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Pick Up the Phone
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« on: November 03, 2019, 08:09:42 PM »
« edited: November 03, 2019, 08:23:45 PM by Pick Up the Phone »

Not that the Wagenknecht-bashing and going full open borders has been a particularly fruitful strategy. Despite the demise of the SPD and constant Grand Coalition - a situation that should be a heavenly gift for the Party - the Linke have been stagnating at a consistent 7-9% in the polls and getting beaten up badly in every state election in its eastern heartlands - except crucially Thuringa - where there is a very moderate Left Premier with a correspondingly moderate immigration policy.

The election will be on Nov. 12, but the real reckoning for the Party will come in 2021. Difficult decisions ahead, about what party the Left want to be. But in that, they are just a microcosm of the traditional European left.

Well it became a "heavenly gift" for another party: the GRÜNEN. Sure, their rise is mostly related to the heightened prominence of the climate crisis, but there are also a a lot of young and urban voters who see the GRÜNEN as the only party that doesn't participate in normalizing the AfD's paranoid populism. Wagenknecht's infamous lines like Wer Gastrecht missbraucht hat Gastrecht verwirkt ("Whoever abuses their guest's rights has forfeited their guest's rights") were probably a major turn off for these groups.  

But you're right, the LINKE has to make some decisions about its future role in German politics. Is has to ask itself if a more restrictive migration policy is really the right tool to reconvert a substantial number of AfD voters. And if it really makes sense to jeopardize votes from big cities, student towns, and migrant communities in exchange. It certainly doesn't make sense to me (especially with changing demographics in mind) but who knows. Yet apart from this entirely tactical discussion, the LINKE should also contemplate if turning against those most at the margins (migrants and refugees) is something an openly socialist party can and should do. Not refugees are the problem in Germany, xenophobia is.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2019, 12:23:14 PM »

Personally, I never really met a lot Left Party supporters/members who were big fans of Wagenknecht's immigration stances. But maybe this plays better in Saxony than it does in Berlin. I used to know a Left member who works at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation who always resorted to a "but Boris Palmer is even worse!" defense when the topic came up in discussions with me.

Haha, the guy was not completely wrong... but he probably forgot that Boris Palmer is just an attention-seeking mayor (and loathed by the vast majority of his party), while Wagenknecht was - until recently - the public face of the LINKE. Someone like Palmer can be ignored if necessary, but if the informal party leader begins to parrot right-wing talking points, something is obviously wrong.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2019, 12:52:04 PM »

Could you please elaborate on Boris Palmer? I'd have thought someone with restrictive views on immigration wouldn't go far in the German Greens.

Over the past few years, Palmer has acquired himself quite a reputation for being the Green who regularly comes out with anti-immigration statements. Personally, I find some of these statements pretty inane. For instance, he came under fire once for posting on his Facebook site that a speeding, dark-skinned guy on a bike had almost run him over earlier that day and that a well-integrated person wouldn't have done that. Similar somewhat attention-whoring anecdotes on how foreigners have done bad things have probably tarnished his reputation more than anything else. His standing would perhaps be a bit better had he just stuck to actual immigration policies like Winfried Kretschmann did. Then again, I wouldn't chracterize Kretschmann as a narcissist. In that sense, Palmer is indeed worse than Sarah Wagenknecht from the Left.

Politically, Boris Palmer is the mayor of the 90,000-inhabitant-strong town of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, first elected in 2006, re-elected for another eight-year term in 2014. The rest of the Green party usually tries to ignore him. Given his history of controversial remarks I find it unlikely he won't ever become anything else than mayor. At least in the party he's currently in.

Maybe just this additional story to better explain Palmer's persona: In April, Palmer aggressively criticized an advertising campaign of the Deutsche Bahn (German railway) that showed some pictures of travelers with different skin colors, including two semi-celebrities of Turkish and Ghanaian descent. "What kind of society does this represent?" Palmer wrote in response, questioning the motivation of Deutsche Bahn and complaining about the political character of the campaign. An obviously racist comment, for which he was consequently called out. Many party members, legislators, and state party officials asked him to leave the GRÜNEN but he just responded like an AfD member would: "I don't understand the criticism! I didn't say anything, I didn't imply anything, I was just asking questions..."

