🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Pick Up the Phone]

So we are headed toward Linke+AfD>50 right ?

Probably. Out of six polls in September and October, only two had LINKE+AfD (slightly) below 50%.

But this might not even be necessary if the FDP doesn't pass the threshold. In none of the polls mentioned did the combination of CDU+SPD+GRÜNE get more than 43% on their own.

[Pick Up the Phone]

CDU-AfD is (fortunately) not an option. I don't think Mohring would be willing to end his career by seriously proposing to form a state government with Bernd/Björn "Memorial of shame" Höcke. In such a case, Merkel and the federal CDU leadership were almost certain to intervene since any coalition negotiations with the AfD would irreversibly destroy the CDU's centrist self-image (and Merkel's political legacy as well).

CDU-LINKE is a bit more likely than CDU-AfD but still extremely unlikely.

At the moment, I see three possible scenarios: (1) There is a majority for LINKE, SPD, and GRÜNE, which means Red-Red-Green. Period. (2) There is no majority for LINKE, SPD, and GRÜNE, but a majority for CDU, SPD, FDP, and GRÜNE. Then we might actually get the first four-party coalition and a few more weeks of public debate about how the AfD has caused the collapse of the post-war party order. (3) There is no majority except LINKE-AfD/CDU-AfD/LINKE-CDU and we might actually see a minority government led by Ramelow or new elections after a while. Only the first scenario won't be ugly.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Strong result for Ramelow, seems that no CDU-led government is possible (not even CDU-AfD!).

[Pick Up the Phone]

Mohring: "Ramelow's government has no majority anymore. There is no majority for the left anymore. The citizens of Thuringia deserve a real government, not a provisional one." Blah-blah-blah.

Difficult situation for Mohring. I guess he doesn't want to make any move without talking to Berlin first. His campaign and his approval numbers were both okay, but he's now formally responsible for the weakest result the CDU ever got in the state. Actually, it's the first time since the reunification of Germany that the Thuringian CDU isn't the largest party there. 

The SPD leadership doesn't even pretend that it expected a better result. The Greens are obviously disappointed but they have currently more important things to care about than Thuringia. The FDP is probably the real winner tonight; seems that they'll narrowly pass the threshold.

[Pick Up the Phone]

LINKE even a good bit stronger than in the exit polls. Almost cracking 31% right now.

And while the fascist AfD is getting 23.X%, at least their ideological allies of the NPD are finally on the verge of completely disappearing into irrelevance. Almost 3 percentage points down to 0.6%.

[Pick Up the Phone]

FDP @ 4.995%

4.999% now!

[Pick Up the Phone]

From the Exit Poll:
"Bodo Ramelow is a good Minister-President"( CDU Voters): 60% Agree
"Should the CDU stick to their exclusion of the Linke in Coalition talks" (CDU Voters)?  
stick to position: 28%
rethink: 68%.

For all the talk today about how "the extremes" have won, and equating the most moderate left premier with the most radical ethnonationalist AFD politican in Germany (because we totally have the stasi running around and wild expropriations everywhere in Thuringa... I hate this constant ridiculous "BoTh sIdEs" nonsense from the CDU and Lindner), the CDU will bite the Bullet and support Ramelow in some capacity or another. The werteunion is going to go completely off the rails, and there will be big losses foremost to the FDP among their clientel, but its gonna happen, I am sure.

Honestly, I don't think that Mohring will start any sort of coalition talks. The optics would be just too bad. Not only would this contradict everything he said on the campaign trail (and after the election: "No coalition with AfD and LINKE!"), it would also have serious political fallout for AKK in Berlin. And at the moment, there is no necessity. There's still the FDP and there's also still the option to lend temporary support to a minority government.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Honestly I kind of hope for the last one in order to have clearly drawn left vs right lines, but I would be ok with the 4 party coalition as well (and if I lived in Thuringia I would hope for that one).

Don't think that there are any lines like this. Both CDU and FDP are infinitely closer to the SPD than to the AfD. If anything, there are four different camps: center-right (CDU/FDP), center-left (SPD/GRÜNE), center-left in all but name (LINKE) and crazy ethnofascistpluralist and universally despised populism (AfD). The consequence would be 1+2+3 against 4.

Linke-CDU is the one I am afraid of. If CDU starts doing deals with borderline commies (not that I have a problem with Linke, but I imagine a lot of German conservatives do) the German moderate right is dead. Which means a lot of moderate conservatives will start voting AfD, which is a very, very bad thing.

