German Elections & Politics

[DavidB.]

Another poll, by Infratest Dimap (not INSA), showing AfD at 17% and the Union at an all-time low. I'm sure our German posters in denial will call this one a Lügen-Umfrage too, though.

[DavidB.]

Skeptical about this. The German left-wing seems, for obvious historical reasons, to be more "intersectionalist" (by the lack of a better word) than many of its counterparts in Western Europe.

[DavidB.]

Well, hypothetically a Germany with FPTP (298 seats) would have had a massive CDU/CSU majority and everyone else basically irrelevant

Well no, because FPTP makes people vote differently.

[DavidB.]

Following the events in Chemnitz, some people are now very outraged about certain people in the AfD (mostly Ossis) with "brown" politics. Perhaps they should have thought about this type of politician when they hysterically called Bernd Lucke a Nazi or a far-right populist. It's the typical story of the boy who cried Wolf. AfD has progressively radicalized, but it seems to me that someone as extreme as Höcke barely receives a different treatment than Lucke at the time, simply because AfD were branded Nazis to begin with.

[DavidB.]

It just shows that you can't "feed the tiger" of far-right politics by making concessions like Maassen. Concessions don't reduce their support. There is no way to reduce far-right support except ideological combat.

reduce immigration and crime maybe ?

Immigration has been at a constant rate as before and crime has been reducing.

Exactly. That's the problem.

[DavidB.]

How does Brinkhaus differ from Kauder?

[DavidB.]

Probably not too much on the issues, more in leadership style. Brinkhaus wants the caucus to be a little more independent-minded rather than just be in Merkel's bag. He didn't ran against her, just a different new style.

How do you translate Fraktionsvorsitzender into English? I wasn't quite sure.

Parliamentary group leader.

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, a number of Jews are establishing a platform for Jews within AfD. Some AfD politicians, most prominently Beatrix von Storch, will speak at the launch event on October 7th. Encouraging news.

[DavidB.]

Why are the governing parties doing do poorly at the federal and state level? I thought Merkel was at least semi-popular, even after the refugee crisis of 2015?

Many CDU voters disagree with Merkel's handling of the mass immigration situation, and her style of governing is starting to annoy people in general even apart from that issue.

Many SPD voters resent the fact that the party has once again entered a grand coalition without a left-wing profile. In addition, the SPD leadership just seems inept and it seems as if there is no clear direction in the party's behavior.

[DavidB.]

CSU 34%
Greens 17.5%
AfD 13.5%
FW 10.5%
SPD 10%
FDP 6%
Linke 4%

Turnout 70%

[DavidB.]

Doesn't really matter. Anything that is near half of 2013, which was already not great, is a major disaster. If we're talking about single digits, oh my godness. That would be more than just a disaster.

Almost as if entering that grand coalition was a bad idea. Who would've thunk.

[DavidB.]

Any reports on turnout?

[DavidB.]

Good choice. But how is the CSU losing many votes to the Greens? I don't get this. AfD is gaining even more voters than CSU is losing in most polls. Seems logical that the voter movements are CSU -> AfD and SPD -> Green.

[DavidB.]

Turnout prognosis 72.5% (+8.9%)

[DavidB.]

Could have been worse if CSU are really over 35%.

[DavidB.]

CSU-FW would be a fine coalition for Bavaria, and a CSU that turned further rightwards + a super right-wing AfD received almost half of the statewide vote. The media are obviously going to spin about the Greens that they love so much (yet received only half the score of the CSU) but will conveniently ignore that almost all of these new Green voters simply voted for the SPD before.

[DavidB.]

ARD just showed a voter movement analysis. Greens won 210.000 votes from SPD, 200.000 from CSU and 140.000 from new/nonvoters.

If the Greens won 200k voters from the CSU, either CSU has gained some votes from other parties (pretty unlikely?) or CSU -> AfD voter movement has been more limited, with a lot of non-voters opting for AfD. Which doesn't seem to be an unreasonable idea given that this happened in the federal election too.

[DavidB.]

Well,

Isn't Afd's score lower than expected?

Yes, and it's because CSU turned so far to the right that even someone like me could happily vote for them.

Of course, but our personell isn't smart enough. This plus structural problems make me not very optimistic.

The SPD is simply filled with boomers who care more about stability than about ideology and who care more about the country than the party. It's exactly the same as in the PvdA.

[DavidB.]

