Can any Germans tell me what the deal is with the Left? It looks like the only seats they’re winning are in areas you’d think of as AfD areas. Is it just a matter of the poorer more overlooked areas becoming polarised? Or are the German Left kinda tankish?
I don’t see what you mean. The Left party’s tankie elements split off into the BSW a couple of years back, and the only seats the party picked up are in major urban centres that you’d usually expect to skew left. The reason most of them are in the East is probably historical.
What I mean is that they’re in Leipzig and East Berlin, not Hamburg or Frankfurt or Munich, or even West Berlin. So I was wondering why it would be that they only seem to be having success in former East Germany, which is very similar to AfD. I was wondering if any Germans had an understanding of why that might be, and perhaps if there are lessons that leftist parties elsewhere could take from that.
Not a German, but I’ll try to answer:
The Left = Die Linke = commies, that have in the past been supportive of authoritarians like Chavez, Maduro, Putin, … So kinda tankies yes.
Spd = social democratic party of Germany. The actual moderate left party. Many consider them to have moved too much to the right economically, which has opened room for Die Linke to grow. Especially Schröder was a disaster when he was chancellor around 25 years ago (+ afterwards as well when he became a stooge for Putin). The exiting chancellor & leader of exiting coalition government is also from SPD. Apart from their ridiculous levels of support for Israel, I can’t think of any stand out bad things that they did. An actual German will have to fill us in on that.
I’m just trying to figure out why it might be that Linke and AfD seem more or less to share areas, while the Union, SPD, and Greens take the rest. Why Linke and not Green, for example?
After reunification, the Eastern German ruling party SED evolved into PDS. In 2005, PDS and the left-wing of the SPD formed Die Linke.
Because of this, Die Linke is more popular in the East. They are seen as anti-establishment and have regularly brought attention to issues Eastern Germany faced, so they are more popular there.
Vice versa, they aren’t nearly as established in the West as the other parties.
Die Linke are not even close to tankies. There certainly are some in the mix, just like we have them here, but equating Linke to tankies is quite disingenuous
I specifically remember that Die Linke supported Chavez and Maduro when they were already full on authoritarian. I conflate support for authoritarian regimes with being tankies/fascists.
This was years ago, so it’s possible that I’m out of date.
Can any Germans tell me what the deal is with the Left? It looks like the only seats they’re winning are in areas you’d think of as AfD areas. Is it just a matter of the poorer more overlooked areas becoming polarised? Or are the German Left kinda tankish?
I don’t see what you mean. The Left party’s tankie elements split off into the BSW a couple of years back, and the only seats the party picked up are in major urban centres that you’d usually expect to skew left. The reason most of them are in the East is probably historical.
What I mean is that they’re in Leipzig and East Berlin, not Hamburg or Frankfurt or Munich, or even West Berlin. So I was wondering why it would be that they only seem to be having success in former East Germany, which is very similar to AfD. I was wondering if any Germans had an understanding of why that might be, and perhaps if there are lessons that leftist parties elsewhere could take from that.
Not a German, but I’ll try to answer:
The Left = Die Linke = commies, that have in the past been supportive of authoritarians like Chavez, Maduro, Putin, … So kinda tankies yes.
Spd = social democratic party of Germany. The actual moderate left party. Many consider them to have moved too much to the right economically, which has opened room for Die Linke to grow. Especially Schröder was a disaster when he was chancellor around 25 years ago (+ afterwards as well when he became a stooge for Putin). The exiting chancellor & leader of exiting coalition government is also from SPD. Apart from their ridiculous levels of support for Israel, I can’t think of any stand out bad things that they did. An actual German will have to fill us in on that.
Die Linke are nowhere close to tankies, what are you even talking about. They are a center left party.
Centre left, as in to the right of the Greens?
I’m just trying to figure out why it might be that Linke and AfD seem more or less to share areas, while the Union, SPD, and Greens take the rest. Why Linke and not Green, for example?
The Linke is an Eastern German party.
After reunification, the Eastern German ruling party SED evolved into PDS. In 2005, PDS and the left-wing of the SPD formed Die Linke.
Because of this, Die Linke is more popular in the East. They are seen as anti-establishment and have regularly brought attention to issues Eastern Germany faced, so they are more popular there.
Vice versa, they aren’t nearly as established in the West as the other parties.
Die Linke are not even close to tankies. There certainly are some in the mix, just like we have them here, but equating Linke to tankies is quite disingenuous
I specifically remember that Die Linke supported Chavez and Maduro when they were already full on authoritarian. I conflate support for authoritarian regimes with being tankies/fascists.
This was years ago, so it’s possible that I’m out of date.