Also not so sure about this. Many CDU voters who prefer more "conservative" positions might have already left. And the argument also works with respect to the AfD: I know many moderate CDU voters who would immediately abandon their party should there ever be a coalition agreement with the AfD.

[Pick Up the Phone]

You make a very, very important point Tack, which is the disturbance of a healthy Party system though successions of Grand Coalitions, and now that there is no majority for that, more and more desperately cobbled-together anybody-but-afd Coalitions. Increasingly Voters simply opposed to the Government in the east are being pushed into the AFD camp, as the only major opposition party. This sort of stuff is eerily reminiscent of Weimar and I really do not like it.

I would contest this position. What does "healthy party system" mean in the first place? That we'll have a center-right and a center-left party with minor coalition partners for eternity? That we'll have Lagerwahlkämpfe (which mainly pivoted on economic issues in the past) for eternity? I'm certainly no supporter of the GroKo, but it is perfectly fine that party systems change over time with old parties/cleavages disappearing and new ones emerging. It is also perfectly fine to form such a coalition in order to prevent outright nazis from rising to power. In the East, the AfD might indeed be perceived as sole "opposition party" - in the West, however, this role is definitely played by the GRÜNEN. I would thus caution not to overrate the importance of the results we were getting from Saxony, Brandenburg, and Thuringia. It was clear from the outset that the AfD would make major gains there, but these might be the last victories for quite some time. The next state election is in Hamburg (February 2020) where the AfD polls between 4% and 9% and then there is nothing else for the remainder of the year. Enough time for the political landscape to change quite a bit.

Also, one could claim that the German party system was already structurally imbalanced since the end of the Schröder years and the rise of the LINKE; the SPD never had a serious chance to become the strongest party since then. This has probably contributed a lot to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Other Countries have experimented with includung the Far-right in some form in the Government, most notably our neighbors to the south, something that has had, eventually, might I say even "good" results for democracy. But in Germany the historical baggage is just too large, and the AFD is not necessarily in Policy, but definitely in Personell and Rethoric far worse then the FPÖ. And Van Papen also notoriously declared about the NSDAP "We will have them pressed against the wall in a couple of weeks"...

Putting the AfD into government would be insane. It would (a) further normalize and legitimize racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia, and anti-intellectualism; (b) destroy the FDP and the CDU which the AfD would both need to form a coalition; (c) create a climate of ultimate polarization and cripple German politics for many years. I'm also concerned about the AfD but there is no need to panic just because a 12-15% party got a couple of good results in some of the most rural, aging, economically disadvantaged, and politically irrelevant states.

[Pick Up the Phone]

What now? Dark red black coalition?

I think the most likely outcome is a minority government with the CDU voting present for minister-president.

This. As I said before, an actual coalition between CDU and LINKE is very unlikely to happen. There is no real advantage but a lot of down side for the CDU. Supporting a minority government from the outside allows the party to keep its original promise (no coalition with either AfD or LINKE) and enforce new elections once it makes sense.

In some way, it's really a pity that Ramelow talks like a Social Democrat, behaves like a Social Democrat, governs like a Social Democrat, but remains, after all, a LINKE politician. Otherwise, everything would be so much easier right now.

[Pick Up the Phone]

How about CDU-AFD coalition and let AFD self-expose their incompetence in govt, also it'll do a damage to their "anti-establishment" brand

Governing with far-right parties is a dangerous undertaking. There is no general indication that it helps the center-right party and for every Austria (where the FPÖ was quite stable before the Ibiza affair) there's an Italy where things go wrong and the far-right benefits from such a constellation. Apart from that, there are at least two other points to be considered: (1) From a societal perspective, normalizing far-right thought, xenophobia, and racism simply cannot be the solution. It weakens social coherence, deepens polarization, and creates an atmosphere of hatred, distrust, and enmity. It's absolutely the wrong way to deal with extremists. (2) From a CDU perspective, entering a CDU-AfD coalition doesn't make any sense. Hardly any AfD voter will come back to the CDU, yet many voters in the center could turn away from the party (and some might even vote for the GRÜNE next time!). There's no real strategic benefit and Thuringia is not that important after all.

[Pick Up the Phone]

In some way, it's really a pity that Ramelow talks like a Social Democrat, behaves like a Social Democrat, governs like a Social Democrat, but remains, after all, a LINKE politician. Otherwise, everything would be so much easier right now.

