German Politics Thread

[Otto Kretschmer]

Noteworthy, elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz, used to be a senior conselor of Mayer Brown and board member of BlackRock. Surely we know what will Germany be heading towards (i.e. more neoliberal shit).

I am quite disappointed that people vote for the same parties over and over again yet expect a different outcome.

[Ahzoh]

It sounds like another instance of fascism is winning =(

Why does nobody learn from history?

[Otto Kretschmer]

It sounds like another instance of fascism is winning =(

Why does nobody learn from history?

Lack of class consciousness perhaps.

[Ahzoh]

It sounds like another instance of fascism is winning =(

Why does nobody learn from history?

Lack of class consciousness perhaps.

I think that that people live only 60-80 years doesn't help much either.

[Ares Land]

It sounds like another instance of fascism is winning =(

Why does nobody learn from history?

A bit of tentative optimism: they did not win this time. Merz isn't inviting the AFD to the negotiation table. He was willing to play (dangerous) games with them in the hopes of attracting votes, but they won't be allowed to govern. So some lessons have been learned. Merz even voiced some encouraging opinions on the whole Putin/Trump mess, so that's encouraging.

More generally, I think the fascists win elections because they've learned to game the system and also because we let them.

They've carefulled worked their own defense in the name of 'free speech'. Historically, the far right was either banned or just excluded from the media. That was the strategy at play in most of Western Europe historically, and it worked. They still do that in French-speaking Belgium, and it actually works.
Various governments have decided, instead, to let them have an increasing place in public discourse. Part of it is because of principles such as free speech and tolerance, which I actually am in favor of... But frankly, I don't think this should be extended to everyone and there are some opinions that should not be voiced, or at least not too strongly. To some personality types, tolerance is taken as weakness; we've forgotten this, and here we are.

For the last two decades or so, the idea has been to listen and be compassionate to far-right voters -- again, this is taken as weakness.
It doesn't help that politicians take advantage, somewhat cynically, of the far-right threat to advance their own careers.

The attitude in both France and Germany right now is to try and find arrangements among non-fascist parties, so that the far right does not get to govern. That's the right thing to do, and it means the fascists haven't won just yet. It's uncomfortable and it's dubious how stable it'll be in the long run.

The encouraging part is that I think there are enough people who do remember history, and that getting from electoral successes to actual power might prove difficult (though it did happen in Italy.) One bit that may help is Trump and MAGA, who do come across as, um, unattractive, to put it mildly.

[Travis B.]

More generally, I think the fascists win elections because they've learned to game the system and also because we let them.

They've carefulled worked their own defense in the name of 'free speech'. Historically, the far right was either banned or just excluded from the media. That was the strategy at play in most of Western Europe historically, and it worked. They still do that in French-speaking Belgium, and it actually works.
Various governments have decided, instead, to let them have an increasing place in public discourse. Part of it is because of principles such as free speech and tolerance, which I actually am in favor of... But frankly, I don't think this should be extended to everyone and there are some opinions that should not be voiced, or at least not too strongly. To some personality types, tolerance is taken as weakness; we've forgotten this, and here we are.

For the last two decades or so, the idea has been to listen and be compassionate to far-right voters -- again, this is taken as weakness.
It doesn't help that politicians take advantage, somewhat cynically, of the far-right threat to advance their own careers.

The attitude in both France and Germany right now is to try and find arrangements among non-fascist parties, so that the far right does not get to govern. That's the right thing to do, and it means the fascists haven't won just yet. It's uncomfortable and it's dubious how stable it'll be in the long run.

The encouraging part is that I think there are enough people who do remember history, and that getting from electoral successes to actual power might prove difficult (though it did happen in Italy.) One bit that may help is Trump and MAGA, who do come across as, um, unattractive, to put it mildly.

The thing people forget is the paradox of tolerance -- tolerance will be destroyed when we are tolerant of the intolerant.

[WeepingElf]

I have the gut feeling that though everybody expects a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD, Merz rather wishes to form a coalition with the AfD. At least the AfD would give him new coal and nuclear power plants, new conventional cars after 2035, and heavy restrictions on immigration, all things the SPD won't give him. And the differences between CDU/CSU and AfD in foreign policy have become pretty much a non-issue now that Trump is in power and it seems as if Putin will get what he wants in Ukraine with consent from the White House. So the coalition talks with the SPD are more of a decoy, and Merz may plan to sabotage them by insisting on the things the SPD won't grant him, so he can say when he'll form a coalition with the AfD instead that "the SPD did not want to work with us, so we have to work with the AfD". Fortunately, that would lead to massive protests, and laws defeated by the Constitutional Court, so he'll have to give up after a few months and face new elections in which the CDU/CSU gets heavily beaten up because many of their voters disapprove of this gamble. Let's hope a majority for a progressive policy that tackles the real current issues falls out of that.

