German Elections & Politics

[Barnes]

I seriously doubt that Red-Maroon-Green will get a majority in September ...

In the end, Merkel will pull this out again and there'll be a renewed Grand Coalition.

I was just pointing out that some pollls showed the possibility at present, but I agree it's highly improbable.

I think it's almost certain there will be another Grand Coalition and the Union will most likely be the largest party, but the SPD should at least get a healthy boost in their numbers.

[DL]

Yeah in the last election the CDU took 42% and the SPD 26% - so within the "grand coalition" it was a 62/38 split in favour of the CDU which would have meant a cabinet heavily weighted to CDU/CSU ministers. Let's say that Merkel pulls it off this September but the popular vote is something like CDU 34% and SPD 32%...that would mean a big increase in the number of SPD cabinet ministers around the table and a centre-left government that would have more "left" in it than the current one has. Right?

[Rob Bloom]

That's perhabs the worst election analysis I have ever read in my entire life.

You may not like it, but it's all true and you know it ;-)

But I can imagine that you mostly read "analysis" from the German left-wing media propaganda networks, so you're reading crap every day and election. No wonder you're shocked when reading reality. Sorry, not sorry.

If we're talking about the German public GEZ-paid media (pay for the propaganda or get jailed in the "most free Germany of all time"), yesterday I saw an Analysis of the ARD/ZDF talk Show guests in 2017:

CDU/CSU 29 appearances
SPD 24
Greens 12
FDP 8
Linke 8
AfD 1

Great Democracy we're having. But of course, the German media is totally non-bias - let's get outraged about RT Propaganda! ;-)

Can you please stop calling the major German television networks "left wing"? It's ridiculous. You should review their coverage of the Greek crisis 2015 - it was propaganda all right, but it was pro austerity all the way.

Die Linke is a left wing party - would you really suggest ARD and ZDF support Die Linke?
For sure, they don't support AfD either. But that seems to be your only "proof" for a left bias. Please be serious!


  

[Beezer]

I'd say there definitely is a "progressive" bias on German tv. But then again that is the case virtually everywhere. The average mainstream journalist tends to have political views that are to the left of the general population.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Political leanings of public broadcasting varies regionally in Germany, often depending on for which political party the respective state is a stronghold. This results in MDR and BR being right-wing, while WDR and NDR are left-wing.

Due to the federalized nature of public broadcasting political leanings of the national channels ARD and ZDF can vary from program to program. Monitor (produced by WDR) is decidedly left-wing, while report München (produced by BR) is obviously right-wing. They're both on ARD though.

Of course, supporters of the Left Party will think that almost all TV channels follow a "neoliberal" agenda, while AfD voters consider them to be "leftist".

[ApatheticAustrian]

exactly what old europe said....and conservatives also use that influence very directly if you remember ZDF and brender-gate.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How is the red red green coalition holding up, anyway?

They could get a rather slim majority on most polls, but I honestly think Schulz would try for a Red-Green minority with some kind of agreement with the Left if at all possible. While rare, minority governments aren't without precedent federally.

Of course, another grand coalition would be easier to manage in that situation, honestly.

Sorry, i meant that Berlin coalition.

[Associate Justice PiT]

That's perhabs the worst election analysis I have ever read in my entire life.

You may not like it, but it's all true and you know it ;-)

But I can imagine that you mostly read "analysis" from the German left-wing media propaganda networks, so you're reading crap every day and election. No wonder you're shocked when reading reality. Sorry, not sorry.

If we're talking about the German public GEZ-paid media (pay for the propaganda or get jailed in the "most free Germany of all time"), yesterday I saw an Analysis of the ARD/ZDF talk Show guests in 2017:

CDU/CSU 29 appearances
SPD 24
Greens 12
FDP 8
Linke 8
AfD 1

Great Democracy we're having. But of course, the German media is totally non-bias - let's get outraged about RT Propaganda! ;-)

Can you please stop calling the major German television networks "left wing"? It's ridiculous. You should review their coverage of the Greek crisis 2015 - it was propaganda all right, but it was pro austerity all the way.

Die Linke is a left wing party - would you really suggest ARD and ZDF support Die Linke?
For sure, they don't support AfD either. But that seems to be your only "proof" for a left bias. Please be serious!