What are some ways where he differs from the party, and do others in the party attack him frequently?

It is not only Ramelow but large parts of the LINKE in Eastern Germany. They are, in general terms, more pragmatic than their Western counterparts; they're also less urban, less reliant on young and migrant voters (their best sociodemographic group are actually pensioners) and, due to their status as a regional Volkspartei, much more used to take political responsibility and seek compromises.

Within the LINKE, the cleavage between urban and mostly academic Westerners and more traditionally post-GDR Easterners exists since the early days of the party. It has become a bit more pronounced in recent times, however, as the party continues to improve its results in the West whereas its numbers in many Eastern states are eroding quite quickly - not at least because of the AfD. As the first and only minister-president of his party, Ramelow is widely respected and while his policies resemble those of a Social Democrat more than those of a revolutionary Socialist (meaning that he focuses on concrete improvements in his state, doesn’t shy away from listening to business representatives, seeks not to alienate groups that are traditionally skeptical of the LINKE etc.), there are hardly any intra-party attacks against him. He is not that involved in the ongoing power struggle at the federal level and, as Ye Olde Europe has noted correctly, his electoral success has prevented potential rivals from openly doubting his position. There are easier targets.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Civil War is on in the CDU after Thuringa. Friedrich Merz has on ZDF national TV gone full kamakaze on Merkel, saying Merkel has to go, accused her of being at fault for the Governments "horrible" image and proceeded to shred on her foreign and domestic policy. Brutal. And just after that Roland Koch, the frm. Hesse Premier doubled down. All the while AKK is like frozen.

The conservative wing has licked Blood. They not only want to topple AKK, they want Merkels head as well. It is looking increasingly untenable that AKK will lead the Party into the next election.

The Merkel loyalists are gearing up for war as well. Daniel Günther, the popular minister-president of Jamaica Schleswig-Holstein has today dismissed the criticism of Merz and Koch. He spoke of "old men" who would like "to settle old scores" and I really cannot say that he's wrong with this interpretation. Honestly, it's a disaster for the CDU if people there still listen to guys like Koch.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Merkel loyalists are gearing up for war as well. Daniel Günther, the popular minister-president of Jamaica Schleswig-Holstein has today dismissed the criticism of Merz and Koch. He spoke of "old men" who would like "to settle old scores" and I really cannot say that he's wrong with this interpretation. Honestly, it's a disaster for the CDU if people there still listen to guys like Koch.

Why should they listen to Merkel and her supporters instead, in light of her electoral track record? The CDU is moving from electoral disaster to electoral disaster. The only reason why Merkel has been in power is because there have been no serious alternatives to the Grand Coalition and because the SPD is even weaker. 3 of Merkel's 4 election results are among the bottom 5 in the history of the party. She has completely hollowed out the party ideologically and her handpicked successor has turned out to be one of the biggest political duds in recent history.

Why they should listen to Merkel? Because Merkel is the only reason why the CDU still polls between 25% and 30% at the federal level and hasn't suffered the tragic fate of the SPD yet. She is still the most popular politician in Germany and many CDU voters are primarily Merkel voters who would hardly cast their vote for a Chancellor Merz, let alone for anyone else from the own guard. It's not her election results that should matter (you really cannot expect her to get Kohl-like numbers with six parties in parliament) but rather the fact that the CDU remains in a strong strategic position. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; and in a party system where all other parties get around 15%, the (centrist) party that regularly gets 25% will probably govern for ages. I've never voted for Merkel or her party - and never will - but she's way smarter than most of her opponents.

She also didn't "hollow out" anything by the way, she just modernized the CDU, led it into the 21st century, and got rid of positions for which there was no majority anymore. And this "electoral disaster to electoral disaster" narrative is likewise contestable. First, it was a given that the AfD would get strong results in Eastern Germany, especially in comparison to the previous elections in 2014 (read: before the so-called 'refugee crisis'). Secondly, the last results were actually mixed. Sure, there were losses in Thuringia and Brandenburg, but also a convincing victory in Saxony and +6% in Bremen. And in Brandenburg, the CDU will probably (and despite its defeat) join the next government and strengthen its position in the Bundesrat even further.

