🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Oryxslayer]

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.

Its far easier to have your cake and eat it too in electoral systems that are not threshold proportional. In the UK, as you brought it up, Corbyn got it to work in 2017 mainly because FPTP is a two horse race. He held the polarized labour voters from yesteryear against the tory swings and gained remain voters from London and here suburbs - sometimes quite dramatically with 10+ pt swings. The problem of course now is that both parties presented themselves as polarized options to those Brexit/Remain voters, when in actuality they still bridged the divide. So now there appears to be a reallignment going on, a reallignment that probably won't kill either of the big twos brands but will reshuffle their bases.

On the other end of the spectrum there is Denmark and Scandinavia. Its okay in this environment for parties to take positions divergent from the norm because the block system hold everyone together. It more or less is a Two-Party environment, with you casting votes for ideological pillars within the parties. So its okay if one party in the tent goes to the right on one issue, others will move to the left and appeal to the rest of the voters. This is  one take after all from the Danish election - The Soc-Dems gained DPP voters but lost migration voters to other minor left parties. But its okay because voter have confidence that both sides of the divide should come together and reconcile policy, even though right now the combined left minors and the Soc-Dems are about equal in seats.

In Germany though the SPD has neither FPTP or friendly allies to back them up. They can try to move to adopt other parties positions...but why should it succeed? The SPD has been in decline, and the brand has suffered. The AfD still has the better anti-migrant brand if the SPD tries to adopt anti-migrant positions. Because the AfD owns the issue, the SPD cannot break through. Like in Denmark, if the SPD moves they will likely lose what pro-immigration voters are left to the Greens..but this doesn't help the SPDs end goal like in denmark. Or they can try and refocus on environmentalism, or woke leftism, same problems of a sh**t brand going up against a party that owns the issue. Its a squeeze that is so common these days since the Social Democratic main issues that they once owned are no longer the main driver of votes. Or the issues were triumphant, and now all parties support some form of the welfare state making their presence less than useful.

One route that does offer an electoral crutch is charisma. Like in the Netherlands, the UK 2017, early shultz-mentum, and plenty of other parties in other nations, a popular candidate can pull back voters who are willing to look past the poor platform. There are of course two problems: once in government you may be found to lack any electoral substance like M5S, and the SPD doesn't exactly have much charisma in its ranks.

[parochial boy]

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.

[crals]

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.

Considering Denmark's bloc politics the size of the "red" bloc is arguably more important for the Social Democrats than their party's. And the right-wing populists collapsed, so at least on the short term their strategy worked. Whether it will last after the SDs are probably forced to compromise on a softer migration policy is another matter.

[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?

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/schmarmelaDE/status/1138765303003918336

LOL, the current left party only exists because this s-head betrayed the SPD.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

LOL, the current left party only exists because this s-head betrayed the SPD.

The current Left Party only exists because Schröder and his Seeheim mafia betrayed their voters.

[parochial boy]

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?

Maybe so, but that doesn't make pursuing that sort of strategy an example for the SPD or other SocDem parties which are in rather different situations as concerns trying to form governments. it certainly doesn't show that moving to the right on immigration is going to be some great saviour in terms of winning back suppoert - the same goes with the suggestions that the SPD moves to the left tbh. It's troubles go far deeper than anything that can be achieved by either copying Die Linke or AFD - and I would hope that someone in the party would be able to rise to that.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

I'm no big fan of the approach they took here, but tbf their share was down 0.2% or something?

(and they were actually up a seat)

[Oryxslayer]

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.

I'm no big fan of the approach they took here, but tbf their share was down 0.2% or something?

(and they were actually up a seat)

As I said in my big post, they bled votes like wild to the left wing minors but picked up DPP votes. Which you know, is fine if the minors and the S-Ds are on the same team, which they are under the Scandinavian block system but not the German proportional with threasholds one.

[President Johnson]

New Forsa national poll, released June 15: http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm

Greens: 27%
Union (CDU/CSU): 24%
AfD: 13%
SPD: 11% (LOL)
FDP: 9%
Left: 8%
Other: 8%

Greens are at 51% among students.

59% regret the downfall of the SPD (including 70% of Green supporters and 66% of CDU supporters), while 36% don't care.


Yeah, it seems as the party I'm still a member of is done.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

In the March 1933 Reichstag election, the SPD received 18.25%.

The third - and to face the unvarnished truth: already the second grand coalition - was the SPD's casket nail.

[parochial boy]

Mathematically, you've got Red-Red-Green working there. I know, I know, but still - when is the last time we had a poll showing that?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Here is a prospect of life under a possible Green regime; of course it is supposed fierce satire, but some parts of the video do show the unvarnished truth:

[President Johnson]

In the March 1933 Reichstag election, the SPD received 18.25%.

The third - and to face the unvarnished truth: already the second grand coalition - was the SPD's casket nail.