The interesting thing about Palmer is that he's nothing special. Just the mayor of a medium-sized city in the Swabian province and the GRÜNEN have/had quite a number of mayors in much larger cities (e.g. Fritz Kuhn in Stuttgart; Jochen Partsch in Darmstadt). I agree with the label narcissist, it fits him perfectly, and could even imagine that he might do a "Oswald Metzger" in a few years. Metzger was a former MP of the GRÜNEN who left the party in 2007 only to join the CDU (party switching is extremely uncommon in Germany). In Palmer's case, the AfD would be certainly happy to have at least one elected official in Baden-Württemberg.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2019, 03:56:40 PM »

Lmao, Frauke Petry's party Die Blauen ("the Blues") will dissolve at the end of the year. Petry was the leader of the AfD from 2015 to 2017. With the help of the party's right/nationalist wing, she ousted party founder Bernd Lucke as leader, who was less to the right and focused on criticism of the Euro. He subsequently left the AfD and founded a minor economically liberal/socially conservative party in opposition to the Euro. In 2017, Petry herself broke ties with the AfD because she wasn't rightwing enough anymore. The party she founded afterwards never gained any traction.

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/blaue-partei-101.html

What a pity! What about Andre Poggenburg's Alliance of German Patriots party? Are they still around? If not, Bernd Lucke's Liberal and Conservative Reformers will be the only breakaway party left.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2019, 10:40:03 PM »
« Edited: November 06, 2019, 10:44:16 PM by Pick Up the Phone »

(Going off on a tangent here, but talking about Canada, is it possible that, post-Merkel, German politics would realign along similar lines? Social liberals (Grünen) and conservatives (CDU/CSU) as the two big parties that would compete to provide the Chancellor, leftists (SPD, Linke) eternally languishing as third parties, and an untouchable AfD Bloc DDRois?)

It is certainly possible. In some way, the GRÜNEN have already replaced the SPD as the most influential force on the left; one should not be deceived by the disappointing results they got in the last few state elections. All of these elections were in Eastern Germany and Eastern Germany doesn't really matter at the federal level. And there are a number of points that would support your argument: The SPD lacks both a long-term strategy and a convincing leadership. It's an aging party which was hit hard by the rise of the AfD - many socially conservative lower/middle class voters who don't like the fact that Germany has become an Einwanderungsland (country of immigration) did abandon it. By contrast, the GRÜNEN have issue ownership in salient policy areas (most notably climate change), did successfully re-brand themselves as 'anti-AfD', and are increasingly able to attract both centrist and leftist voters. They get support from basically everywhere: from the SPD and the liberal wing of the CDU, but also from disillusioned voters of the LINKE. Besides, they have a very strong and charismatic duo at the top. The Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, a major polling firm in Germany, regularly releases the so-called Politikbarometer which lists the 10 most important politicians and measures their popularity. The October list looks like this (values between +5 and -5):

1. Winfried Kretschmann (GRÜNE): +1,9
2. Angela Merkel (CDU): +1,6
3. Robert Habeck (GRÜNE): +1,2
4. Olaf Scholz (SPD): +1,1
5. Heiko Maas (SPD): +0,9
6. Christian Lindner (FDP): +0,1
7. Markus Söder (CSU): +0,1
8. Ursula von der Leyen (CDU): -0,1
9. Horst Seehofer (CSU): -0,2
10. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU): -0,6

Meanwhile, the most recent polls have the GRÜNEN between 18.0% and 23.5% while the SPD polls between 13.0% and 16.0%. The difference is smaller than it was during the summer, but it's still quite substantial. If there are no major shifts and these numbers remain more or less stable, I fully expect the GRÜNEN to name a candidate for the chancellory in 2020/2021 (most likely Habeck). If this happens, the reaction of the SPD will be interesting. There are many realistic scenarios in which the realignment you've described could happen in the end.

The next state election in Hamburg (February 2020) will be very interesting in the respect. Hamburg is perhaps the most SPD-leaning state of all and gave even Olaf Scholz 45.6% four years ago (GRÜNE: 12,3%). The most recent poll had both parties tied at 28%. If the GRÜNEN win in Hamburg and get their second minister-president, it would obviously be a massive symbolic victory over the SPD and probably accelerate things quite a bit.  
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2019, 11:25:17 AM »

Question is if the Greens have enough to take the chancellorship would the SDP join government yet again as a junior partner? I imagine the party desperately wants to escape the confines of its role as subordinate and recover for a while, but what if their is a surprise green double red majority?

