German Federal Election 2017

[Middle-aged Europe]

Didn't we have a similar poll fairly recently and didn't it show that Atlas is apparently pretty similar to a state in East Germany like Saxony-Anhalt (= strong result for both AfD and Left)?

[Middle-aged Europe]

It seems with the current results there are only two coalitions possible at the moment :

1) SPD-Left-Greens

2) SPD-CDU-Greens-FDP

[Middle-aged Europe]

I have the impression, that the greens have a large faction that's economically centre-right and very socially liberal, a greener version of the FDP. The politics that green parties represent is anathema to me, as a leftist (my version of leftism anyway).

I'd say that the "right" wing of the Greens is in no way more right-wing than the "right" wing of the SPD.

In my experience however, leftists tend to be more pissed about the Greens' "right wing" because they expect the Greens to be generally more left-wing than the SPD and consider it a betrayal of leftism that they're in fact not.

A classic example: The SPD is certainly forming coalitions with the CDU more frequently than the Greens do with the CDU. However, the latter are usually getting more flak for it from the left.

So in essence, the Greens are often considered more right-wing than they actually are because they're not as left-wing as it is  "expected" from them.

Platform-wise, SPD and Greens have been largely identical for quite some time now. Differences exist in emphasis rather than actual policy. The SPD's emphasis lies on social justice, and the Greens emphasis lies on ecology. That doesn't mean however that the SPD isn't pro-environment and neither does it mean that the Greens aren't pro-social justice.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I think for me, it's the fact the greens have to tie to workers/labour unions the SPD do, which keeps them on their toes. SPD still has an impression of being a working class party, and party for labour, while the greens (around the world), are seen as elitst, self-entitled middle-class party of the burgoise, the right-wing faction of the party doesn't help with that. This image, rightly or wrongly, is anathema to me.

Well, I agree that this is unfortunately the image. It's only a half-truth though. While the Greens' usually receive less votes from working-class people than the SPD, they're still significantly stronger in that group than the FDP.

In the 2016 Baden-Württemberg state election this was even turned upside down. In that election, 21% of all "workers" voted Green, and only 13% of the working-class voted SPD. And this despite the fact that Baden-Württembergian Greens are certainly the most right-wing of all the Green state chapters. But in that state, the Greens managed to replace the SPD as the leading center-left force.

And as far as labour unions are concerned, the president of the ver.di labor union (2.2 million members) is a member of the Green Party. Then again, ver.di is more of a white-collar union.

3:39, represent a lot of my views (if it's translated well)

It's a Left Party MP. Of course she says bad things about the Greens. She would probably say equally bad things about the SPD. For the Left, both SPD and Greens have betrayed their lefitst principles. Doesn't mean they're comparable to the FDP though.

While it's true that the Greens are less "revolutionary" than they used to be, this of course also applies to the SPD. I'd interpret "lost its revolutionary spirit" as "they became just like the SPD". Keep in mind, that the Greens were originally regarded as more left-wing than the social democrats with many left-wing SPD members joining the party in the 80s.

[Middle-aged Europe]

With regards to Merkel's refugee policies, I'm re-posting these polling numbers:

"Can Germany cope with the many refugees?" (ZDF/Forschungsgruppe Wahlen)
Jan. 2017: Yes 57%, No 41%
Jan. 2016: Yes 37%, No 60%

The difference between Jan. 2016 and Jan. 2017 is of course that 900,000 refugees came to Germany in 2015, while 300,000 refugees came in 2016 (and half of those 300,000 came in January and February 2016).



Some additional numbers on what Germans think about the AfD...

"How widespread are right-wing extremist ideas within the AfD?"
Very widespread 44%
Widespread 38%
Not that widespread 11%
Not at all 1%

"Is the AfD sufficiently distancing itself from right-wing extremist positions?"
Yes 10%
No 81%
Don't know 9%

Numbers from are from late January. As a thumb role, the only people who don't think that the AfD is right-wing extremist are the people who vote AfD.