[Pick Up the Phone]

After receiving some flak over his openness to talk with the Left, CDU state leader Mike Mohring has also started to float the idea of a CDU-SPD-Green-FDP minority government as an alternative to a Left Party minority government in Thuringia. It's at this point unclear how he's planning to get at least a few votes from the Left Party (assuming that AfD members would rather commit seppuku than to help a government which includes Grees and SPD into office) necessary to get him elected minister-president, so maybe it's only a tactical ploy.

Indeed, it would be amazing to see the 'anti-establishment' AfD vote for an all-party coalition that involves their greatest enemies. My guess: The CDU leadership has told Mohring that his "I-will-talk-to-the-LINKE" statement was stupid and provided great assistance for Merz and his camarilla. So he now needs to pretend that he's a serious contender for the position of minister-president. It's wonderfully delusional if we consider that (a) SPD and GRÜNE have clearly stated that they'll support Ramelow and (b) the FDP is currently only one single vote beyond the threshold line. Full results are expected to be released on November 7 by the way.

Meanwhile, more and more CDU politicians come out against Merz/Koch and their backstabbing. The influential chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Norbert Röttgen, and 14 other MPs have published a joint statement today in which they claim that "over the last days, there was not a single substantial contribution to the renewal of the CDU. The behavior of certain individuals was extremely harmful and self-destructive." It's all too obvious who they allude to.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Why they should listen to Merkel? Because Merkel is the only reason why the CDU still polls between 25% and 30% at the federal level and hasn't suffered the tragic fate of the SPD yet.

Where is the evidence that millions of voters are sticking with the CDU because of Merkel? Or rather that this number is far higher than those who have abandoned the party because of its clear lack of a conservative agenda. I simply reject the notion that many voters are wedded to the CDU because of the chancellor. Just look at the basic statistics. The party is far weaker in terms of support today than it was before Merkel. So where are all the people that Merkel supposedly brought into the party? There is ample space to grow on the right, an ideological area that has been ceded to the AfD. A slight tick to the right has, in my view at least, a far bigger potential electoral upside than trying to out-green the Greens.

The SPD is suffering from a variety of other ailments that are similar to the CDU's but have been exacerbated by the fact that the party has had to contend with two challengers on the left for the past 15 odd years. Add to that the lack of a coherent strategy on its traditional core issue of the welfare state and you get a 15% party. But Merkel's CDU is quickly getting there for similar reasons...

Where do you see a “lack of a conservative agenda”? Is it just because Merkel, over the course of almost 14 years, got rid of some (mostly symbolic and anachronistic) elements of the Kohl-CDU? Was it really a mistake to give in on same-sex marriage (an issue which 75-80% of the population support), to abolish conscription (something that almost all European countries did years ago), or to finally abandon nuclear energy (which many people also supported in the wake of the Fukushima incident)? The strange thing about this argument is that most of these political manoeuvers took place many years ago (e.g. Energiewende: 2010+; Conscription: 2011), but Merkel nonetheless got an excellent result in 2013. Since then, her government has in many areas even become more conservative (just look at the most recent legislation on asylum policy) but to no avail. Of course, this is fundamentally a matter of perspective. If one regards the AfD as a conservative party, then the CDU is certainly rather leftist in character… but as I said, not the absolute electoral share does matter. The relative strategic position within the party system does.

Also, you got my point a bit wrong here. The point is not the number of people that Merkel brought to the party, but rather the number of people that Merkel prevented from leaving the party. Again, look at the SPD and you see what kind of difference the mere projection of competent leadership can make. There is a reason that one party polls around 25% and the other around 15% - and this reason is not primarily based on policy but on perception. On the one hand, there’s the chancellor (still highly popular; well known; symbolizing stability and managerial skill); on the other hand, there’s the SPD chairman/chairwoman (low name recognition; no political capital; changes every few months). I know many people for whom this is much more important than some policy details. And with regard to Thuringia, you can turn the argument around: It might be the case that the CDU actually lost quite a few voters because the conservatism of the state party prevented it from collaborating with the LINKE (e.g. center-right voters who nonetheless think that Ramelow is a great minister-president and should be re-elected).

As far as I know, there is no empirical proof that center-right parties benefit from becoming ‘more conservative’. Rather the contrary seems to be the case – at least when it comes to electoral results in Western and Northern Europe (Kriesi et al. are currently working on this).

And this "electoral disaster to electoral disaster" narrative is likewise contestable.

Look at the CDU's standing in its former heartland of Baden-Württemberg. Merkels "modernization" of the party seems to have played really well in that part of the country. And the demise in EGermany can't just be brushed aside either. You have a leftist government in power in Thuringia, yet the CDU still manages to lose 11 points?

