🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/spd-scholz-kanzlerkandidat-1.4994780

SPD being bipolar as usual.

Yesterday, Esken and Walter-Borjans said they are striving for a "progressive alliance" in the coming years, indicating potential cooperation with Die Linke


This morning, however, the SPD leadership announced that Olaf Scholz will be the SPD Kanzlerkandidat in next year's election.

FDP leader Christian Lindner was amazed by the SPD leadership's coalition offer to the Left on the one hand and Scholz's nomination on the other: "He is respectable, but the strategy still seems puzzling," he wrote on Twitter. It was only on Sunday that the SPD party leaders Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans made public that the SPD was striving for a "progressive alliance" in the coming years, i.e. that it was also open to a coalition with the left. There was agreement on that with Scholz and Bundestag parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich.

In the opinion of FDP vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki , Scholz's nomination will "tend to damage social democracy in the long run". Because the leadership of the SPD must explain "why Scholz should be elected by the people in the country if he does not even manage to be elected chairman by his own comrades," said Kubicki of the dpa news agency in Kiel.

CSU boss Markus Söder criticized Scholz's proclamation as a candidate for candlelight from the SPD and statements by the Social Democrats about a coalition with the Left Party. The fact that the SPD is starting the election campaign at this point in time is "devastating" for further cooperation in combating the corona pandemic, said Söder. Instead of an election campaign, the focus must now be on combating the corona pandemic. Shortly after his nomination, however, Scholz said: "We govern, and we will continue to do so. The election campaign doesn't start today."

Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Barsch called for a strong left alliance against the Union: "Major tax reform, sustainable pension reform, and a determined fight against child poverty will only work with a strong left-wing party, including Olaf Scholz,"

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

September 26th, 2021 shall be the date

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

but of course, it is more fun to laugh at the SPD.

I mean, I support them, but yes The memes have been good.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Am i misunderstanding this, or did the FDP just say that while they would never tolerate Traffic Light under a Green PM, they would however do so under Scholz? 🤔

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

I have been following this more closely recent weeks, so I ask myself what happens if SPD+Greens+FDP have a majority, but CDU/CSU is the strongest party? Does that mean there's a CDU/CSU-Greens govt? Usually the party that finishes 1st gets the 1st chance to form a cabinet, but that's not a binding rule.

There is no rule that the largest party must lead the government. They probably will be tasked first with forming a government, but if the other three parties have other ideas, then nothing the CDU does will stop a Traffic Light coalition. If Black-Green happens, it will be because both the CDU and the Greens chose to negotiate a government.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It is just so frustrating that serious corruption scandals just bounce off the CDU while any minor scandal seems to stick to the opposition.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Went for an all-day bike excursion from Berlin Mitte to Werder an der Havel, the entire way from my front door through the countryside and small town centers, there were posters everywhere on street lights and fences. It didn't look like this on Friday evening!

So I guess that seven weeks' out marks the beginning of the hot phase of campaigning, is that correct?

But there should be a control so that people who smoked weed don't drive 200 kmph.

I mean, they're not legalizing driving under the influence, so i don't think that's a concern.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Yeah, maybe the people who actually witnessed the 2013 and 2017 election can chime in on this, but it feels like the SPD is running a much more focused  and high-energy campaign (five key points they relentlessly hammer), a compelling candidate who doesn't flame out too soon (cough Schulz coughcough), and campaigning like an actual labor party.

Obviously they are helped by lackluster/scandal-ridden opposition candidates and Merkel stepping down, but how does this compare to the past three election campaigns? Does this feel different?

I was looking at ad spots from previous campaigns (because what else do Atlas nerds do after work), and the SPD media campaign also seems quite slick this year too. Is that right? The SPD website is actually super cool and intuitive

Edit - maybe i am getting lost in the language translation, but does the SPD proposal for collective bargaining mean they want Nordc-style sector-wide collective bargaining? Because if so, that rules

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

If there ends up being a majority for Red-Red-Green, can we expect the FDP to heel hard in the coalitions negotiations out of desperation to prevent RRG?

Seems like that would be the ideal Traffic Light situation

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

SPD back at 20% and ahead of the Greens for the first time in a long, long time 👀👀👀



There have been one-off polls in 2019 and 2020 that showed the SPD ahead of the Greens by a point, but it was always maybe once or twice a year. Last time the SPD was consistently ahead of the Greens was around August-September 2018.

Let's hope this keeps up!


And just LOOK at that drop in undecided while Scholz's numbers explode

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Now that that SPD is clearly overtaking the Greens and Scholz has such skyrocket Ing popularity it seems inevitable to me that you’re going to start seeing a big shift of Green votes to the SPD. A lot of people who have been telling pollsters they would vote Green in recent years are left of centre former SPD voters any ways. A month from now I’ll bet the Greens will be polling at 13-14%

Actually, if you take a good look at the polls of recent days and weeks you see that the Greens always remain relatively stable at 18-22%, while the CDU dropped and the SPD gained, indicating a recent shift of voters from CDU to SPD (probably the same kind of more or less "undecided" voters who orignally went from the CDU to the Greens in late April, giving the Greens their temporary boost to roughly (?) 26% before returning to the CDU following the Baerbock scandals/before the Laschet gaffes).

