German Elections & Politics

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, AfD leader Frauke Petry's car was set on fire in Leipzig last night. AfD says that the violence against party members has come to resemble terror. According to the party, some politicians are engaging in a smear campaign and "no longer use democratic arguments" when talking negatively about AfD.

[DavidB.]

[DavidB.]

I don't really like AfD either (anymore), but I vividly recall what happened to Pim Fortuyn, and given the current toxic political climate and German extremists' propensity to use violence (on both sides), Germany has much more potential for a "Fortuyn" case than even the Netherlands in 2002 had. It is not something you want to happen.

[DavidB.]

High-energy Linke coming in third before the terrible Greens is great news.

[DavidB.]

https://twitter.com/FraukePetry/status/780455841975631872

What is Frauke saying in this tweet? I know she mentions the Hartz reforms. Is it a negative?

It's not about the reforms, it's about the benefits. She responds to a tweet by Die Welt ("all refugees should receive Hartz IV benefits") and tweets "Hartz IV [benefits] for all refugees? Wrong incentives are the problem, not the solution", implying that refugees already come to Germany because of the benefits.

[DavidB.]

In addition to what Crabcake says, people who care enough about climate change to let it influence their vote would almost never even think of voting for a party like AfD in the first place. It is not uncommon for European far-right parties to think climate change isn't real. What's more, the far-right in Germany (and Austria) is full of conspiracy loons who think climate change doesn't exist and is simply a way for the NWO/Illuminati/Rothschilds to stay powerful.

[DavidB.]

On DPP and BNP, but the same points can be applied with the AfD.

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https://berghahnbooks.com/blog/bernhard-forchtner-nationalism-environmental-issues

A very interesting subject indeed. Some RRWPs do focus on the connection between "the people" and "the land" (which is sometimes reflected in their preferred policies regarding deforestation, animals, industry), but at the same time they rarely care for more global environmental issues such as climate change. A distinction between national "real" environmental issues and international supposedly unimportant or fake environmental issues is drawn, if any attention is paid to the environment at all. This is even the case in the one Western European country that is perhaps most threatened by climate change, the Netherlands: the PVV consider environmental issues "leftist hobbies."

[DavidB.]

Yeah, that is pretty interesting. I guess at heart most people are environmentalists somewhat, nobody really wants to see their community park replaced with a big, polluting coal power plant. Maybe that appealing to that attitude can convince more people? Either way, hopefully these groups don't end up running any governments.

These groups? Radical right-wing parties are currently in government in Switzerland, Norway and Finland, they are necessary to sustain the current Danish government (and all Danish governments between 2001 and 2011), they were necessary to sustain the previous Dutch government, and they were in government in the Netherlands, Italy and Austria too.

[DavidB.]

SPD is said to announce their own Chancellor-candidate until Christmas. Current front-runners seem to be Sigmar Gabriel and Martin Schulz.

Who decides on that?

[DavidB.]

SPD is said to announce their own Chancellor-candidate until Christmas. Current front-runners seem to be Sigmar Gabriel and Martin Schulz.

Who decides on that?

Backroom deals.

Interesting. Who do you think is favored, Schultz or Gabriel? Do any German parties have real internal democratic mechanisms?

[DavidB.]

Interesting, thanks. And yeah, Merkel will remain chancellor until she wants to quit.

[DavidB.]

Interesting, thanks. And yeah, Merkel will remain chancellor until she wants to quit.

[DavidB.]

So in 2021 Germany will still not have gay marriage?

[DavidB.]

I'm sure her first meeting with President Le Pen will be interesting.

If that happens, Le Pen owes Merkel a yuuuuge thank you.

[DavidB.]

Höcke is a true German patriot who says what a hell lot of people in Germany are thinking.

You know who did that too?

I totally understand why one would support the AfD and would perhaps vote for them myself, but f**k you for defending that POS.

[DavidB.]

Höcke is a true German patriot who says what a hell lot of people in Germany are thinking.

You know who did that too?

I totally understand why one would support the AfD and would perhaps vote for them myself, but f**k you for defending that POS.

You can support Israel even without bowing down to anti-German sentiments which have oppressed my country for too long.

I don't think Germany's extreme anti-nationalism is good or healthy at all. Apart from the fact that it is unjust to think Germans of the post-WWII generation are not allowed to love their country, it is actually counterproductive: it leads people to start thinking the way you do. However, my opposition to Germany "abolishing itself" does not mean I think Germans should suddenly stop remembering what Nazis did during WWII.

The currently existing anti-German tendencies that are caused by obsession and feelings of guilt over the past are misplaced, but so are Höcke's absurd statements -- I don't care if Germans agree with him, they are morally wrong. That would not influence my party choice because politics is not a morality play and Germany's future is on the line, but it absolutely does influence my opinion of Höcke and anyone who supports him.

As for AfD's electoral potential, statements like Höcke's may not influence the polls right now, but they do influence their electoral ceiling.

[DavidB.]