I will acknowledge that catch-all parties across Europe are suffering from similar challenges. The days of the CDU winning 40-45% of the vote are long over. Great politicians are able to modernize a party, however, without completely removing its central ideological tenets.

Baden-Württemberg has nothing to do with Merkel and everything to do with the horrible leadership of former minister-president Stefan Mappus and the arrogance of the state party that took too many things for granted. If anything, Baden-Württemberg perfectly illustrates the danger posed by being too conservative and clinging to outdated positions: Once another credible alternative emerges (like the GRÜNEN in Baden-Württemberg), many moderate voters, among them people who have voted CDU for decades, decide to jump ship. Eastern Germany is an entirely different story and both major parties have suffered massive losses there. Yet this was to be expected given the fact that the CDU started from an extremely high level and protest votes are much more plentiful there. It is also nothing new or Merkel-related but rather a long-term trend: The CDU in Saxony/Thuringia lost 15.6%/8.0% in the 2004 elections already. It lost in all but one election since then.

In the end, the interesting question is not if the CDU could do better. The question is if the CDU could do better without Merkel/with Merz – and I really doubt it. Merz would be a disaster for the party and could potentially destroy it.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The CDU's shift to the left over the last decade has put them in a horrible strategic position and I don't think there's any solution to that.

Why? I really don't get this argument. Sure, one can lament that the CDU has lost some voters during this period (but, again, this is largely the result of a generally more fragmented party system and more Wechselwähler). Yet the SPD has lost many more and the weakness of the Social Democrats, in conjunction with the rise of the AfD, makes it almost impossible that either Red-Red-Green or a Traffic Light coalition get a Bundestag majority on their own. This means that the chances of a government formation without the CDU are close to zero; from a strategic perspective, the party is nowadays in a far better position than it was twenty years ago, when even close to 40% didn't prevent it from ending up on the opposition benches.

Over the next four years her shift to the left continued (getting rid of the Wehrpflicht, phasing out of nuclear energy and saving the Euro, while again not delivering on tax cuts).

Nothing of that was a real shift to the left. While abolishing conscription was something that should have been done years ago, it was not really Merkel’s call but rather initiated by everybody’s darling at this time, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (who the CDU couldn’t praise highly enough). Phasing out the use of nuclear energy has been an essential part of the government's agenda since the early Schröder years and was never in question; Merkel only accelerated the process in the wake of Fukushima. And 90% of 'saving the Euro’ was crisis management without any original policy component. Chancellor Merz, Chancellor Stoiber, and Chancellor Seehofer would have done exactly the same.

In her third term, Merkel moved the party further to the left than ever before, not only due to the refugee situation, but also because of leftist economic policies.

Since when is applied humanitarianism a move to the left? Merkel didn’t have much of a choice in 2015 and her later asylum policies (especially the Asylpakete) are certainly not leftist, but rather the most restrictive ones in decades. 

As of today, many conservative CDU-voters have already left the party, some of them for good. Many of those who vote for the CDU are moderate swing-voters, who might vote for the Greens the next time. The electorate in general, but also long-time CDU voters and members have followed Merkel’s lead to the left. Merkel managed to open the CDU in all directions – which is good as long as the voters come your way.

Exactly (although I wouldn’t call people that vote for fascists like Höcke conservative anymore). And this makes it even more important for the CDU to stick to centrism, otherwise the party is doomed. They will never win as many voters (for demographic reasons alone) in dying villages in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt as they’re about to lose in the suburbs of Munich, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart, or in medium-sized cities like Münster, Wiesbaden, Potsdam, and Hannover (think of the mayoral election there last week - the candidate of the GRÜNEN was in first place). The CDU already has major difficulties to convince educated and urban population segments; a move to the right would worsen this situation even further.

[Pick Up the Phone]

I often wonder what would have happened to the CDU had Merkel been like the Cameron/May government in the UK and basically accepted very few of the 2015 refugees/migrants.

Anyway right-wing Populist parties have risen basically everywhere in Europe, even places that received comparatively far less refugees (look at the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Finland). The immigration issue is there even without the refugees.

This is basically the important point. The rise of populism and xenophobia has nothing to do with the numbers of refugees or immigrants but rather with public perception and effective agenda setting. And, indeed, there is fortunately a constitutional right that allows refugees to apply for asylum, so the government's position should not matter too much in this regard.

