The FT chart with the voter movements looks a bit weird because it seems to leave out the voters who voted the same in both elections. That’s an important factor though
"A vote for the Greens/Die Linke in this election was a vote for vigorous and unapologetic resistance to racism and the defense of decent social and ESG norms by all means including street demos and modern social media. It was a progressive vote."
This is a curious amalgam of Greens and the left. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't the Greens been a consistently pro war party, particularly with regard to Ukraine? Analena!? Have the Greens suffered because of that pro war position? Looking just at the Greens, how can one say a vote for them is "progressive"? If "progressive" now includes radical pro war sentiment, perhaps this, like many other bourgeois political terms has lost all meaning? What use is it then to people who wish to understand?
Clearly the biggest issue in this election was the war on Russia in Ukraine, which has not merely threatened WW3, but has ruined the German economy. Run an analysis based on each party's foreign policy and it's results in this election.
I am a bit skeptical of the German Greens... they are very ideological re "democracy". Adam Tooze, in the Ukraine and Germany episode of One and Tooze points out that the Greens is like the US Neoconservative party when it comes to "protecting global democracy"
The last nuclear power plants (which have been turned off last year) could have been driven maybe a few years longer, with a lot of administrative and material costs. But it will probably take about 10 years to build new ones, and it will be extremely expensive. Even former nuclear power plant operators say it does not make sense from an economical standpoint. And with that timeframe, it also does not help much with the energy transition.
How do you convince the government and people to do investment?
Fundamentally, national governments are not like households. The Euro bond rate is not going to go up in response to Europe Investing in energy and infrastructure
Also, my question for Adam Tooze is: how do you defend against the Tyranny of Bond Markets? It seem like Bond Markets are highly anti-democratic, as discussed in the previous Chartbook re the Mexican election result. The Bond market favour right wing governments who benefit the rich rather than left wing governments that want to invest
"War on Russia in Ukraine"? You seem to be a Russian troll. At least you are very wrong when it comes to the war in Ukraine. I am German. There is now more or less a consensus between almost all of the mainstream parties (CDU, SPD, Greens, FDP) that Ukraine must be supported and that Ukraine is the stronghold against an imperialistic Russian dictator who quite openly strives to take over large parts of Eastern Europe.
Those parties agree that Putin can only be stopped by force (or at least with a strong defense). Die Linke, traditionally against war and weapons, wants the war to end but without the use of armed force but only via negotiations. Although I have to say their position is not 100% clear currently, especially with the US now planning to stop military support for Ukraine.
The AfD is more or less pro-Russia and even wants to end all sanctions against Russia, same as the (economically left but migration-wise right) BSW (which did not make it into parliament).
You can't have a dynamic market economy where 57% of voters are over 50 and 40% over 60. You have a huge demographic bulge voting to retain the impossible post-war old ways and occasionally throwing a vote in for the far-right whenever they perceive the faintest risk to that.
Then you have the post-2008 generations just trapped serving that system. They're desperate for change but can't actually do anything to bring it about. It's no wonder they're voting for the anti-democratic parties.
It's kind of funny in a tragic way that the always-online generations spend hours online fighting over how they might like to organise their utopia then at every democratic event that's swept aside by the pre-2008 vote who just ensure the continuity of pensioned stagnation.
Die Linke is not anti-democratic, just at the very left of the democratic spectrum. Different from the AfD, they do not try to oppose and destruct democratic processes.
If the CDU/CSU emphasize their austerity and black zero fetish, it will only mean more power to the AfD... don't repeat Weimer republic history.
See discussion in Mark Blyth's Austerity: History of a Dangerous Idea
I think that Die Linkie should be given a voice if the far right and facist party is to be prevented from gaining power... facism is the end result of Neoliberal austerity
High voter turnout seems a rather low bar for assessing the health of a democracy. Just saying. (Of course low voter turnout is not good either.) I wouldn’t put the Germans on the back and congratulate them on their healthy democracy. Better to acknowledge serious problems in how unrepresentative German policies are, especially with respect to defending German industry and infrastructure. (Think of the unresolved Nordstream sabotage.)
This was excellent until the last paragraph. Which is just imo partisan nonsense. Measured immigration does not equate racism. Die Linke stands for "decent social standards?" - come on. What's the empirical foundation for ESG outside of the green religious cult with its made up science and repression of critical studies?
Workers and self-employed are poor proxies for socioeconomic status of the voters. Better is education. Low to medium educated people vote 24% to 28% for AfD. Higher educated ("Abitur") and University degree people 17%, respectively 10%. As I wrote in my comment to yesterday's Chartbook on this issue, immiseration and lack of trust in the state and its institutions are always the main reasons for the success of right-wing movements.
In this sense one also has to understand that the youngest group of voters, 18-29, is keenest on voting Die Linke (24%) but also votes 21% AfD. They only voted 12% Greens, after having been with 24% in 2021 the biggest fans of that party. BTW, in 1990 the 18-29s still made up 23.2% of the electorate.
In South Korea, gender politics and anti-feminist backlash drove the gap.
In the US and UK, the election of right-wing governments led young women to shift left.
In Germany, the Eurozone crisis and migrant policies created divisions, with young women leaning liberal and men becoming more conservative.
Each of these inflection points highlights how political events, social movements, and policy changes can deeply impact generational ideologies, often driving men and women in opposite political directions.