Yeah, but it's a self inflicted wound, especially from the older members. They voted for the grand coalition. I voted in favor back in 2013, but against this time around.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Mathematically, you've got Red-Red-Green Green-Red-Red working there. I know, I know, but still - when is the last time we had a poll showing that?

We always name the leading party first.

And that's not even true.

[parochial boy]

Mathematically, you've got Red-Red-Green Green-Red-Red working there. I know, I know, but still - when is the last time we had a poll showing that?

We always name the leading party first.

And that's not even true.

46-46 although I see Forsa have actualy had a couple showing that since the EU elections, so question still stands.

Being pedantic doesn't make you look clever you know

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Since the satire party DIE PARTEI has been gaining and gaining more attraction, I wonder how realistic a PARTEI win in Berlin-Friedrichshain – Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg Ost, the constituency Green dinosaur Ströbele won four times in a row, could get? I already made a thread and poll about that district for the last federal election.

The direct candidate was Serdar Somuncu - and presumably will be again. He's a very famous and quite popular comedian/cabaretist, who is known for his bad-tempered Mediterranean temper, his low-down jokes and his big evil grin and who regularly makes an appearance on political satire and talk shows.

The 2017 results were as follows:


 
Imagine Somuncu would be needed in order to tip the scales like in the dead-heat Forsa poll... 😂

[Oryxslayer]

Realistically, Black-Green or visa versa is whats going to be formed if a snap election occurs. Its more or less what Merkel wanted after the 2017 results, and I have a hard time seeing the fiscally
right side of the Greens approving a government with Linke even if the Left faction wants it. The SPD also would refuse any attempt to drag them back into government and probably prefers to lead the opposition.

Since the satire party DIE PARTEI has been gaining and gaining more attraction, I wonder how realistic a PARTEI win in Berlin-Friedrichshain – Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg Ost, the constituency Green dinosaur Ströbele won four times in a row, could get? I already made a thread and poll about that district for the last federal election.

If the Greens are surging, then they will hold this seat on the back of Linke/Spd voters.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

If the Greens are surging, then they will hold this seat on the back of Linke/Spd voters.

The Greens will definitely win the second vote in that district, but I'm not sure about the first vote, especially since Bayram isn't even famous at all, unlike Somuncu.

[urutzizu]

Mathematically, you've got Red-Red-Green working there. I know, I know, but still - when is the last time we had a poll showing that?

Correct, this is very significant, but two massive notes of caution:

(1) Greens polling numbers have historically very unstable. Greens have surged to similar levels after Fokushima and tapped into massive middle class centrist support, so far that the SPD was saying that it accepted being a junior partner in a coalition with the greens, and it for a couple of weeks became almost political consensus that the greens would become the major left-wing party. Then they gradually lost it again as nuclear power went off the agenda, and in the election they ended up lower then they were before. I am not saying that it will be the same this time of course, but their support strongly correlates with how much environmental issues are on the agenda. Right now Fridays for Future etc. is hugely important, but very easily immigration/terror could become a huge political issue again, and that could turn the political landscape upside down again, especially for the greens

(2) It is very doubtful whether the greens even want green-red-red. They have, both in personell as well as in economic and foreign policy, massively moved to the centre even right. They are nothing like the swiss greens or other green parties anymore (the green liberals are more accurate). This, coupled with the focus on environmental issues, has allowed the greens to make these huge gains among the white middle class, and they are extremely hostile to any federal cooperation with the left party, who the see as a bunch of maduro/putin loving DDR-apologists. It is telling that even one of the most left-wing branches in the greens in hamburg dithered alot before going into talks for red-red-green, and even then Habeck said it would have "no reprocussions for federal politics". So yeah i dont want to be pessimistic, but i would not be surprised if the most bourgeois party in germany (next to the fdp) ends up betraying the left.

But it surely is a interesting topic^{(until you realise that a red-red-green coalition could not pass anything past the Bundesrat anyway)}, so here are two articles for anyone who cares further:
1.
2. (paywall)

[CumbrianLefty]

New Forsa national poll, released June 15: http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm

Greens: 27%
Union (CDU/CSU): 24%
AfD: 13%
SPD: 11% (LOL)
FDP: 9%
Left: 8%
Other: 8%

Greens are at 51% among students.

59% regret the downfall of the SPD (including 70% of Green supporters and 66% of CDU supporters), while 36% don't care.


Yeah, it seems as the party I'm still a member of is done.

I never thought a poll putting the SPD at 11% would have Die Linke at just 8%.

Maybe that is your one crumb of comfort?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I never thought a poll putting the SPD at 11% would have Die Linke at just 8%.

Maybe that is your one crumb of comfort?

That's probably why Oskar Lafontaine just recently put forward the amalgamation of the two parties.
The Linke numbers show how nationalistically many of the former Linke voters think.

[Former President tack50]

In the March 1933 Reichstag election, the SPD received 18.25%.

The third - and to face the unvarnished truth: already the second grand coalition - was the SPD's casket nail.