Of course I imagine it would be a Jamaica or black green coalition anyway, but still.

It's true that there are strong forces within the SPD that would like to see the party in the opposition role (not always for entirely unselfish reasons I suppose). But others don't and I think that they're not completely wrong. While leaving the government can help in some cases, it can also render a party irrelevant and politically impotent. Personally, I'm not convinced that the SPD, as unpopular as it is right now, would suddenly recover just because it isn't part of the ruling coalition anymore. Most AfD voters simply wouldn't care; they have no real incentive to reconsider their choice in such a scenario and overwhelmingly believe that all Altparteien (established parties) are the same either way. And not being in government means less media exposure and less opportunities to influence the political agenda. The SPD's former chairman, Franz Müntefering, was certainly aware of this when he once proclaimed that Opposition ist Mist (being in the opposition is bullocks).

It's really hard to predict what the SPD would do in such a scenario (even more so as it's generally hard to predict what the SPD would do). But there would be a strong element of irony if there were a majority for Red-Red-Green under a GRÜNEN chancellor and the Social Democrats would actually enter such a coalition. Irony because there was already a parliamentary majority for Red-Red-Green between 2013 and 2017 (SPD: 193 seats + LINKE: 64 seats + GRÜNE: 63 seats = 320 seats vs. CDU: 311 seats), but the SPD ultimately decided that a GroKo would be a better option than forcing Chancellor Steinbrück to work with the LINKE. Yet I still assume that the GRÜNEN would be more likely to prevent Red-Red-Green from actually happening, since this alliance would scare off many centrist and moderate voters they recently gained from the CDU. They might prefer either Green-Black (Baden-Württemberg style), Jamaica, or a so-called traffic light coalition (GRÜNE + SPD + FDP) instead.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2019, 04:40:15 PM »


Anyway AKK must be finished at this point. No way in their right mind would the CDU nominate her.

The big question is what Friedrich Merz will do? Will he challenge her at the next convention or just wait until she's run of town. I think the latter is safer for him, because I doubt he would win a majority of delegates yet. He would win a vote among all party members, though.

CDU made a mistake not to elect him in the first place.

I'm not sure if AKK is really that bad as Minister of Defense. But the impression she gives is one of aimlessness, that's certainly true. So it probably falls into the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' category.

While I don't like Merz, I think he is too smart to openly challenge AKK not even one year after her election. He tested the waters with his recent statements (which were only superficially directed at the government - he was clearly aiming at the party leadership) and probably realized that such a move would most likely weaken his position and create a strong backlash. Many CDU members and MPs are sick and tired of his continuous efforts to undermine AKK's position; and while she is unpopular and mishandled a few issues, there was nothing scandalous or stupid enough to justify voting her out.

I also still think that the CDU was right in selecting AKK. It was clear that all candidates were several tiers below Merkel but AKK had (and still has) the most potential to pacify the different party factions and reach out to "I-usually-don't-vote-CDU-but-I-like-Merkel" voters. Merz, by contrast, would have energized the WerteUnion and some of the more conservative state parties, yet there are many voters who detest him. His work for Blackrock is shady at best (he's still working for them as far as I know!) and having party chairman Merz and Chancellor Merkel at the same time would have led to a never-ending series of conflicts with the potential to severely damage the CDU.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2019, 04:46:26 PM »

Who tf are of 12% of West Germans and 8% of East Germans who say that "free speech" was better under the East German Regime?

I'm even more amazed that there are people who think that "travel possibilities" in the GDR were better. Hard to believe.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2019, 09:39:18 PM »

I would be careful not to write off AKK too soon. She was elected not even 12 months ago and already had to face some of the most difficult state elections of the entire 2017-2021 period. Not that I'm particularly convinced by her performance myself, but Merkel was also "done" and "finished" five or six times before she was elected chancellor. And even after that, there were countless pundits who claimed that powerful state level politicians like Günther Oettinger, Roland Koch, and Jürgen Rüttgers would render her a lame duck. Almost 15 years later, all of them are gone and Merkel is still there. It's just a gut feeling, of course, but people might get used to AKK (just liked they got used to Merkel) and tire of Merz's antics sooner than we think. Especially if we consider that there is no state election between now and early 2021 except Hamburg - and Hamburg was and is out of reach for the CDU regardless of its leader.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2019, 11:44:05 AM »

Otherwise Die Linke will elect new Bundestag fraction leaders. Unlike say a Chief Whip in the UK, these are fairly important positions - second only the the party chairmen/woman.