[Middle-aged Europe]

any new-rightie culturalist supporting the AfD should be wary of the strong, austrian-like, "old-school-racist-right" elements in the east.

I'd say the racism in eastern Germany is more alike to Eastern European racism (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary). Anti-pluralist and anti-globalist notions which are the result of 40 years of Communist totalitarianism.

It's ironic for a nominally "internationalist" ideology like Communism, but compared to West Germany the borders were tightly closed in East Germany and the government's rhetoric also tended to be significantly more nationalist. But I guess authoritarianism remains authoritarianism, no matter under which political "colour".

[Middle-aged Europe]

any new-rightie culturalist supporting the AfD should be wary of the strong, austrian-like, "old-school-racist-right" elements in the east.

I'd say the racism in eastern Germany is more alike to Eastern European racism (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary). Anti-pluralist and anti-globalist notions which are the result of 40 years of Communist totalitarianism.

It's ironic for a nominally "internationalist" ideology like Communism, but compared to West Germany the borders were tightly closed in East Germany and the government's rethoric also tended to be significantly more nationalist. But I guess authoritarianism remains authoritarianism, no matter under which political "colour".

I mean the growth of AfD in the east is due to the failures of unification on a west-dominated capitalist establishment, which left East Germany closed. As are the reasons why far-right parties are higher in former communist countries, due to stupid decisions carried out, on the basis on american neoliberal economists (carried out by both left and right), ruining the social aspect of the country, it's concepts of solidarity, reducing money to highest common factor, and letting a signifiant proportion of the country die, leaving them poor, while reducing the standard of living for many east europeans

You're from the east germany? No? Do you agree or disagree with me?.

It's true that the economic "losers" of the political transition process are more prone to vote for AfD (or NPD for that mattter).

However, I'd say that the underlying authoritarian and xenophobic tendencies are also present in people who have in fact profited from the political transition. And those tendencies were present in 1989/90 as much as they were in 2000 or today.

So both is true, really. The Communist regimes laid the groundwork, and it fully broke through with people who suffered the most disadvantages from the regime change.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I realise that the nazi party was stronger in East Germany, but could that not be, right-wing frustation, and with virluent anti-communism, people voting for the NPD.

I seriously doubt that many people voted NPD due to "anti-communism". Certainly not those voters who were ticket-splitting and gave their first vote to the PDS candidate and the second vote to the NPD, which is a well-documented phenomenon. If anything the NPD was successful due to anti-democratism and also anti-capitalism (given that the NPD isn't really that much of a pro-free market party). If you're anti-communist you vote FDP or CDU.

Underlying authoritarian tendencies might have been there, but East German "nationalism" was more about social nationalism, and solidarity towards your brother, as well as workers around the socialist block, then xenophobia.

It was not just "social nationalism". Granted, the East German nationalism was toned down a bit in the latter phase of the regime.

Especially in the beginning GDR government propaganda was all about: "integration of West Germany into Western alliances is solidifying the partition of the German nation and preventing the re-unfication of the German people, West Germany is merely an American puppet state, Germany must regain its national sovereignty" (yeah, pretty ironic rhetoric coming from a Soviet puppet state).

But the rampant flag-waving and the emphasis on the GDR as a decidedly German nation as opposed to the "Westernized", "Americanized", and "globalized" Federal Republic were retained until the end.

Ironically, the two political parties which are the most pro-Russian and the most anti-American nowdays are the AfD and the Left.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I guess nationalism was widely used,, in a socialistic, imperialistic sense (soviet imperalism doesn't count obviously)  but it wasn't xenophobic.

I guess you could make the case that nationalism usually leads to xenophobia too whether its intended or not.

Huh ticket splitting between PDS and neo-nazis when the East German regime was based on being anti-fascist is weird,

The official anti-fascism of the East German state was superficial at best. It was mostly directed at West Germany for propaganda purposes too, claiming that the government of West was run by former members of the Nazi regime (which was at least in part true of course). However, the question "how much responsibility did WE have for the Nazis' crimes?" was never asked in East Germany. It was the fault of the West Germans, while the East Germans were supposedly clean.