     My take is that recent events in Germany and many other countries have produced reactions that defy standard left-right division. There is fighting across the right, when people today are not used to this sort of thing. The CDU and AfD are enemies, but this rivalry does not make the CDU left-wing. Rather, they represent a different set of right-wing interests.

[ApatheticAustrian]

the cdu is a non-left progressive part, which is pushed to do social welfare by CSU and SPD.

[jaichind]

Latest ZDF poll seems to confirm the reopening of a CDU/CSU gap against SPD

CDU/CSU   35
SPD           32
AfD              9
Linke           8
Green          7

[ApatheticAustrian]

AfD leadership now published their proposal  - signed by party head Frauke Petry -  to expulse far-right leader Björn Höcke from the party and compared him with national socialists/Hitler.

This is going to be fun.

[Bumaye]

AfD leadership now published their proposal  - signed by party head Frauke Petry -  to expulse far-right leader Björn Höcke from the party and compared him with national socialists/Hitler.

This is going to be fun.

 
 
I love the implication. According to a Civey Poll from February 52% of the AfD base are against kicking Höcke out of their party. That basically means a majority supports a national socialist.  Not that this would surprise me, just to hear it from the AfD leadership itself is so funny.

[DL]

A few recent polls have had the CDU up a point or two but the danger is that they seem to picking up votes from the FDP which is now flirting with falling below the 5% hurdle again. One thing that could yield a red-red-green majority very easily would be the FDP getting 4.8% of the vote and no seats again

[Klartext89]

I see, again too much reality and arguments for the average media victim ;-)

Yeah, you really seem the "Lügenpresse" sort.  In which case, maybe we should start a "Klartext89 forum ban" countdown...

Well, seems that you're really powerful and succesful ;-)

Nevertheless once again nice to see the fascist left in action - and of course failing.

[Representative simossad]

I see, again too much reality and arguments for the average media victim ;-)

Yeah, you really seem the "Lügenpresse" sort.  In which case, maybe we should start a "Klartext89 forum ban" countdown...

Well, seems that you're really powerful and succesful ;-)

Nevertheless once again nice to see the fascist left in action - and of course failing.

Where did you learn these phrases - Junge Freiheit or compact magazine?

[Tender Branson]

NRW poll:



Majorities for SPD-CDU and SPD-FDP-Greens.

Did I miss anything ?

No majorities for SPD-Greens-Left (48) and CDU-FDP-AfD (48).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Discuss!

[Klartext89]

I see, again too much reality and arguments for the average media victim ;-)

Yeah, you really seem the "Lügenpresse" sort.  In which case, maybe we should start a "Klartext89 forum ban" countdown...

Well, seems that you're really powerful and succesful ;-)

Nevertheless once again nice to see the fascist left in action - and of course failing.

Where did you learn these phrases - Junge Freiheit or compact magazine?

Reality. Truth hurts? Stop being fascists against everyone you don't agree to. You're no upper race or every non-left Person isn't human garbage, ok?!

[Klartext89]

As you may have heard, the UCL Soccer (what a terrible word...) game between Borussia Dortmund (which isn't my club) and AS Monaco had to be canceled after a terrorist attack which hit the BVB bus and injured one Player who had to get surgery.

Meanwhile the Police is investigating two letters of intend:

1. Radical islamic terrorist like ISIS.

2. Left-wing terrorists called AntiFa which are heavily funded by German government to terrorize non-left people who are all "Nazis" according to this left fascists.

Interesting but I'm pretty sure that the Police will fail - given the fact that it is in NRW and therefore the most incompetent politicians and Police Leaders (who all only have their job because they are SPD members) will lead the investigations...

[parochial boy]

Discuss!

I thought the FDP had more of an economically centrist wing as well? Or is it entirely the party of free-market liberalism these days?

[Zinneke]

Discuss!

I don't get the SPD's stance on TTIP/CETA

Also lol at Boateng

[Klartext89]

Discuss!

I don't get the SPD's stance on TTIP/CETA

Also lol at Boateng

Given the fact that the map includes the Boateng lie by dishonest FAZ (#FakeNews) says all about it.

The SPD is like every Union organization not even close to workers, only in election times or for propaganda. As soon as ihe votes are casts, they start to be corrupt and for the big business interest again.

[palandio]

Discuss!

Very interesting graphic.