The Race for the male leader is not particularly interesting - Dietmar Bartsch will easily be reelected. He is a very inoffensive guy - and when I say that I mean it - he is very boring and not particularly charismatic - but nobody really dislikes him either, so he is safe. He is from the moderate wing of the Party.

On the female side however, things are shaping up to be quite interesting: previously the sole candidate was Caren Lay - the vice chairwoman. She is neither on the radical, nor on the reformist wing. Now Amira Mohamed Ali, a MdB of Egyptian descent has also entered the race. She is on the far-left of the Party.


Website des Bundestags

And she just got elected! 63,7% for Bartsch (who ran uncontested; very weak result) and 52,2% for Mohamed Ali vs. 42,0% for Lay. Pretty remarkable, since Mohamed Ali is a MdB for not even two years.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2019, 07:47:23 PM »
« Edited: November 12, 2019, 09:40:05 PM by Pick Up the Phone »

I am wondering if the "moderate" and "far-left" labels are still useful for understanding the Left's inner-party and inner-caucus dynamics.

From an ideological point of view it was always dubious. Lafo for example was radical in the sense that he was against compromises with the SPD, but ideologically he always was a social democrat. People like Gesine Lötzsch on the other hand are pragmatic in everyday politics, but in speeches on sundays they speak about how to reach their communist utopia. So far some time the main cleavage within the Left was "uncompromising" vs. "pragmatic" rather than "far-left" vs. "moderate".

I would even say that there are three (if not more) cleavages within the LINKE:

1. East vs. West (or: ex-PDS vs. all others): This is probably the most obvious one since the main roots of today’s LINKE lie in the former GDR. The party always played a different role there and was, since the reunification, mainly regarded as party of the East. It also showed some strange GDR nostalgia at times; I remember countless discussion initiated by LINKE MdBs whether the GDR was an Unrechtsstaat or not. This cleavage also comes along with strong differences in terms of voters' education (low vs. high), profession (workers & pensioners vs. students, academics, artists etc.), age (old vs. young) and environment (rural vs. urban).  

2. Radical vs. Reformist (or: willing vs. unwilling to govern): This is more or less congruent with what you describe as „uncompromising“ and „pragmatic“. It’s mainly about the tactical position of the party within the political system: Should the LINKE be a force of radical opposition or rather try to form alliances with other (center-)left parties (i.e. SPD + GRÜNE) to make incremental change possible. Of course, respective positions are extremely context-dependent. A state party which has a realistic chance to govern is naturally less likely to adhere to radical ideas than the LINKE at the federal level or the state party of e.g. Bavaria where the only coalitions imaginable are CSU, CSU-FDP, CSU-FW, and CSU-SPD.

3. Economic vs. Cultural focus: Sounds a bit vague but it refers to one of the main questions basically all left parties have to face nowadays. What’s their purpose? What’s their clientele? And what are their long-term goals? Some LINKE politicians, radical as well as reformist ones, think that the main conflict in society is still determined by economic inequality and what Marx would describe as class struggle. They are primarily interested in taxing the rich, improving workers’ rights, protecting the welfare state, and regulating the economy. Wagenknecht, who combined this position with her East German heritage and a more or less orthodox brand of Marxism, was the most prominent representative of this group; and despite her strong Marxist tendencies, she was rather well-liked by many right-wingers and conservatives who thought of her policies as an inversion of the AfD’s: socialism with national undertones instead of nationalism with social undertones. Of course, this in completely unacceptable for those in the LINKE who would like to see a party that doesn’t limit equality and solidarity to the economic sphere, but rather applies these principles to minorities in general and refugees in specific. This faction wants to modernize the LINKE and cares deeply about issues like ensuring gender equality, combating racism and Islamophobia, and defending human rights.