Uh, going to Dachau and then not paying attention or making fun of it is obviously very distasteful and so is gloating about doing so. Dealing with a past like this is never easy for a country (as the Turkish example also proves) and I guess government policy is largely to blame, but even then, there's no excuse for being an asshole. My experience with young Germans is fortunately very different and that's part of the reason I have very a positive opinion of that country.

As for AfD, it is always very naive for RRWPs and their supporters to think that "people are with us or they are against us anyway" (which is a tendency that exists here in the PVV too). There are always swing voters, and RRWPs moderating their tone and booting lunatics has worked wonders for many in terms of winning votes and gaining influence over policy, which is what every political party does or at least should seek.

[DavidB.]

Of course it isn't always as clear-cut as "moving to the center means winning votes, moving to the right means losing votes"; first of all because RRWPs have the capability to shift the Overton window to the right and thereby influence both public opinion and other parties' stances, and second because by moving too far to the center, you're inevitably going to lose voters either due to splitoffs/new movements to your right, or because people are simply staying home.

However, in the case of the AfD it does seem smart not to go full Höcke. There are lots of Union voters out there who are fed up with Merkel's open border policy and may vote for the AfD but find the rhetoric of the party's right to be off-putting. In that regard, people like Höcke reinforcing the perception of those who are to the right of the CDU basically being Nazis doesn't help. Germany is extremely sensitive when it comes to "Rechtsextremismus" and even if some people on the right of the CDU may resent this sensitivity, the existing taboos inevitably have a psychological impact on people. Even regardless of my obvious policy preferences and disgust of people like Höcke, it seems wise from an electoral perspective to boot radicals who continue to focus on issues that are very sensitive and don't help the party.

In the Austrian case, I think it is likely polls overestimated Hofer's support all along, which seems to be the case for the FPÖ in every election. Regardless, it is obvious that Hofer's support in the re-run was lower than in the first turn (though still higher than Trump's!). I don't know whether people stayed home in the re-run because they thought Hofer had been too moderate; didn't he go on the attack in quite a harsh way in the last debates with VdB? But even if your assumption is true, he might have lost voters by moving to the right too.

As for the U.S. election, I think many of us at the time didn't realize just how far to the left (in the SJW sense of the word) Hillary Clinton's campaign was in the eyes of ordinary voters. To many people, Hillary Clinton seemed more left-wing than Donald Trump seemed right-wing, and one could argue that Trump is more centrist than most Republicans at least when it comes to the economy. I don't think that election shows moving to the center isn't necessarily beneficial; I think it mainly shows that what the establishment and the media sell as "mainstream" or portray as "the political center" isn't necessarily what voters view as mainstream, centrist or preferrable. Make of that what you will.

The Verelendung theory may be true, but it is always preferrable to win the next election instead of hoping for your support to grow because an incompetent government is in office.

[DavidB.]

But mostly, Austrians went with the "safer" choice - because Austrians like continuity and not experiments.

This would be a meaningful frame if VdB had won 65/35, but I don't see any reason to make generalizations like this in a close election like that. Over 45% of Austrians apparently don't think VdB was the "safer choice."

[DavidB.]

He was way too aggressive towards the end (especially in the last debate), engaging in full character assassination of VdB and his family, after portraying himself as "Mr. Nice Guy" throughout the campaign. This is something that many "swingy" Austrians didn't like because it re-inforced the image of Hofer as a wolf in sheeps clothing and considering that the douche Trump was elected a few weeks before that, these swingy Austrians decided to back VdB and go with the safer choice ...

Oh, that largely sounds like valid analysis if true, no doubt about it. It is the part where you state "Austrians like continuity and not experiments" I take issue with, because it is an obviously untrue generalization: 45%> of Austrians didn't vote for VdB. If you had said "Hofer's tone was too extreme for swing voters" or something like that, I would have entirely agreed.

[DavidB.]

I was reminded of this: why is the electoral threshold in the European elections considered to be unconstitutional but the threshold in the federal election is not?

[DavidB.]

I was reminded of this: why is the electoral threshold in the European elections considered to be unconstitutional but the threshold in the federal election is not?

Because the federal elections are important, and the European elections are unimportant.

Well, actually the reasoning was like this: The Bundestag parties must be able to form a stable government and therefore it is of an advantage to have fewer parties in the parliament. On the other hand, the European Comission isn't formed by the European Parliament as such so it doesn't really matter if there are a trillion parties represented in the parliament.

Thank you.

[DavidB.]

   Klartext, agreed about problems with thresholds.  But, in the last federal election it was kind of like a perfect storm, where both FDP and AFD came so close to crossing the 5% line but just missed it.  Wonder how many right leaning voters who supported another party in that election regretted not helping the AFD over the finish line.

A 4% threshold seems like a more reasonable target to reach. The last election was won by the right, but one couldn't know that from the results.

There's no such thing as "the" right.

Yeah, this is something people from countries with a sharp left/right divide often don't get about politics in countries like Germany or the Netherlands.

[DavidB.]

Thanks, that's very interesting. Didn't even know, probably because you need 3% to get in here anyway (though not much more than that, I think).

[DavidB.]

Haha, Schulzmentum is absolutely unreal to me as a Dutch citizen. The guy is hated here.