In other words, the "soft Merkel support" block (which also happens to be moderately pro-social justice/pro-climate protection/pro-refugees, given Merkel's stances) is up for grabs, and Greens and SPD are fighting over it while the CDU is trying to maintain control.

Could we also view this as ex-SPD voters (especially retirees) coming home now that Merkel isn't there anymore and Scholz is now the safety candidate for them?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The Prots are going red again! Party like it's 2002!

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Super good ad from the SPD, will translate after work

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Is there any chance of AFD being part of a coalition? I read a couple of years back about some CDUers willing to include them in a coalition (at a local level).

No, they are an unbelievably toxic party, and have only gotten even more so over the past few years. Germans in particular have bigger hang ups over inclusion of extremist parties in government than most other Europeans, for obvious reasons.

Most of my German friends thus far are FDP voters, and they abhor AfD. I know of just four CDU supporters, and three of them openly hate the party as well. Of course, my friend group is not representative, but even here on Atlas we have a few super conservative German posters who also hate the AfD.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Admittedly the debate is much harder to follow than i expected, was really hoping for auto-subtitles. Oh well.

But so far Laschet seems a bit defensive, Annalena goes often on the offensive, while Scholz, typically him, handles everything pretty cooly. Does that seem about right for the actual Germans following along?

I honestly can't judge the quality of their answers though, but Baerbock seems to be doing a good job grilling the others about GroKo, and Scholz so far does seem to be spinning every criticism into "Here's how we did better and fixed this".

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

is it me or is Laschi not doing great at all? He seems very defensive and irritated

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Baerbock seems to be doing very, very well on children's issues and child poverty

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

that was one of the most painful closing statements i have ever had to watch. The CDU completely f*ked up this election. They deserve third place.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

So who is perceived to have won the debate? Baerbock?

There will be a quick poll out this evening. I guess Baerbock and Scholz about tied, with Laschet somewhat behind.

But no performance was really outstanding tbh.

I see. So nothing here to stop the SPD's rise (like a Baerbock comeback or something)

I think Baerbock might get a small bounce, or at minimum stop the bleeding, but Scholz played it safe and that's more or less what he needed to do. The SPD and Greens could both stand to gain a bit from tonight.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1432360372019793924?s=20

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

According to Wahl-O-Mat, I am *checks notes* somehow a left-wing Catholic conservative

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Unfortunately for the CDU, technology is not advanced enough for Söder to clone himself.

Isn't there also a risk with Söder that he comes off as too Bavaria-focused? He seems awfully like the kind of Bavarian who would get on everyone else's nerves after a while, but maybe that is a personal prejudice.

Anyways, the new INSA map of directly-elected seats is glorious:


Just incredible how the SPD would slaughter the CDU in directly-elected seats, a total change from the last three election cycles and not unlike the 1998 - 2005 period:

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The maps just posted by Clarko are really nice, thank you. One could discuss about the potential breadth of this year's SPD strength, but in all honesty most of all they seem to be goading one into a conversation about "What's the matter with Saxony?".

Well i'm glad you asked, Battista Minola. I had the same questions, and did some reading up in both English and German and came across some arguments put forth by journalists, political scientists, politicians, and academics.

I'm not informed enough about what is actually true or not, or what should get the most weigh, so it would be great if the the Germany experts could confirm/refute/discuss:

• 1. Saxony was an independent kingdom that was involved in a lot of wars, and this led to an insular and rebellious culture in the state. During the days of the German empire, there was a lot of resentment towards Prussia. This can still be seen today in the "we don't want Berlin telling us what to do" attitude.
• 2. During the Weimar period, the political left and right were constantly one-upping each other in extremism. While the SPD and KPD formed a government in 1923, they were promptly overthrown by a radicalized right-of-centre, and thereafter the SPD formed a weak coalition government with the DDP and DVP.
• 3. The lack of Catholics and respective political Catholicism meant that there was no moderating force like Zentrum, which sought political compromise and stability. The strongest parties were the KPD, SPD, and later NSDAP, with the liberals and Zentrum marginalized for the most part (relates to #2).
  
• 4. Saxony had both a large industrial base and also a large rural population. The conflict between the urban left and the conservative bourgeoisie was particularly nasty and heated (see #2 and #3).
  
• 5. Refugees from Silesia could also play a role here after being expelled in WWII. Breslau, like Dresden, was also a very pro-Nazi city and it doesn't seem like a stretch to believe that people carried national conservative views and bitterness over the loss of their homeland with them westwards.
  
• 6. the GDR sought to associate fascism with imperialism and capitalism, and disassociated socialism with anything that happend before 1945, and so never went through the process of working through the past with open debate like what happened in West Germany. This obviously is not exclusive to Saxony so it's not too helpful in explaining why Saxony is so extreme compared to the other Eastern states, but it is one part of the puzzle.
  
