German Elections & Politics

[DavidB.]

G-ddamn, how hard is it not to do that one thing that discredits you to all of German society except a few fringe lunatics? For a Jew who generally supports this type of parties, literally everything about this story is frustrating: Höcke's behavior, the broad support for that behavior within the party, and the potential electoral consequences of both a splitoff and the party staying together. The only upside, I guess, is that the wide outrage over Höcke's statements outside AfD has once again made it clear how much Germany has changed for the good when it comes to its attitude toward Jews and the Holocaust. Admirable.

[Beezer]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

[DL]

Red-Red-Green with a small majority of 1 point in the new INSA poll:

and needless to say if the FDP fell under the 5% hurdle again, we would have quite a large RRG majority over CDU+AfD

[Representative simossad]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

nice try.

[palandio]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

nice try.

Yeah, the problem with German media and probably media in general is that they like to cut out single words like memorial of shame or perpetrator people (remember the infamous Hohmann case). This of course helps the plaintiff, because for example Höcke would then say exactly what Beezer said, and it is a reasonable point to make. But if you read/hear the whole speech, you realize that what Höcke (and Hohmann in 2003) said, is far worse. Memorial-political 180 degree turn, anyone? Sadly stupid media loves the wrong sound-bites. (Btw Hohmann is now a member of the AfD, will probably run as a federal election candidate and also personally knows Höcke.)

[Bumaye]

Civey poll for... 
 
Age 18-29: 
 
SPD 38,0% 
CDU: 20,4% 
Grüne: 12,7% 
Linke 10,8% 
FDP: 7,1% 
AfD: 5,9% 
 
Age 40-49: 
CDU: 34,0% 
SPD: 26,0% 
AfD: 15,3% 
Grüne: 9,1% 
Linke: 6,2% 
FDP: 5,3% 
 
Age 65+: 
CDU: 37,7% 
SPD: 28,8% 
AfD: 9,6% 
Linke: 8,1% 
FDP: 7,2% 
Grüne: 3,8% 
 
Several interesting trends overall. Schulz' meme magic carries him to fantastic results among young voters but in the middle of society the AfD has took much workers' votes from them and Die Linke. Meanwhile the younger you are the more likely you are to vote Green. The exact opposite is true for the CDU. The AfD is -strongest among people between 40 and 65.  The FDP has small highs in the opposite categories.

[Zinneke]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

Cool. What do you think of Sankt Pauli's banner about the Dresden bombings?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Meanwhile the younger you are the more likely you are to vote Green. The exact opposite is true for the CDU. The AfD is -strongest among people between 40 and 65.

This has always been the case though.

The archetypal Green voter is an urban woman between the ages of 18 and 30 with either an university degree or on the road to obtaining one. The archetypal AfD voter is an unemployed male without high school degree from East Germany who's between 40 and 60. The archetypal CDU voter is a male Catholic pensioner.

[Beezer]

AfD and Greens both lose 1, rest unchanged:

[palandio]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

Cool. What do you think of Sankt Pauli's banner about the Dresden bombings?

You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway. I think that some on the far left need to seriously reconsider how to gain acceptance for their positions in the mainstream. And banners like the one from Sankt Pauli aren't helpful at all. Apart from that Borussia Dortmund has to pay a fine of 100.000 Euro for its fans displaying banners with "Slaughter the bulls" and "Burnout Ralle, go hang yourself". I'm actually not 100% sure about whether a fine would be good (in both the Dortmund and the Sankt Pauli case), because I value free speech quite highly, but wishing a violent death to someone else on a banner?! That's probably too much.

Meanwhile the younger you are the more likely you are to vote Green. The exact opposite is true for the CDU. The AfD is -strongest among people between 40 and 65.

This has always been the case though.

The archetypal Green voter is an urban woman between the ages of 18 and 30 with either an university degree or on the road to obtaining one. The archetypal AfD voter is an unemployed male without high school degree from East Germany who's between 40 and 60. The archetypal CDU voter is a male Catholic pensioner.

Actually the average social position of a party is almost never that low, also because at least in Germany turnout correlates with class.

And surprisingly the CDU has had more female than male support in all federal elections except 1980 and 2002. Female Catholic pensioners are the archetypal CDU voters. It's true.

[Bumaye]

Worst AfD result since last August. Seems like Höcke vs. Kepetry does some damage. I'm watching AfD Facebook groups with glee at the moment. They hate Petry more then Merkel right now. It is beautiful. And quite some give in to despair as they say stuff like "You are just like all the other politicians, your position is more important for you then the German people!!!" - I enjoy that so much.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Meanwhile the younger you are the more likely you are to vote Green. The exact opposite is true for the CDU. The AfD is -strongest among people between 40 and 65.

This has always been the case though.

