a schoolyear in another university through that program every year. It might be the best idea anybody in Europe has had since lowercase letters; it’s probably the EU’s best ambassador, and definitely a great tool to increase inter-EU mobility both on the short and long terms. If I asked any EU college student “do you want to go Erasmus?” and they answered “oh hell no” I’d check them for high fever. The current version (Erasmus+) includes opportunities for stays in other countries as well.
Agreed, Nava. In my previous life I did admin support for Erasmus programmes in a university, and though I had my quibbles about the way it was done and accounted for, in principle it was exactly what the whole thing was all about. A pity it couldn’t start with primary schools and extend to souped-up town twinning programmes (I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jean Monnet said once that if he had his time over again he would have started with education rather than iron and steel and agriculture).