One more thing: the above exchange is really bizzare if you think about it. The Green supporter defending a "conservative" chancellor, while the conservatives/right-wingers are attacking her. Its normal though in the strange world of politics that is Germany. Merkel and many of her policies are by many accounts actually more popular among the Greens then amongst her own people. Goes the question whether she can even be described as "conservative" or "centre-right" anymore.

Don't get me wrong. Personally, I would welcome an openly right-wing post-Merkel CDU as this might pave the way for a Green Chancellor in 2021/2025. And in the best case even for a Baden-Württemberg scenario at the federal level. As I said before, I've never voted for Merkel and her migration and asylum policies are way too much to the right to even consider her. I just think that abandoning her legacy would be an incredibly stupid move from the CDU’s perspective.

By the way: As far as I know, Merkel has never claimed to be a conservative, few top CDU politicians in the post-Kohl era did. I've never understood this obsession that the CDU has to be a „conservative“ party when its self-description for more than a decade is to be the party of the center („Die Mitte“). Obviously, many parties claim to be in the center and most CDU policies are center-right, but the party is still Christian Democrat and not conservative. And so is Merkel.

[Pick Up the Phone]

I wasn't exactly surprised about the rise of the AfD either. Many people who vote AfD today already existed 20 years ago and they already held similar views back then. They only had no political party they could vote for at the time (except for the short-lived Schill party in the early 2000s and maybe NPD and DVU although the latter ones were probably too extreme for most people).

Agree. Around 15% of the German population support far-right positions and/or have a respective worldview. While this number hasn't significantly changed over the last 20 years (one just have to read Wilhelm Heitmeyer and his Deutsche Zustände), the AfD was the first party that offered a platform neonazis (the NPD did basically lose its entire electorate), occasional racists, and middle-class reactionaries could all subscribe to. It's deplorable but the success of a far-right party was probably just a matter of time.

That being said, I think the root problem here are people who are overwhelmed with an information overkill and are unable to correctly process that information and put them into the right perspective. I'm sure if you go look for it, you'll find hundreds of sites, blogs and Facebook groups about Salafists and Sharia law on the Internet, many of them certainly with lurid headlines and at least a portion of fearmongering. To correctly process this flood of information (and misinformation) in way that you don't jump to the conclusion that Cem Özdemir will soon become a suicide bomber himself is a task which apparently puts a lot people in a position where they are simply in over their head.

This was my diatribe against Facebook and social media for today btw. The very same phenomenon could also be observed during the aforementioned global financial crisis of 2008 and European debt crisis of the early 2010s, of course. Although recently I seemed to observe a noticable shift from a "the refugess are gonna rape our women" narrative to a "climate protection policies are gonna destroy our economy and take away all our cars" narrative to the point that even strong AfD supporters start to see immigration as something of a - at best - secondary issue. This new social media narrative re-uses some of the earlier financial/debt crisis tropes though. Once again we're about to lose all our wealth and are threatened with a decline to the status of a Third-world country.

Nice anecdote, can only second it. Just coming out of high school (2013), I interned for an MP and had to deal with similarly 'concerned' voters who also spent way too much time watching YouTube videos about an alleged Islamic effort to subjugate Europe. Sharia law (they had as much an idea of Islamic jurisprudence as I have of quantum mechanics) was often their main concern and there was nothing one could say or do to calm them down. Their point of view was rather clear from the beginning: Christian Wulff (the former President of Germany who had to step down in 2012), the GRÜNEN, the SPD, and the LINKE were all controlled by Muslims, directed by Muslims, financed by Muslims, and solely focused on implementing theocratic rule in Germany. It was not so much the apparent lack of education and knowledge that shocked me back then, but rather this incredible unwillingness to separate facts from fiction. I can imagine that the rise of the AfD had an almost salvific dimension in this respect. For the first time, these people had found a 'serious' political party that willingly engaged with their conspiracy nonsense 24/7.

It is also true that the focus has shifted a bit in recent months (mirroring the general trend of climate change replacing migration as the most salient political issue), but I'm not sure if the intensity is really the same. As you've pointed out, this We're going to lose our wealth and become a third world country is basically some kind of default narrative and, in my opinion, lacks the apocalyptic element of the idea that millions of hyperaggressive Muslims are scheming in the dark and preparing for the abolition of democracy. I rather think that both topics are increasingly aligned: The government doesn't protect our women but wants to protect the rainforest. It doesn't focus on the really important things (deportations) but only on some figments of imagination (climate change). It doesn't make life easier for the autochthonous population but rather harder by taxing emissions etc.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Today, we got a poll from Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. Devastating numbers for the SPD which would lose the second spot in its former heartland to the GRÜNEN.