The archetypal Green voter is an urban woman between the ages of 18 and 30 with either an university degree or on the road to obtaining one. The archetypal AfD voter is an unemployed male without high school degree from East Germany who's between 40 and 60. The archetypal CDU voter is a male Catholic pensioner.

Actually the average social position of a party is almost never that low, also because at least in Germany turnout correlates with class.

And surprisingly the CDU has had more female than male support in all federal elections except 1980 and 2002. Female Catholic pensioners are the archetypal CDU voters. It's true.

It's true that the AfD is even stronger with emyployed lower class workers than with unemployed. But the unemployed come a close second and the AfD has been the strongest/largest party in that group in some recent state elections.

You're right about old, conservative women going for the CDU strongly, even though the edge they have over men isn't usually that big (1% to 2% in last years' state elections). It may be stronger in federal elections, probably due to a Merkel effect.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Worst AfD result since last August. Seems like Höcke vs. Kepetry does some damage. I'm watching AfD Facebook groups with glee at the moment. They hate Petry more then Merkel right now. It is beautiful. And quite some give in to despair as they say stuff like "You are just like all the other politicians, your position is more important for you then the German people!!!" - I enjoy that so much.

Best case scenario is that the Höcke vs. Petry fight leads to a severe split of the party before election day and the AfD ends up below 5%. One can dream.

[Bumaye]

And banners like the one from Sankt Pauli aren't helpful at all. Apart from that Borussia Dortmund has to pay a fine of 100.000 Euro for its fans displaying banners with "Slaughter the bulls" and "Burnout Ralle, go hang yourself". I'm actually not 100% sure about whether a fine would be good (in both the Dortmund and the Sankt Pauli case), because I value free speech quite highly, but wishing a violent death to someone else on a banner?! That's probably too much.
_______________

And surprisingly the CDU has had more female than male support in all federal elections except 1980 and 2002. Female Catholic pensioners are the archetypal CDU voters. It's true.

 
  
You aren't a football fan, are you? Banners like that have been absolutely normal as long as I'm visiting games. I'm a Hansa Rostock fan so my antipathy for St.Pauli should come as no surprise but attacking them for a tasteless joke? I remember one time they wrote a banner against us saying "Follow your leader - do it like Rieger!" (Jürgen Rieger was NPD chairman who died shortly before that) which we answered by throwing a sex doll off the stands followed by a "Hals und Beinbruch" banner in remembrance of a St.Pauli fan who almost died after falling of the stands in Aachen. That's football culture. It is dirty and sometimes dark. That never was a problem to anyone. Now the Red Bull snowflakes are here and cry about it and boom the whole media has to report about every damn banner. And hell, it is well documented that Dynamo Dresden has problems with Nazis among their Ultras. That's one of their banners against us: http://blog.zeit.de/stoerungsmelder/files/2011/04/dynamo_dresden.jpg  
  
_______________  
  
I'd say that's simply because ladies live longer. There are more old women then old men.

[Beezer]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

nice try.

No one is denying that Höcke is by far the most right-wing prominent politician out there (even though it's also sensible to make a distinction between Nazi and völkisch sentiments). His rhetoric is questionable at best and he knew that the comments could be interpreted in a variety of ways. At the same time he also knew that others (leftist publishers like Augstein) have also referred to the monument in a similar manner, hence expelling him on the basis of that comment is a rather difficult endeavor.

As one of the few people on this board who would prefer to to see a right-of-center party in the Bundestag, I do actually think the AfD would be better off w/o Höcke and some of his pals but achieving this may be close to impossible w/o sinking the entire party.

[Intell]

Meanwhile the younger you are the more likely you are to vote Green. The exact opposite is true for the CDU. The AfD is -strongest among people between 40 and 65.

This has always been the case though.

The archetypal Green voter is an urban woman between the ages of 18 and 30 with either an university degree or on the road to obtaining one. The archetypal AfD voter is an unemployed male without high school degree from East Germany who's between 40 and 60. The archetypal CDU voter is a male Catholic pensioner.

Actually the average social position of a party is almost never that low, also because at least in Germany turnout correlates with class.

And surprisingly the CDU has had more female than male support in all federal elections except 1980 and 2002. Female Catholic pensioners are the archetypal CDU voters. It's true.

It's true that the AfD is even stronger with emyployed lower class workers than with unemployed. But the unemployed come a close second and the AfD has been the strongest/largest party in that group in some recent state elections.

You're right about old, conservative women going for the CDU strongly, even though the edge they have over men isn't usually that big (1% to 2% in last years' state elections). It may be stronger in federal elections, probably due to a Merkel effect.

I expected the unemployed to vote for Linkie + the poor unskilled working class, with the employed, skilled medium-paid working class, or unskilled medium-paid working class voting for AfD. In the East, at least.