• 7. One author posits that there has been a strong anti-democratic tradition in Saxony dating back over a century, which relates to #1, #2, #4, #5, and I guess #3 as well?
  
• 8. After reunification, the right-of-centre parties always had at least 54% in every election combined (centre-right to far-right). The state CDU chapter, however, never sought to introduce a culture of public remembrance and historical reflection, like what the rest of the CDU in the country actively cultivates. The state CDU also quietly embraced right-wing currents and showed little concern about them over the past 30 years. Unfortunately for them now, about half of their past voters are now embracing the right-wing/far-right.
  
• 9. Saxony also is unusual in the East for its strong network of "free comradeship" organizations (basically brotherhoods and civic organizations), which primarily tend to be a West German thing and are nothing special in the West. But in the East, the GDR suppressed most non-communist organizations, but Saxony escaped this. So one political scientist argues this is both a symptom and a cause of Saxon insularity (self-reinforcing cycle), and this magnifies far-right views
  
• 10. Apparently the state level NPD also intentionally tried to cultivate an image of being "normal" and not a bunch of skinheads wearing army boots. The NPD had three very strong election results at the state level in 2004 (9.2%!!!), 2009 (6%), and 2014 (4.95%).
  
• 11. an interesting quote regarding Dresden, translated from German:
  
  

  "Dresden is the city of culture with the largest horizon", there's something to this saying, isn't it? In other words, there is too much self-centeredness here. The city is politically conservative. It's different in Leipzig. Leipzig is a city of trade, of trade fairs, already comparatively cosmopolitan in GDR times and surprisingly multicultural even today for Eastern standards. That shapes the climate. Right-wing populist, right-wing extremist and national-conservative positions are more effective in Dresden than in Leipzig. The Pegida movement also began as a Dresden phenomenon."

Would appreciate it if some of ze Tschörmanns could chime in here

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/olaf-scholz-merit-society-not-be-limited-top-earners-germany-election

Nice article in The Guardian about Olaf Scholz, his current take on the world, and the SPD campaign centered around "Competence for Germany. Respect for you and your life".

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Scholz said he would also use the political victory within his reach to kickstart a fresh debate about how to redefine professional and social merit.

“Why did Britain vote for Brexit if it was against its own interest? Why did America vote for Trump? I believe it is because people are experiencing deep social insecurities, and lack appreciation for what they do,” the 63-year-old said before a campaign rally in the university city of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony.

“We see the same dissatisfaction and insecurity not just in the US or the UK but in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria or Germany – countries that may look from the outside like they don’t have any problems at all.

“Among certain professional classes, there is a meritocratic exuberance that has led people to believe their success is completely self-made. As a result, those who actually keep the show on the road don’t get the respect they deserve. That has to change.”

Centred around the word “respect”, Scholz’s campaign borrows heavily from Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel’s recent writings on the “tyranny of merit”, and he told the Guardian he had been left “shaken” after reading the British sociologist Michael Young’s 1958 book The Rise of Meritocracy.

“He [Young] described the rise of meritocracy as a dystopian satire of the year 2034, but it has turned out to be an almost prophetic description of the trends of our time,” Scholz said.

Thinkers such as Sandel or Daniel Markovits argue that meritocracy – a political system that aims to reward individuals on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement – has come to be dominated by educated knowledge workers who define merit solely along their own value sets and neglect to credit physical forms of labour.

“There is nothing wrong about merit as such,” Scholz said. “But it is something that must not only be limited to top-earners and those with university degrees. A security guard has merit too. Manual labourers don’t deserve less respect than academics.”

And whether “respect” can become a coherent policy as well as a catchphrase remains unclear. “We have two tasks,” Scholz said. “Recognise these other types of merit on the one hand, and pay better wages for those who are not appropriately compensated on the other. A higher minimum wage is important, as are better wages for carers and skilled workers.”

Some of Scholz’s campaign pledges are social democratic in the old-fashioned sense: as well as the minimum wage increase to €12 an hour, he calls for the return of a wealth tax and the construction of 400,000 new homes a year. The SPD proposes replacing the sanction-tied Hartz IV unemployment benefit controversially introduced by the last centre-left government with a new, less “distrustful” welfare programme, called “citizens’ money”.

“Maybe progressive parties in Europe and the USA have for too long neglected to tackle these two big challenges,” Scholz said. As models for renewing the left, he points not to the Democratic party of the US president, Joe Biden, but social democratic parties in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

The SPD candidate’s project to reinvigorate the German centre-left remains a balancing act: for while his campaign at least partially reverses out of the rhetoric of the third way, it also seeks to steal the crown of economic competence from the centre-right CDU.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Currently watching "Kannste Kanzleramt?" which translates roughly as "Do you know the Chancellory?", a pre-filmed TV show where the three candidates have to go into a classroom and answer questions from teenagers and explain their policies, why they are running, what they want to do, etc. in language that teenagers can understand.

If you're like me and your German is not ~the best~, you can watch it here for free and also they have subtitles in German: https://www.sat1.de/tv/bundestagswahl/kannste-kanzleramt-im-livestream