Of course, the reality is always much more complicated, especially since the LINKE has quite a number of intra-party structures (Marx21, Communist Platform, Emancipatory Left…) and, just like any other party, also a lot of people who forge alliances that are based on opportunism rather than ideology. But I would say that these three cleavages are more or less at the center.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2020, 01:52:24 PM »

Interesting to see that the Greens have recovered quite a bit in the national polls, whereas the SPD is once again stuck in the mid-10s. Latest numbers by polling firm:

Infratest Dimap (01.10.)

SPD 15%
GRÜNE 21%
(CDU: 35%)

INSA (29.09.)

SPD 15.5%
GRÜNE 19%
(CDU: 35%)

Forsa (26.09.)

SPD 15%
GRÜNE 21%
(CDU: 35%)

Seems as though they have gotten a bump from their strong performance in North-Rhine-Westphalia recently. Green candidates also won a couple of high-profile mayor's races (runoff) last week:

Aachen (Germany's westernmost Grossstadt)

Sibylle Keuper (GRÜNE) 67.4%
Harald Baal (CDU) 32.6%

Bonn (Germany's former capital)

Katja Dörner (GRÜNE) 56.3%
Ashok Sridharan (CDU) 43.7%

Wuppertal

Prof. Dr. Uwe Schneidewind (Independent, supported by GRÜNE and CDU) 53.5%
Andreas Mucke (SPD) 46.5%
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2021, 08:46:17 PM »

Oh, before I forget: There's another party that is about to freeze a renowned member out because she has become too conservative and too popular for that party 🙄:



Wagenknecht was not even able to convince the delegates of her own party of her crazy anti-migrant policies. She may be an entertaining talk show guest but she's a terribly incompetent politician - or do I need to mention the sad joke that was her failed Aufstehen movement? The party leadership could kick her out and nothing would happen.

And perhaps they should. After all, the LINKE has nothing to win from listening to Wagenknecht who is clearly part of a dying breed. Instead, they need to realize that there is no need for a Left that pretends to still live in the 1970s so that it can ignore the struggle of LGBTQs, POCs, and Muslims.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2021, 07:46:15 PM »

The polls show a very stable scenario of the division of votes according to left and right
Right-wing bloc: CDU/CSU+FDP+AfD = 51%
Left-wing bloc: SPD+Grünen+Linke = 43%
This ~8 point margin for the right-wing bloc we see unchanged in the last months. The share of vote for each party change a little bit

With the important limitation that there is no such thing as a 'right-wing bloc' in Germany. There's the CDU/CSU (a party alliance that calls itself centrist and is at most moderately center-right) and the FDP (which is in many regards more socially liberal and modern than the SPD). And then, completely isolated, there's the quasi-fascist AfD.

Categories such as 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' only lead to confusion when analyzing such a constellation. There are far more voters switching from CDU/CSU to the Greens than to the AfD and if we take a look at the coalitions that have been ruled out, we quickly find a similar pattern:

CDU/CSU - LINKE
FDP - LINKE

but

CDU/CSU - AfD
FDP - AfD
SPD - AfD
Greens - AFD
LINKE - AfD

So, a more reasonable categorization would be:

Center-left to left: 43%
Center-right: 40%
---
Far-right (irrelevant): 11%

Alternatively:

CDU/CSU-Greens: 53%
All others: 41%
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2021, 07:34:23 PM »

Also, isn't R2G a viable coalition?

On paper: Sure.

In practice: Not really. Mainly because SPD and GRÜNE have a lot to lose from forming a government with an erratic and capricious LINKE. Especially the Greens want to keep the many CDU/CSU + FDP voters they have drawn over the last four years. But doing so is difficult if they were to govern with a party that wants to end Germany's NATO membership - not to speak of all the dogmatic marxists and Hamas sympathizers to be found there. CDU/CSU and FDP are much more reliable partners.

Talking about a left wing bloc certainly makes sense, especially given it is the only way (other than traffic lights) to take the CDU out of the Chancellorship.

But it is necessary to get the chancellorship? Over the last decade, the GRÜNEN have been the most influential party in Germany. Merkel and her CDU/CSU were in power all the time but the GRÜNEN controlled much of the political agenda.

Also, there is an easier way than R2G (at least, there was one before the pandemic): Green-Black.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #15 on: March 09, 2021, 07:49:27 PM »

What is the profile of a CDU-Greens swing voter?