[DavidB.]

As one of the few people on this board who would prefer to to see a right-of-center party in the Bundestag, I do actually think the AfD would be better off w/o Höcke and some of his pals but achieving this may be close to impossible w/o sinking the entire party.

This is the exact same dilemma that I have here. Apart from that I'm less inclined to draw a distinction between Nazi and "völkisch" but that's perhaps because I come from a country where "völkisch" isn't associated to the sentiments Höcke and others espoused, which, to me, seem pretty close to "I'm basically a Nazi but I cannot openly say it." But I'm open to hearing about the distinction between the two.

[palandio]

And banners like the one from Sankt Pauli aren't helpful at all. Apart from that Borussia Dortmund has to pay a fine of 100.000 Euro for its fans displaying banners with "Slaughter the bulls" and "Burnout Ralle, go hang yourself". I'm actually not 100% sure about whether a fine would be good (in both the Dortmund and the Sankt Pauli case), because I value free speech quite highly, but wishing a violent death to someone else on a banner?! That's probably too much.

 
  
You aren't a football fan, are you? Banners like that have been absolutely normal as long as I'm visiting games. I'm a Hansa Rostock fan so my antipathy for St.Pauli should come as no surprise but attacking them for a tasteless joke? I remember one time they wrote a banner against us saying "Follow your leader - do it like Rieger!" (Jürgen Rieger was NPD chairman who died shortly before that) which we answered by throwing a sex doll off the stands followed by a "Hals und Beinbruch" banner in remembrance of a St.Pauli fan who almost died after falling of the stands in Aachen. That's football culture. It is dirty and sometimes dark. That never was a problem to anyone. Now the Red Bull snowflakes are here and cry about it and boom the whole media has to report about every damn banner. And hell, it is well documented that Dynamo Dresden has problems with Nazis among their Ultras. That's one of their banners against us: http://blog.zeit.de/stoerungsmelder/files/2011/04/dynamo_dresden.jpg  

I'm all for tasteless jokes and I'm a regular stadium goer myself. The problem is when you mean the tasteless jokes. Violence against "civilian" supporters of other teams is not acceptable. I don't like artificial advertisement products like RB Leipzig that much. But some hools from Dortmund, Dresden, etc. have gone way too far about their "support" for their clubs. There is a line between acceptable ultra/hool culture and organized rioting. Not everything that a minority of soccer fans does is normal.
You're right about the Sankt Pauli banner. I've come to the conclusion that it's not an incitement to violence because I mean, who of them has his own airforce to bomb other cities? ;-) It's just an antifa joke which was funny when I heard it first, but which has gotten old and stale over time.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I expected the unemployed to vote for Linkie + the poor unskilled working class, with the employed, skilled medium-paid working class, or unskilled medium-paid working class voting for AfD. In the East, at least.

How "workers" voted in the Saxony-Anhalt state election (March 2016)
AfD 35%
CDU 20%
Left 14%
SPD 10%
Greens 4%
FDP 3%

How the unemployed voted in the Saxony-Anhalt state election (March 2016)
AfD 36%
Left 16%
CDU 14%
SPD 12%
Greens 2%
FDP 2%

How "workers" voted in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election (Sept. 2016)
AfD 33%
SPD 27%
CDU 14%
Left 10%
NPD 5%
Greens 3%

How the unemployed voted in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election (Sept. 2016)
AfD 29%
SPD 22%
Left 15%
CDU 13%
NPD 10%
Greens 4%


How "workers" voted in the Baden-Württemberg state election (March 2016)
AfD 30%
CDU 22%
Greens 21%
SPD 13%
FDP 6%
Left 3%

How the unemployed voted in the Baden-Württemberg state election (March 2016)
AfD 32%
CDU 20%
Greens 20%
SPD 14%
Left 6%
FDP 2%

How "workers" voted in the Rhineland-Palatinate state election (March 2016)
SPD 37%
AfD 23%
CDU 22%
Greens 4%
Left 4%
FDP 3%

How the unemployed voted in the Rhineland-Palatinate state election (March 2016)
SPD 30%
AfD 25%
CDU 18%
Greens 7%
Left 6%
FDP 5%


How "workers" voted in the Berlin state election (Sept. 2016)
AfD 28%
SPD 17%
Left 16%
CDU 14%
Greens 9%
FDP 2%

How the unemployed voted in the Berlin state election (Sept. 2016)
AfD 22%
SPD 17%
Left 14%
CDU 12%
Greens 12%
FDP 3%

Source: Infratest dimap/tagesschau.de

[Middle-aged Europe]

Groups in which the AfD did best in:

2014
European Parliament: 1. Workers, 2. Self-employed and white-collar employees (tie)
Saxony: 1. Workers and Self-employed (tie)
Brandenburg: 1. Workers, 2. Self-employed
Thuringia: 1. Workers, 2. Self-employed

2015
Hamburg: 1. Workers, 2. Unemployed
Bremen: 1. Workers and Unemployed (tie)

2016
Baden-Württemberg: 1. Unemployed, 2. Workers
Rhineland-Palatinate: 1. Unemployed, 2. Workers
Saxony-Anhalt: 1. Unemployed, 2. Workers
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 1. Workers, 2. Unemployed
Berlin: 1. Workers, 2. Unemployed



Notice the shift in the electoral structure of the AfD over time. It originally started out as a party of the workers and the self-employed.

