🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Walmart_shopper]

Interesting debates going on in the SPD.
While most now agree it cant go on the way they have been going over the last years, the opponents of the current course seem to be splitting:
-The ones around Kühnert who want to leave the coalition and move to a full scale corbyn party and onto the territory of die linke see themselves vindicated
-However, and this is new, more voices including Sigmar Gabriel (Editorial in the Handelsblatt) and Thomas Oppermann, are calling in the Example of the Danish Social Democrats for a strong move to the right on immigration to win back the white working class for the SPD. Already a couple of days ago the SPD helped pass a strict deportation laws in the Bundestag. Funny considering Sarrazin was disgraced by the Party (and Gabriel) for calling for such a shift a couple of years ago.

I find it odd that people think that the difference between those two approaches is so irreconcilable. Corbyn has kind of made his brand a fusion of populist nationalism and socialism, as evidenced by his emphasis on equality of outcome and his crypto-Brexiteerism. It's entirely possible, and given Germany's cultural setting probably politically favorable in at least the short term, to push left on many issues while moving in a populist direction on immigration, banking, or whatever.

In any case, the future of the German left is very clearly in whatever it is that the Green Party is doing, especially because they appeal so much to young voters. The populist socialism is great for working class towns in East Germany filled with a fading, older demographic. But I don't know how you make a political future out of that. That's Corbyn's problem in the UK. His party is coalescing around an internationalist liberalism even as he tries to embrace the white working class. That's just not a durable long-term movement.

[Walmart_shopper]

ARD Exit:

25% Union, 200 seats
25% SPD, 197 seats
15% Grune 119
11% AFD 87
11% FDP 87
5% Linke 39


Hope y'all enjoy a long night.

Wow that would be epic. Germany is becoming as inveterately right wing as Colombia and Britain at this point.

[Walmart_shopper]

25-25 between SPD and CSU. Oh my god.

Wonder if the SPDers on here will regret their party squeezing the left's lemon too hard. Looks like Germany better get ready to dance to Marley for a while.

[Walmart_shopper]

Even if we suppose that the ARD exit poll is the best predictor of the ultimate outcome, these results ought to humiliate and shame the CDU - a 7 percentage point swing against them after an already abysmal result in 2017?

If we saw these results in early 2021, I think almost everyone here would be shocked at the CDU being pulverized like this. It surprises me that anyone took polls showing them on 20% seriously - was never very plausible! The CDU being at 25% is shocking enough...

With Merkel at the top of the list, yes. But everyone expected the CDU to weaken with Laschet as leader. Remember the Greens were polling better than CDU for a while.

[Walmart_shopper]

What even is the point of the SPD anymore?

Couldn't you say the same thing about the Austrian SocDems, the PS in Span and France, the Dutch Labor party, Israeli Labor, British Labour, etc.? The weird globalist/pro worker/culturally libertine thing European SocDems are doing just doesn't do it for voters. It isn't where people are, ideologically. The Danish SocDems are in much better shape because they chewed off the xenophobia of the right and made it their own thing.  I don't love that l approach, but at some point the left has to start actually reaching out to voters and bringing them on board with genuinely progressive policy solutions. This dumb Starmery thing they're all doing is hopeless.

[Walmart_shopper]

These are fun:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1442183678235451396

Under 30s.

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1442185519639707653

Over 60s.

Given Germany's demographic profile I think the outstanding thing here is that they were able to find voters under 30 to poll.