Stereotypically spoken - suburban; 35-50 years old; high-middle class; somewhat educated and interested in politics; generally liberal on social issues; moderate on fiscal issues; concerned about climate change; liked Merkel. However, I don't know if there is any empirical data on that question.

Agree, I would add from my own experience:

- Disproportionately female
- Environmentally conscious
- Professional (lawyers, doctors, teachers... also quite a few engineers/businesspeople)
- Pragmatic; turned off by ideologues

But as you said, that's the stereotype. There are also many rural low-info voters who have jumped ship in the recent past. My own aunt (a nurse and life-long CDU supporter) has recently told me that she thinks of voting for the GRÜNEN in the Baden-Württemberg state elections. She mentioned that "today's Greens are electable" and that "people like Kretschmann know that they need to reconcile environmental protection with economic necessities."
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2021, 09:53:56 PM »

But as you said, that's the stereotype. There are also many rural low-info voters who have jumped ship in the recent past. My own aunt (a nurse and life-long CDU supporter) has recently told me that she thinks of voting for the GRÜNEN in the Baden-Württemberg state elections. She mentioned that "today's Greens are electable" and that "people like Kretschmann know that they need to reconcile environmental protection with economic necessities."

Anecdotal evidence and hence completely irrelevant.
I wonder if your "aunt" thought the same if she lived in Berlin or any other failed state.

LOL. Of course it is anecdotal evidence - that's what I said it is. You can read, can you (I sometimes doubt it)? If you want to see this substantiated by hard facts, just take a look at the Wählerwanderung statistics that Astatine has posted in this thread. You will find that there is a significant group of voters who have switched from CDU to GRÜNE in the past. And if you take a further look at their geographical distribution, you will also find that this group is not confined to urban areas. Especially not in Baden-Württemberg where many traditionally conservative areas have gone green in recent years (e.g., Bodenseekreis).

And I am pretty sure she would, by the way. To add one more anecdote: My cousin is currently pursuing her Master's at FU Berlin and she votes for the GRÜNEN there as well. #antifapower #triggered
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2021, 09:58:18 PM »
« Edited: March 12, 2021, 10:24:16 PM by Pick Up the Phone »

The fact that the "moderate" harelip fares way worse than the Antifa terrorist proves how extreme DIE LINKE has become.

In all seriousness, why do you have to constantly insult people and where does this weird Antifa fixation come from? Don't you even realize how ridiculous that is? And how stupid you look like?

For God's sake, you're really the most obsessive and compulsive user on this board.
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« Reply #18 on: March 21, 2021, 04:38:44 PM »

Kantar Emnid March 20th 2021

CDU/CSU 27%, Grüne 22%, SPD 17%, FDP 10%, AfD 10%, Linke 8%

green-red-red = 47%, CxU+FDP+AfD = 47%
green-red-yellow = 49%, CxU+AfD+Linke = 45%

According to this most recent poll, both green-red-red and green-red-yellow could be possible

Don't see a'traffic light' coalition at the federal level. Even if it were to have a razor-thin majority, there would be many reasons for both SPD and FDP to reject such a coalition proposal.
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« Reply #19 on: March 22, 2021, 05:02:21 AM »

Any chance the SPD is lured into another Grand Coalition? Would the CDU/CSU even go for that if it were their only good option?

Probably not. I have no doubt that the party leadership would prefer to continue the Grand Coalition as it is a far better option than rotting in opposition while the Greens get all the fancy ministerial positions. But the party base would hardly tolerate such a decision.

The CDU/CSU would definitely do it. It's much easier to handle a docile SPD than to accommodate energetic Greens.
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« Reply #20 on: March 22, 2021, 05:10:30 AM »

Kantar Emnid March 20th 2021

CDU/CSU 27%, Grüne 22%, SPD 17%, FDP 10%, AfD 10%, Linke 8%

green-red-red = 47%, CxU+FDP+AfD = 47%
green-red-yellow = 49%, CxU+AfD+Linke = 45%

According to this most recent poll, both green-red-red and green-red-yellow could be possible

Don't see a'traffic light' coalition at the federal level. Even if it were to have a razor-thin majority, there would be many reasons for both SPD and FDP to reject such a coalition proposal.

And what do you think about the green-red-red? If they reach >50% of the seats, would they build a coalition?