[Ahzoh]

I have the gut feeling that though everybody expects a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD, Merz rather wishes to form a coalition with the AfD. At least the AfD would give him new coal and nuclear power plants, new conventional cars after 2035, and heavy restrictions on immigration, all things the SPD won't give him. And the differences between CDU/CSU and AfD in foreign policy have become pretty much a non-issue now that Trump is in power and it seems as if Putin will get what he wants in Ukraine with consent from the White House. So the coalition talks with the SPD are more of a decoy, and Merz may plan to sabotage them by insisting on the things the SPD won't grant him, so he can say when he'll form a coalition with the AfD instead that "the SPD did not want to work with us, so we have to work with the AfD". Fortunately, that would lead to massive protests, and laws defeated by the Constitutional Court, so he'll have to give up after a few months and face new elections in which the CDU/CSU gets heavily beaten up because many of their voters disapprove of this gamble. Let's hope a majority for a progressive policy that tackles the real current issues falls out of that.

As I thought. You can always count on conservatives to side with fascists over liberals. Fascism serves capitalism after all.

[Ares Land]

I have the gut feeling that though everybody expects a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD, Merz rather wishes to form a coalition with the AfD.

Are there any hints or signs he wishes to do so?
From what we hear in France, Merz's new responsibilities seems to have sobered him a little, and he comes across as decidedly anti-Trump and anti-Putin. (But French news are often a little hazy on what occurs beyond Paris, let alone beyond French borders )

[WeepingElf]

I have the gut feeling that though everybody expects a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD, Merz rather wishes to form a coalition with the AfD.

Are there any hints or signs he wishes to do so?
From what we hear in France, Merz's new responsibilities seems to have sobered him a little, and he comes across as decidedly anti-Trump and anti-Putin. (But French news are often a little hazy on what occurs beyond Paris, let alone beyond French borders )

Actually, thinking more about this, I came to the conclusion that my gut feeling is likely wrong. There are points in which Merz is closer to the AfD than to the SPD, but there are others where the reverse is true, and the prospect that a coalition with the AfD would face massive resistance from the opposition, the general public, the Constitutional Court and even substantial parts of his own party (you can be sure that former chancellor Merkel would speak loudly against it, and her word still has much weight within the party) and result in a huge disaster for his party, should be enough to deter him from such a gamble. Still, we can't be sure.

[Ares Land]

It's an odd thing, but sometimes narcissism is a positive factor.
Merz probably has the history books in a corner of his mind and I'm sure he'd prefer to be be mentioned alongside Helmut Kohl than alongside Hindenburg.

[WeepingElf]

As I thought. You can always count on conservatives to side with fascists over liberals. Fascism serves capitalism after all.

This is IMHO a Marxist conspiracy theory. I used to think that way, too, when I was younger, but I now think that is fallacious. Some capitalists do indeed embrace fascism, but it cannot be generalized - some capitalists do embrace progressivism. Quite some capitalists have realized that things like renewable energies are interesting business opportunities, for instance. Also, they realize that a fascist government would drive many bright minds (who are the real basis of prosperity in a modern knowledge society) abroad, and that social unrest is bad for business. Likewise, not all conservatives prefer allying with fascists over allying with progressives.

[Otto Kretschmer]

^ Still the political faction with the longest, most consistent record of fighting Fascism has been the Far Left

[Ares Land]

^ Still the political faction with the longest, most consistent record of fighting Fascism has been the Far Left

We should not forget the role of communists, and anarchists and other branches of the far left in particular, in fighting fascism/nazism.
But there really was no monopoly; all political currents contributed, communists, anarchists, socialists, conservatives, and even quite a few people that started out very far to the right themselves. Really gives you hope there may be something to salvage about the human species after all.

Right now, the European far left falls short of their forefathers; they mostly seem very intent in demonstrating the horseshoe theory. Especially so in Germany, alas, with the whole BSW mess (and I'm happy and relieved to see they didn't even reach the 5% required to get a Bundestag seat.)

[Otto Kretschmer]

For the economic elites Fascism has one big advantage - it doesn't want to change the socioeconomic status quo.

That's why historically when the rich had to choose between Fascism and Socialism, they sided with Fascism every single time.

[Ares Land]

For the economic elites Fascism has one big advantage - it doesn't want to change the socioeconomic status quo.