Or try starting a small business without  being connected to your local CSU. This applies of course not only for Bavaria, that's the way it is everywhere else except the political party may be different.

What? Given that this is Bavaria, not Belarus, this seems like complete nonsense to me, with all due respect. And it's absolutely not the way it is everywhere. Anybody can start a business here without any political connection at all. I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same in Germany.

[DavidB.]

Interesting. So the higher turnout has mostly benefited CSU and AfD. The 240k "other" voters who went AfD are mostly REP (117k votes in 2013) + NPD (75k votes in 2013, which is an insane lot if you think about it) voters and then probably some Pirates/Franken voters I guess.

[DavidB.]

Blue collar workers:

That SPD figure says everything you need to know. Brutal.

[DavidB.]

Fourth ARD projection:

Very strong CSU result given that the Union is at 26% nationally. Almost certainly means that the move to the right has been successful in attracting people like me who would have gone AfD otherwise; also explains the underwhelming AfD result.

[DavidB.]

This is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing result: CSU further ahead of the Union nationally than in 2013. Seehofer should be safe, all talk about CSU's rightward turn on immigration being a wrong decision will hopefully stop which should strengthen the CSU right's position both in Berlin and in Munich, a CSU-FW coalition can be formed, the SPD has been decimated, and the left gained zilch. Bavaria and Austria never disappoint.

[DavidB.]

This is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing result: CSU further ahead of the Union nationally than in 2013. Seehofer should be safe, all talk about CSU's rightward turn on immigration being a wrong decision will hopefully stop which should strengthen the CSU right's position both in Berlin and in Munich, a CSU-FW coalition can be formed, the SPD has been decimated, and the left gained zilch. Bavaria and Austria never disappoint.

Yep.  As much as I am aligned with AfD I always thought it was a mistake for CSU to try to co-op AfD on the premise that if you put out an imitation brand the people go with the genuine original brand every time.  Seems that this was not the case and the CSU contained the bleeding to AfD.   The CSU gain from non-voters is a shock.  I was certain they will all go AdD or Greens.

They essentially did the same as the VVD in the Netherlands (but much more convincing and believable): a right-wing tune on immigration and multiculturalism + exclusion of the political force to its right. It was credible because they could point to Berlin for the immigration policy of 2015. Most voters in Bavaria dislike AfD but want 2015 to never happen again and disapprove of Merkel's handling of the crisis. There is an enormous number of voters there, and most of them already voted CSU. Turning to the right was really the only thing CSU could do, and I think they did it very well.

I didn't expect it, but in hindsight CSU doing well with non-voters isn't surprising either. This happened to CDU in one of the other state elections recently (and to the ÖVP, and to VVD in the Dutch election too, for that matter). There are quite a few stability-oriented people who don't vote when everything is okay but who dislike instability and will choose the "responsible" center-right option when stability is seemingly jeopardized and a safe pair of hands is needed (2015, Chemnitz, rise AfD, rise Greens...).

But CSU didn't copy the AfD. The CSU is slightly wary of Muslim immigration. The AfD literally supports the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Germany. Anyone who supports or votes AfD in 2018 knows they march side by side with the neo-Nazis. The gap is very large, though the coalition would be easy to form, as has always been the case with German racialism.

Such a partisan, left-wing populist bullsh**t!
The Greens and the Left march side by side with the left-wing fascist Antifa, which is willing to resort to violence, and with anti-constitutional parties like the MLPD and the KPD, they openly support musicians who call for violence against the police, and anyone who supports or votes Greens/Left in 2018 knows that they approve of Turk-Arab parallel societies and Turk-Arab family clans and of Sharia and that they refuse to deport criminal asylum seekers.

You're complaining about "muh violent anti-cop music" in 2018? Hasn't this been studied? Hasn't it been known for like 20 years that the popularity of "muh violent music! muh rap!" has no correlation with crime rates? So... you're just the upset the left supports freedom of speech? How dare they, I guess.

And when you say anti-constitutional parties, you mean constitutional. Last time I checked the MLPD and KPD weren't illegal.

Really wondering whether you have the same standards for Rechtsrock, NS-Rap, the NPD and what have you.

[DavidB.]

I more or less agree, but the German media paints a totally different picture. Seehofer has to resign, the CSU paid the price for being so right-wing, Söder is "outrageously lucky" (SZ) and the Greens prove that people love open borders. Left-wing journalists attacked the CSU for months and they will certainly not stop now.

I believe you guys have a word for this phenomenon