What should be noted is that it is from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a political foundation (Stiftung) close to the SPD. Not too surprising that the SPD is positioned at the center of the political landscape. I think that the authors of said study are probably somewhere in the upper left quadrant, at least I get that feeling from reading their analysis on the website of the FES.

http://www.fes.de/de/strategy-debates-global/strategy-debates-germany/

When it comes to the shown spectrum itself I think that you always have to simplify somehow and that therefore two axes are probably a useful simplification capturing the most relevant divides. That being said I see certain problems particularly with the libertarian-authoritarian axis. First thing: "Libertarian vs. authoritarian" seems to be a bit of a misnomer, "societal progressism vs. societal conservatism" might be slightly more appropriate. What is evident particularly from the analysis on Sweden, that you can find on the FES website as well, is that the upmost space often stands on the theoretical foundation of poststructuralism. Traditional liberalism and civil libertarianism would be positioned more in the center. On the other hand what I call "Fortuynism", i.e. nationalism without extreme traditionalism, is becoming more and more a thing. Finally I see that being supportive or critical of the EU correlates quite well with the other factors, but the inclusion into the two-dimensional spectrum doesn't ask why someone is supportive or critical.

On the single parties:

Linke: The main cleavage in the past years has been between who wants complete opposition and who is more ready to comprise, hence on the left-center axis. On the voter level a cleavage on societal politics has been observable between 2009 (economic protest party, with many votes coming from societal "traditionalists") and 2013 (shift towards the urban alternative milieu). I expect this trend to continue. Regarding immigration politics it is true that Sahra Wagenknecht, one of the two leaders for the federal election, has been quite critical, but hers is clearly a minority view within her own party. In my eyes the majority of the Left's activist base seems quite progressive. Immigration politics, independently from what position you actually take, doesn't seem to be a winning issue for the Left.

SPD: Yes, the main strategy debate within the SPD is on the left-center axis (like... since ever), although until now much of this seems a bit hollow to me. The SPD has been sending signal of unease on the societal axis and it will be interesting to see if and in which direction that will eventually evolve. I will take a closer look at them going into the coming election.

Greens: The realos are dominating, but on the mid-level there are still some lefties. Coming to the "tyranny of virtue", terms like this are mostly used by the more centrist politicians against societal progressivism, i.e. some positions that are called "libertarian" by the FES are called "tyrannical" by conservative Greens. Differently from the shown graphic I also see some overlap between the leftmost segments of the Greens and the most emancipatory-progressive segments of the Left.

Union: The main forces that are trying to drag the opportunistic Merkel Union away from the center are to the right economically (Schäuble), socially (CSU) or on everything (large parts of the CDU base). I think that with Merkel the Union won't be able to squeeze the AfD against the wall and on the other hand a clear rightward shift might drive away voters in the triangle between CDU, SPD and Greens. It's quite likely that the Union might eventually take resort in an R2G scare campaign.

AfD: Currently the main cleavages within the party seem of personal nature to me. On the other hand there is a strong extreme-right current in the party (i.e. even more "authoritarian" than the mainstream of the party). Its figurehead Björn Höcke might be eventually excluded from the party, but that is not sure. Alexander Gauland made the "Boateng" remarks during a private conversation with two FAZ journalists, who then took them out of context. Apart from that Gauland's strategy is to drag the AfD even further into the national populist direction, explicitely trying to transverse the economic left-right spectrum and to attract disappointed traditionalist left-leaners. He's your pure hardcore traditionalist societal conservative authoritarian nationalist, the furthest you can go away from the multi-culturalist poststructuralist progressives without actually being a nazi.

FDP: They're now yellow, magenta and cyan. And yeah, they might endorse digital civil rights because the tax-avoiding dentist doesn't care and both internet-affine conservative protest voters and socially progressive voters might be attracted by it. Apart from that the important thing is that they don't really move on the issues that really matter, i.e. business.

[adma]

Reality. Truth hurts? Stop being fascists against everyone you don't agree to. You're no upper race or every non-left Person isn't human garbage, ok?!

You sound like a 15-year-old who's about to gun down his parents.

[Klartext89]

Reality. Truth hurts? Stop being fascists against everyone you don't agree to. You're no upper race or every non-left Person isn't human garbage, ok?!

You sound like a 15-year-old who's about to gun down his parents.

And you're sounding like someone out of arguments, in other words: A leftist.