Doubtful. Such a majority would not really be comfortable and entering into a coalition with the LINKE could be considered too big a risk (i.e., scare many centrist voters).

On the other hand, being senior partner in a coalition is always tempting... but the LINKE would have to make serious concessions, especially in the field of foreign policy. No 'Let's-leave-NATO' bullsh*t anymore.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #21 on: March 28, 2021, 06:16:06 AM »
« Edited: March 28, 2021, 06:19:52 AM by Pick Up the Phone »

I won't give up hope the SPD can overtake the Greens in the final months.

Obviously, I don't share your hope. But I also don't see this as a particularly realistic scenario. The media will focus on the Green Kanzlerkandidat*in once he/she is announced and start creating a "Green vs. CDU" narrative soon after. Especially if it is Habeck. The SPD will be sidelined and ignored.

There's a small surge in recent weeks and it's only about five points on average to overcome.

But where should these points come from? Generic center-left voters who are sick and tired of CDU rule have no reason to switch from the Greens to the SPD. The former are a much better bet.

Neither do voters who are unhappy with the government's COVID-19 policies etc. or the SPD's Grand coalition performance - and many low-info voters won't even realize that Scholz is running.  

Olaf Scholz is definitely far more qualified for chancellor than Habeck or Baerbock.

Doubtful. He's definitely more experienced in federal politics but that is not tantamount to being more qualified.  

Objectively, he's even more qualified than Söder and Laschet.

See above. I don't think that there is any objective measure that allows us to objectively evaluate such differences. These are all professionals and e.g. Laschet's resume is not that bad: Minister at the state level for more than ten years, beating the SPD in its heartland in 2017 (CDU: +6.9%!), governing Germany's most populous and most important state for more than four years... and winning the CDU leadership election.

By the way: It's really hilarious how often Laschet is underestimated but ends up winning. No one should be surprised if he is Chancellor one year from now.

And I tend to believe the FDP would be more comfortable to enter a Trafficlight coalition under a Chancellor Scholz, who's always been a more centrist and pragmatic Social Democrat.

Probably. But why should the Greens enter such a coalition? Black-Green would give them more power and minimize the risk of the SPD recovering at their expense.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #22 on: March 28, 2021, 06:19:36 AM »

By the way, people should stop taking Kanzlerkandiat*innen polls too serious at this stage. No one in the next CDU board meeting will say: "Armin, we really like you and you're our party leader, but the ZDF Politbarometer says that the voters prefer Markus..."

Polls also showed that CDU members/voters preferred Friedrich Merz as their chairman. The party did not care.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #23 on: March 28, 2021, 06:42:36 AM »

Black-Green would give them more power and minimize the risk of the SPD recovering at their expense.

Could you elaborate on that? Black-Green would make SPD the main opposition party, in most countries that would be a much better position for recovering than being the junior partner in a coalition.

The Greens have two strategic goals. The first one is to govern (which they will either way). The second one is to become Germany's dominant center-left party and consolidate this position. And to reach this second goal, they have to prevent a SPD chancellor. Germans love their incumbents and a 'traffic light' coalition under SPD leadership would provide the SPD with an opportunity to stage a 'come back' at their expense and reverse the trends of the last years.

Of course, you're right that main opposition parties recover from time to time but this is not a given. Think about the Republicans in France and Labour in the UK. Or think about the (awful) CDU-FDP coalition that governed Germany from 2009 to 2013. Did the SPD benefit from it? Not really. They gained 2.7% compared to the CDU's 7.7%.

Of course, being the junior partner in a CDU-led coalition can be dangerous as well. But the Greens have two reasons to think that they might fare better than e.g. the FDP. (1) Merkel is no longer there and the CDU is weaker and more divided than at any time in the last fifteen years. (2) They 'own' the most important issue of 21st century politics: climate change. And they will make sure that it dominates the headlines once COVID-19 is over.
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Pick Up the Phone
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« Reply #24 on: March 28, 2021, 06:59:16 AM »

Great! The Gendersternchen is now also encroaching upon Atlas. Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes
As if it weren't obnoxious enough that the Antifa has been trying to contaminate German websites and missives; now they even try to infect anglophone websites with their left-wing populist, misandrist propaganda by means of that artificial glyph... 🤬 🤢 🤮

#Antifa #misandry #mostcompulsiveNutzer*in

Smiley
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