Honest. Or at least that’s what we read in Der Spiegel.

Here is a quick summary of yet another intellectually challenging and frankly quite bizarre Spiegel “analysis:”

US democracy is nearing its limits.

The United States has avoided federal default, but no one should be happy about this.

This is because the American political system is truly broken.

This latest political crisis has turned out to be a systemic crisis.

The country’s political architecture was not designed for long-lasting blockades and extortion, the likes of which have been enthusiastically practiced by Tea Party supporters for almost the last four years.

America is no longer a representative democracy. This is because in the congressional elections in 2012 the Democrats won 1.17 million more votes than Republicans but Republicans got 33 more seats in the House of Representatives.

Not even 10 percent of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are considered competitive.

The last of the mohicans, uh moderates, have been pushed out of Congress.

Politicians actually call each other names these days (which apparently never happened in the past) and this is in part due to talk radio personalities.

Radical groups and billionaires (on the right, of course) actually make campaign contributions now.

The Tea Party came into being because the old “white majority” is shrinking into a minority and this is why they now proudly hold up ignorance and stupidity as badges of honor.

But other than all that though, I thought the commentary was pretty good.

And this just in: Germans are not really rude! And this video here will prove it or something.