CDU: 31.0% (-2.0)
SPD: 20.0% (-11.2)
GRÜNE: 21.0% (+14.6)
FDP: 10.0% (-2.6)
LINKE: 5.0% (+0.1)
AfD: 10.0% (+2.6)
Others: 4.0% (-0.7)

(Changes from the 2017 state election in brackets)

[Pick Up the Phone]

New drama in Thuringia: Mohring's deputy in the CDU parliamentary group, Michael Heym, has spoken out in favor of a CDU-AfD-FDP coalition (the FDP is strictly opposed to that but who cares). The reactions from his party were quite telling...

Thomas Röwekamp (Leader of the parliamentary group in Bremen): "I expect that the CDU in Thuringia expels this person from the party. Any cooperation with the fascists of the AfD is strictly against our party decisions. (...) It is anti-democratic and a betrayal of our values."

Marco Wanderwitz (Deputy Minister of the Interior): "People like Mr. Heym have no business in the CDU. We are Christian Democrats and dissociate ourselves from the radicals on the left and on the right."

Serap Güler (Member of the National board of the CDU): "To think about a coalition with Höcke - this is something I consider an attack against myself and my history in this country. It is also an insult for millions of former Gastarbeiter (guest workers) and their families."

Even AKK's office had to intervene, making clear that there won't be any coalition with the AfD. So the chances for such an alliance have now probably decreased from 1% to 0%.

[Pick Up the Phone]

According to Die WELT, the FDP will most likely pass the threshold by 40+ votes. Final results expected by Thursday. Would mean that Mohring might insist a bit longer on a CDU-SPD-GRÜNE-FDP minority government under his leadership.

[Pick Up the Phone]

I strongly suspect that Ziemiak acts as a mouthpiece for AKK. She doesn't want to position herself too aggressively on Thuringia because that's a battle she cannot win: Obviously, she's also against any sort of cooperation; but if she puts too much emphasis on this, the conservative wing will feel betrayed, question her authority ("She's still Merkel's puppet blah blah") and assume that this implies a tacit approval of the other option (CDU-LINKE). AKK's best strategy for now is to use 'conservative' guys like Ziemiak to convey her message and let Mohring take care of the chaos within the state party.

Heym is definitely an idiot but he has successfully created the impression that there's a faction behind him when, in fact, he's more or less alone. For example, he managed to get an open letter released in which 17 "Thuringian politicians" express their solidarity and demand from the party leadership to not rule out cooperations with the AfD below the level of a formal coalition. These politicians, however, include only a single state level legislator. All the others are chairmen or vice-chairmen of some random district chapters or members of the board of the local Junge Union (the youth wing of the CDU)... not exactly the kind of supporters you need to scare off your critics in Erfurt and Berlin.

[Pick Up the Phone]

According to Ziemiak, the calls for holding talks with the AfD are - quote - "nuts". In addition he said that any form of cooperation with the AfD is "not acceptable" and whose who see that differently should ask themselves if they belong to the right party.

Mohring has countered Ziemiak's statement now, said that "nobody is nuts", and made an emotional case for party unity. His own parliamentary group saw things a bit differently, however, and re-elected him as their group leader with a very meagre result of 66% (14 of 21 MPs). Ouch! I almost feel bad for this guy. Everybody seems to hate him these days.

[Pick Up the Phone]

A new Hamburg poll (election in February 2020) got released today, the first one in two months. Quite interesting numbers. Change from the last election in brackets:

CDU: 17.0% (+1.1)
SPD: 25.0% (-20.6)(!)
GRÜNE: 26.0% (+13.7)
FDP: 8.0% (+0.6)
LINKE: 12.0% (+3.5)
AfD: 8.0% (+1.9)
Others: 4.0% (-0.2)

There's also a new Berlin poll (election in 2021):

CDU: 18.0% (+0.4)
SPD: 15.0% (-6.6)
GRÜNE: 25.0% (+9.8 )
FDP: 5.0% (-1.7)
LINKE: 16.0% (+0.4)
AfD: 11.0% (-3.2)
Others: 10.0% (+0.9)