This morning on the Washington Journal (C-SPAN) they had two correspondents from "Die Welt" and from the "German Press Agency" to talk about the German elections. Considering the current election results one remark, which I think most Americans are not aware of, seems now even stranger.

One of the two correspondents said that in comparison to the US the elections in Germany are really just about economics and none of the issues that divide the US, like gun control, death penalty, abortion rights, gay rights are of any importance in German elections, because those issues have been mostly settled in Germany. So the election is just about taxes, pensions, economics etc.

Nevertheless the votes are highly spread out between several third parties aside from being equally divided between the two Volksparteien CDU and SPD.

One wonders why in Germany we have much more and clearer ideological diversity in the parties, but so much fewer social, cultural and ideologically relevant issues we really would have to vote on whereas one doesn't have any diverse party system ideologically speaking in the US but tons of diverse and divisive cultural and social issues Americans vote on with a passion. Shouldn't the US have more diverse parties, as they have much more divisive issues they vote on?