🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Diouf]

A "behemoth" that polls below 30 percent? Merkel's one lasting legacy will be the establishment of a party to the right of the CDU/CSU. This vote means the AfD is here to stay.

Probably overstating the influence of both Merkel and the AKK election quite a bit. The establishment of a party to the right of CDU/CSU would likely have taken place anyway as the German political system would become normalized. It's hard to see a CDU/CSU leader so right-wing that this would not have happened, particularly with the German constitution making it hard to make tough immigration/refugee policies. And yes AfD will stay anyway; I don't see a big difference in their destiny with Merz. You can't even rule out that it would have the opposite effect with Merz keeping the topic higher on the agenda, while being unable to do much about it because of constitutional/legal, intra-party and intra-coalition blocks.

[Diouf]

In the end, it is probably just a question of how structural one sees the developments across countries. I remember we had basically the same argument back in 2015 in the old thread.

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[Diouf]

RTL/ntv Trendbarometer comparison of approval rating between Merkel's 2018 average numbers and AKK now. AKK generally lower, most significantly with young voters, CDU voters and Green voters. However, her deficit with CSU voters and 45+ are slightly less than the average deficit, she is almost as popular as Merkel among FDP voters, and clearly more popular among AfD voters.

[Diouf]

I feel that people tend to glaze over the fact that the Danish Social Democrats actually, you know, lost vote share this year. Despite the advantages of opposition, unpopular incumbent and the like.

There is no a lot of genuine data that really objectively demonstrates that a "turn to the right" on immigration is at all helpful at maintaining centre-left parties' vote share (eg UK Labour, Swedish SAP, French PS, Austrian SPÖ have all tried it to some extent or another with essentially no electoral benefit). The risk is that all you do is legitimise radical right rhetoric and end up create more AFD voters, because why would anyone rationally choose the fake version over the authentic?

Like, the reason centre-left parties, the SPD chief among them, are struggling is as much down to changing sociological and economic structures; which Social Democrats haven't as yet been able to find a coherent response to. And fundamentally, copying the radical right's attitude to immigration isn't going to change the fact that the centre-left doesn't have solutions to the issues that modern western societies are dealing with.

Perhaps because this quite clearly was not a strategy centered on vote-maximizing, but a strategy based on winning office. My standard assumption during the term was actually that they would lose more and go to the low-twenties as socially liberal voters defected en masse. However, since the goal is winning office and governing with different majorities, it is fair to wait with the big conclusions before they have actually managed to govern succesfully this way during a term.

There is indeed a risk that just trying to copy other parties' immigration policies can just increase the salience of the topic and help anti-immigration parties. But if a party comes up with an authentic plan, it can reduce the salience for the necessary voters, who will no longer see the issue as a deal-breaker.

The whole topic of coalition building also needs to be re-thought by SPD. Are they willing to pursue minority-government with support by Linke, or are they just trying to become the biggest party in another grand coalition? Or can other options come into play while keeping a new strategy credible?

[Diouf]

It's a really good idea that those persons who have to carry out actual military tasks have some military experience, but really shouldn't be needn't among the politicians. Here political experience can be useful, and the ability to quickly understand the interests and motivations of the main players. For some, the latter becomes easier if they have practical experience for the field, for other it will be an hindrance as they are to enmeshed with some of the players. In the worst case becoming just at one with the machinery, and overlooking what's political feasible and/or popular.

[Diouf]

If anyone believed the myth of German like for ordnung, just look at how awful the party leaders are at timing their speeches.

[Diouf]

One of the mega-trends, fragmentation, continues with this election. Simon Hix has presented this graph which shows the development in the number of effective parties in parliament.

[Diouf]

Any chance Die Linke falls below 5% threshold thus not able to get top up seats?  Looks like it will be close.

They're only ahead In 2 atm

No, because they're winning their 3 direct constituencies, so they'll still be entitled to PR seats even if they fall below 5%.

Three.

https://wahlergebnis.leipzig.de/4/bt2021/14713000/praesentation/ergebnis.html?wahl_id=3&stimmentyp=0&id=ebene_-5_id_85

https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BU2021/AFSPRAES/ergebnisse_wahlkreis_86.html

https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BU2021/AFSPRAES/ergebnisse_wahlkreis_84.html