This was of course a result of the East German regime being run by older communists who were either living in exile in Moscow during World War II or had to endure the concentration camps themselves. This had a couple of side effects though:

1) The extent of guilt or responsibility of whose who did live in Germany during WWII was never really discussed in East German society, at least not to the extent it was done in West Germany.

2) The Holocaust against the Jews and other minorities was downplayed in East German historiography. Instead, the communists were often portrayed as the primary victims of the Nazi regime.

3) East Germany was primarily regarded as a country of the victims of Nazism and not as a country of perpetrators.

4) As a result of 2) and 3), East Germany refused to pay reparations to Israel after the war. This was seen as West Germany's job.

5) One of the so-called bloc parties of the "National Front" which were formed alongside the SED in East Germany in the late 40s was the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD) which purpose was to attract former Nazis and former Wehrmacht officers and win them over for the new regime.

6) And then of course you have phenomena like the different attitude the East German government had toward the emerging skinhead and punk scenes in the country in the mid-80s. Stasi reports from the era make note of the "positive attitude" skinheads had toward patriotism and military service, while punks were considered bums whose hear had to be cut.

...is there proof, or is it from experience, was this in 1990, or at or after 2005?

It was reported in the news here and then. The first I heard of the phenomenon was in 1998, I think (see below). It's confirmed by anecdotal evidence I heard from individual people. I think it's possible that scientific studies exist on that too.

In 1990 unified election, neo-nazis got only very slightly higher votes than in the election before it. The inclusion of East Germany didn't result in the rise of the vote for the neo-nazis, probably meaning that neo-nazis that they weren't strong in the east in the start of unified Germany (is this correct or not?).

Well, it's true that there was a lot of enthusiasm about the re-unification and hence not much political dissatisfaction in East Germany in 1990. This led to East Germans overwhelmingly casting their vote for the incumbent center-right government in 1990 (CDU and FDP). Also note that the PDS' vote share was very modest in 1990, compared to later elections.

They started gaining in 2005, midst the SPD's and attacks on social welfare, labour laws and attacks on the poor was this when East German economy started going down also (or was this the case always?).

It started around the mid-90s when unemployment rates spiked in the East. The right-wing extremist DVU won 12.9% of the vote in the 1998 Saxony-Anhalt state election, 5.3% in the 1999 Brandenburg state election, and 6.1% in the 2004 Brandenburg state election. The NPD won 9.2% in the 2004 Saxony election, and 7.3% in the 2006 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern election. The DVU eventually merged into the NPD in 2011.

[Middle-aged Europe]

On the issue of skinheads, is it the case the skin heads were left-wing and patriotic to socialist east germany, and therefore left-wing and not xenophobic, and for lot of them that continued, however for some, and emerging germans, the unemployment, and the loss of jobs in the East cause some to vote for far-right parties.
 

No, those were actual, racist skinheads.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, Angela Merkel is the best possible kind of CDU Chancellor leftists can ever hope for. It's almost like having John Kasich or Jon Huntsman as U.S. president.

But at the end, she's still CDU of course. (And I agree that 12 years in office are enough.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

It seems with the current results there are only two coalitions possible at the moment :

1) SPD-Left-Greens

2) SPD-CDU-Greens-FDP

Possible coalitions under the current results (ranked in the order I think Martin Schulz would prefer them):

1) SPD-Greens-FDP

2) SPD-CDU/CSU-Greens

3) SPD-Left-Greens

4) SPD-CDU/CSU-FDP

[Middle-aged Europe]

SPD-Greens-FDP would be really great, especially if FDP is the second most numerous and has enough votes to swing it to CDU/CSU.

A SPD-Greens-FDP coalition wouldn't even come into existence in the first Placebo, if there is a CDU/CSU-SPD majority.

CDU/CSU and FDP not having a majority is a basic precondition for SPD-Greens-FDP.