Hinsight is obviously 20/20, but the SPD should have gone with Red-Red-Green back in 2013. Arguably also in 2005 but that one is a lot more debatable.

Why didn't they go for Red-Red-Green in 2013?

[Coffein00]

Why didn't they go for Red-Red-Green in 2013?

The short answer:
The complete leadership ruled it out before the election back then repeatedly. The reasons they were listing were, that the Linke is unreliable and incompatible with the foreign policy of the SPD. Also a minority government tolerated by the Linke was ruled out.

The longer answer:
As we all know, these things do not need to hold after elections and the Linke actually tried to convince the SPD to change their mind.
You have to consider though, that the majority of a Red-Red-Green coalition would have been 5 seats (RRG having 320 and CDU/CSU 311). This is usually not that big of an issue, if the partners are really trusting each other and have similar policies. For example in NRW there is a Black-Yellow (CDU+FDP) coalition governing on state-level with a majority of just one seat and it works.
But in the case of RRG, there would for sure have been defectors. On the SPD side a few, because they did not want to have a coalition with or tolerated by the Left on principle. And in the Left/Linke there were still some SPD-hating MPs, which are mostly coming from Western Germany and were members of the WASG (a party which splintered away from the SPD during the Schröder-government and then united with the PDS to Linkspartei.PDS, which was later renamed to "Die Linke".) They were still angry at the SPD and there would have been a huge risk that some of them deflect, too, just to "show it to the SPD". (If you are interested in this topic google "Andrea Ypsilanti", to see an example).
Maybe it could have worked, maybe it would have failed. I say the chances that a Red-Red-Green coalition would have governed for the full term are pretty low, but still around 10%-30% (If I consider that they would have had to deal with the refugee-wave in 2015, these numbers probably are to optimistic).
Furthermore the SPD feared that they would be seen as breaking their word or being just hungry for power for every price. Plus you do need to consider how favorable Angela Merkel as chancellor was at this time.
Either was, they all three would have dropped in the polls if they had formed a government together. With good policy over the 4 years and a low amount of scandals, they may have recovered.
But again, there are a lot IFs involved in this.
Also the SPD did get the Union (CDU+CSU) to concede on suprisingly many of the SPD core issues, like the minimum wage, for example. So in the beginning the SPD thought they got a good deal there actually.

So from a strategic viewpoint the SPD certainly believed back then, that a GroKo would be the better choice for them.

[Coffein00]

And another topic I want to weight in is the proposal for the SPD to go the Danish SocDems way and adopt much harder immigration policies and on the same time go the Corbyn way to win back voters from the Left party.

We need to keep in mind, that (in my polling average/trend) the SPD is at 12.2%, the AfD at 12.9% and the Linke at 7.6%. This sums up to 32.7%. Even if they could manage to get a 100% of both AfD and Linke votes and on the meantime not lose a single voter, because of the harder immigration policy to the Greens or maybe FDP, in case these voters are against the more left policies, for example people from the Seeheimer Kreis(neoliberal and more conservative wing of the party). So lets assume this for one second, even though it is totally unrealistic. They still would not have enough support to form a government. They would need another 14-16%.

The Greens would not go in a coalition with this SPD. They were the most consistent party on their immigration policies during the 2015 refugee-wave and they are clearly against significantly hardening these policies. This is also a factor which helptem to their current strength.

The CDU won't cooperate with them, because of their new further to the left social-and economic-policies.

The FDP would very likely not have enough votes to help them get a majority. And besides that, they would not want a coalition for the reasons the Union won't want one AND the reasons the Greens won't want one.

The result would be Green-Black / Black-Green. So basically nothing won, but risked a lot. In Denmark the situation is different, as many people in this thread already pointed out. But here in Germany, the Greens would not think twice if they should stand with their "red bloc" partner SPD even though their immigration policies are completely contrary or if they team up with the CDU (in case they did not move as far to the right on these issues, too). And if necessary even the FDP would likely join a Jamaica coalition this time. They certainly learned their lesson from 2017.

I do not want to give the SPD any suggestions and I'm glad I do not have to decide which direction the party should take.
My first guess (and I probably have to say I'm not a SPD voter or member) was that it might help them in a long turn to nominate Kevin Kühnert. This way they would keep open the door for an Green+SPD cooperation in the future and they would have a somewhat likeable (compared to people like Olaf Scholz, Hubertus Heil, the three temporal leaders, Oppermann, Gabriel etc.). He could also inflame a fire which would help the whole party getting more popular again. The left-politics of Kühnert would be weakened anyway, but probably still would have the potential to excite people who vote Left, "Die PARTEI", Green and most important non-voters to vote for the SPD. Yes, they might lose voters to CDU and FDP, but therefore they would have the option to build a coalition with the Greens after the election.
When I talked about this option with a friend on the morning Nahles stepped down, we both were having the same idea and both basically said "what do they have to lose".
But again, I'm glad I'm not between those who have to decide about this...