That's why historically when the rich had to choose between Fascism and Socialism, they sided with Fascism every single time.

I've been thinking a lot on this lately (for obvious reasons, the rise of fascism is on everyone's mind.)

Fascism is like an industrial accident -- it's a function of many factors and many people messing up. Generally the rich did side with fascism.
But it's not hard to find counterexamples. Besides the obvious ones (there were plenty of Jewish industrialists, for starters), one of the parties that most consistently opposed Hitler was the Zentrum (feelings were mutual; Zentrum was dissolved in 1933) which was otherwise as capitalist and conservative as it gets (if I haven't forgotten my German history too much, it's in fact a direct predecessor to Merz's CDU-CSU).
Plenty of people did fuck things up, including of the left. The KPD's inflexibility was a factor too. In France the communists elected to stay 'neutral', because you know, peace. The communists paid for their mistakes with their bloods.

It is sad to see everyone more or less repeating the same mistakes; conservatives siding with fascists for a supposed tax cuts; people supposedly on the left demanding "peace" with Putin, as if such a thing was possible. Then again, there are people who do know history and as I said before, nobody wants to be Hindenburg.

---

The mistake everyone's making (including myself) is in believing the debate is about socialism vs. capitalism or conservatism vs. liberalism. I really thought so myself until recently. But I've come to realize this is entirely unimportant. The only political question right now is whether we still want liberal democracy or not.

[WeepingElf]

The mistake everyone's making (including myself) is in believing the debate is about socialism vs. capitalism or conservatism vs. liberalism. I really thought so myself until recently. But I've come to realize this is entirely unimportant. The only political question right now is whether we still want liberal democracy or not.

Yes. It is about liberal democracy or authoritarianism - and about sustainability or plundering the planet until civilization collapses. These two issues are intimately connected to each other: you cannot have sustainability without democracy (sure, China heavily invests in renewable energy - but they also heavily invest in coal and nuclear, it's all about the energy hunger of the booming Chinese economy), nor can democracy survive when civilization collapse, so you can't have democracy without sustainability. The problem is that many conservatives haven't realized yet, and think they can carry on doing business as usual.

[Travis B.]

The mistake everyone's making (including myself) is in believing the debate is about socialism vs. capitalism or conservatism vs. liberalism. I really thought so myself until recently. But I've come to realize this is entirely unimportant. The only political question right now is whether we still want liberal democracy or not.

This is why I honestly hate leftists and liberals who are opposed to those who are actually defending liberal democracy on the grounds that they are not left-wing enough, or they don't favor their position on their particular pet issue -- because frankly at this point you are either against the fascists or with the fascists, and if you are against those who are against the fascists, you are with the fascists, even if you call yourself a "leftist".

[Travis B.]

The mistake everyone's making (including myself) is in believing the debate is about socialism vs. capitalism or conservatism vs. liberalism. I really thought so myself until recently. But I've come to realize this is entirely unimportant. The only political question right now is whether we still want liberal democracy or not.

Yes. It is about liberal democracy or authoritarianism - and about sustainability or plundering the planet until civilization collapses. These two issues are intimately connected to each other: you cannot have sustainability without democracy (sure, China heavily invests in renewable energy - but they also heavily invest in coal and nuclear, it's all about the energy hunger of the booming Chinese economy), nor can democracy survive when civilization collapse, so you can't have democracy without sustainability. The problem is that many conservatives haven't realized yet, and think they can carry on doing business as usual.

My first problem with Green types is because fundamentally Green-ness is a pet issue, and being a pet issue Greens are willing to put it over liberal democracy versus authoritarianism, and when the authoritarians win the Greens fundamentally will be defeated anyways, making all of their environmental principles all for naught.

(My second problem with Green types is that Green positions often don't make sense, e.g. their opposition to nuclear -- when you judge power by the actual rational criterion of deaths per terawatt-hour, nuclear is much better than what has served to replace it in places like Germany, and nuclear is better environmentally* than some other nominally relatively-low deaths per terawatt-hour sources of power like hydroelectric power, which can actually cause massive amounts of damage to the environment, and which when it does go bad can actually cause massive death tolls amongst human populations far outstripping Chernobyl and Fukushima, cf. the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure.)

* And even things like solar power -- think of what turning desert ecosystems into seas of solar panels can do.

[rotting bones]

This is IMHO a Marxist conspiracy theory.

In what sense is it Marxist? Engels was a wealthy capitalist. Isn't it more likely that this theory comes from the fact that the biggest American capitalists seem to be lining up behind Musk, and many of the capitalists opposing the profit motive seem to be ethnonationalists?