Then the self-employed started to get replaced by unemployed over time. In fact, the unemployed are well on their way to become the AfD's most important voter bloc, with workers being relegated to second place.

So in essence, the AfD is gradually shifting from being a middle class party to being a lower class party.



Groups in which the AfD did worst in:

2014
European Parliament: 1. Unemployed, 2. Pensioners
Saxony: 1. Pensioners, 2. White-collar employees
Brandenburg: 1. Pensioners, 2. white-collar employees
Thuringia: 1. Pensioners, 2. Unemployed

2015
Hamburg: 1. Self-employed, 2. White-collar emyployees and pensioners (tie)
Bremen: 1. Self-employed, 2. White-collar employees and pensioners (tie)

2016
Baden-Württemberg: 1. Pensioners, 2. Self-employed
Rhineland-Palatinate: 1. Self-employed, 2. Pensioners
Saxony-Anhalt: 1. Pensioners, 2. White-collar employees
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 1. White-collar employees, 2. Pensioners
Berlin: 1. Self-employed, 2. White-collar employees


The AfD's voter blocs seem to be largely identical in West Germany and East Germany. However, there's a small but noticable split when it comes to the self-employed. They tend to show stronger support for the AfD in the East. However, the self-employed have been relegated to third place in East Germany by now too (while they tend to be the worst or second-worst group for the AfD in the West nowadays).

[Intell]

From that graph, we can see there s no noticeable difference with the overall votes of the left and right, between the unemployed, workers and the general public. With the rise of the AfD, accounting for the drop of CDU, and FDP, aside for more votes for more small parties.

Do poorer Germans, vote more left wing than richer Germans, or has the left failed in this regard as well?

[Middle-aged Europe]

I'd say "poorer" Germans normally voted SPD in the West, and Left (or NPD) in the East.

However, the AfD has made serious inroads in those groups ever since they dumped Lucke for Petry and switched from being the anti-Euro/anti-bailout party to the anti-immigration/anti-Islam party (or in essence, from being a more radical version of the FDP to a more moderate version of the NPD ).



The parties which were strongest among the self-employed in 2016 (strongest first, second-strongest second):

Baden-Württemberg: Tie between CDU and Greens
Rhineland-Palatinate: CDU/SPD
Saxony-Anhalt: CDU/AfD
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: AfD/CDU
Berlin: Greens/SPD


The parties which were strongest among white-collar employees:

Baden-Württemberg: Greens/CDU
Rhineland-Palatinate: SPD/CDU
Saxony-Anhalt: CDU/AfD
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: SPD/CDU
Berlin: SPD/Greens


The parties which were strongest among pensioners:

Baden-Württemberg: CDU/Greens
Rhineland-Palatinate: SPD/CDU
Saxony-Anhalt: CDU/Left
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: SPD/Tie between CDU and AfD
Berlin: SPD/CDU


I suppose the "cultural" split or gap among the self-employed between Western and Eastern states becomes more visible here. In the West, the self-employed vote CDU, SPD, or Greens. In the East, they vote CDU or AfD.

It's somewhat similar with regards to white-collar employees, even though the SPD is noticably stronger in this group in both East and West.

I guess you could also consider a urban vs. rural divide here, since this is how these states rank in population density:

1) Berlin (1st among the 16 German states)
2) Baden-Württemberg (6th)
3) Rhineland-Palatinate (9th)
4) Saxony-Anhalt (14th)
5) Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (16th)

With the exception of Saxony, all Eastern states rank at the bottom with regards to population density.

[rob in cal]

    Do we have any data breaking down the electorate by whether they are public employees or not?  It would be interesting to see among the white collar electorate whether the CDU does much better among non-public employees and the Greens,Linke, SPD much better among public employees.

[Middle-aged Europe]

    Do we have any data breaking down the electorate by whether they are public employees or not?  It would be interesting to see among the white collar electorate whether the CDU does much better among non-public employees and the Greens,Linke, SPD much better among public employees.

I don't think so.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Important to note that these are quite old-fashioned categories and definitions; you have to be careful not to allow the names given to the categories to mislead you into wider generalisations than are appropriate.