Funny. As one not a republican or democrat (in USA politics), I look at the "green" and "progressive" parties as being the party most racist, exclusionist, for censorship, and warlike. This author is projecting theory with reality, and we all know what Yogi Berra said about that.
One can feel your country's tribal partisanship from your words. In Germany, not everything is that black-and-white, and those parties (e.g. the Greens) have gotten far less "progressive" than you think, especially in this election which made almost every party move to the right (except Die Linke).
Had anti-war parties performed better, I can guarantee that you'd be singing a very different tune.
Germans are much like Americans, in that the keep getting shafted by the legacy parties, and in response, vote for the other legacy parties, expecting something to change.
Well yeah, then AfD would get to be the governing party and we would rather talk about fascism (and letting Putin take over Eastern Europe as he wishes to do).
I haven't been to this comment section in a while - there are people here who reference Baader Meinhof as a positive example of women involved in politics? Maybe it is time to let this aging, idea-less country finally expire underneath the dust pile that is European history.
it was Baader -Meinhof after all so women on the Left in Germany especially have a long and illustrious history.Rosa Luxembourg and Clara Zetkin---it takes more than Balls to cuase a revolution
The FT chart with the voter movements looks a bit weird because it seems to leave out the voters who voted the same in both elections. That’s an important factor though
"A vote for the Greens/Die Linke in this election was a vote for vigorous and unapologetic resistance to racism and the defense of decent social and ESG norms by all means including street demos and modern social media. It was a progressive vote."
This is a curious amalgam of Greens and the left. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't the Greens been a consistently pro war party, particularly with regard to Ukraine? Analena!? Have the Greens suffered because of that pro war position? Looking just at the Greens, how can one say a vote for them is "progressive"? If "progressive" now includes radical pro war sentiment, perhaps this, like many other bourgeois political terms has lost all meaning? What use is it then to people who wish to understand?
Clearly the biggest issue in this election was the war on Russia in Ukraine, which has not merely threatened WW3, but has ruined the German economy. Run an analysis based on each party's foreign policy and it's results in this election.
I am a bit skeptical of the German Greens... they are very ideological re "democracy". Adam Tooze, in the Ukraine and Germany episode of One and Tooze points out that the Greens is like the US Neoconservative party when it comes to "protecting global democracy"
Also, the anti-nuclear power view of the Greens is not helpful for the energy transition
The last nuclear power plants (which have been turned off last year) could have been driven maybe a few years longer, with a lot of administrative and material costs. But it will probably take about 10 years to build new ones, and it will be extremely expensive. Even former nuclear power plant operators say it does not make sense from an economical standpoint. And with that timeframe, it also does not help much with the energy transition.
How do you convince the government and people to do investment?
Fundamentally, national governments are not like households. The Euro bond rate is not going to go up in response to Europe Investing in energy and infrastructure
Also, my question for Adam Tooze is: how do you defend against the Tyranny of Bond Markets? It seem like Bond Markets are highly anti-democratic, as discussed in the previous Chartbook re the Mexican election result. The Bond market favour right wing governments who benefit the rich rather than left wing governments that want to invest
"War on Russia in Ukraine"? You seem to be a Russian troll. At least you are very wrong when it comes to the war in Ukraine. I am German. There is now more or less a consensus between almost all of the mainstream parties (CDU, SPD, Greens, FDP) that Ukraine must be supported and that Ukraine is the stronghold against an imperialistic Russian dictator who quite openly strives to take over large parts of Eastern Europe.
Those parties agree that Putin can only be stopped by force (or at least with a strong defense). Die Linke, traditionally against war and weapons, wants the war to end but without the use of armed force but only via negotiations. Although I have to say their position is not 100% clear currently, especially with the US now planning to stop military support for Ukraine.
The AfD is more or less pro-Russia and even wants to end all sanctions against Russia, same as the (economically left but migration-wise right) BSW (which did not make it into parliament).
In this election, the biggest issues were the countries inner security (also social security), migration and economy. (https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/7146/umfrage/themen-wahlentscheidung-fuer-die-bundestagswahl/)
It disqualifies him. All these academics are, in the end, political hacks. Bummer. His book on the Nazi economy is absolutely fantastic.
You can't have a dynamic market economy where 57% of voters are over 50 and 40% over 60. You have a huge demographic bulge voting to retain the impossible post-war old ways and occasionally throwing a vote in for the far-right whenever they perceive the faintest risk to that.
Then you have the post-2008 generations just trapped serving that system. They're desperate for change but can't actually do anything to bring it about. It's no wonder they're voting for the anti-democratic parties.
It's kind of funny in a tragic way that the always-online generations spend hours online fighting over how they might like to organise their utopia then at every democratic event that's swept aside by the pre-2008 vote who just ensure the continuity of pensioned stagnation.
Really lends credence to the european demographic political determinists haha
Die Linke is not anti-democratic, just at the very left of the democratic spectrum. Different from the AfD, they do not try to oppose and destruct democratic processes.
If the CDU/CSU emphasize their austerity and black zero fetish, it will only mean more power to the AfD... don't repeat Weimer republic history.
See discussion in Mark Blyth's Austerity: History of a Dangerous Idea
I think that Die Linkie should be given a voice if the far right and facist party is to be prevented from gaining power... facism is the end result of Neoliberal austerity
High voter turnout seems a rather low bar for assessing the health of a democracy. Just saying. (Of course low voter turnout is not good either.) I wouldn’t put the Germans on the back and congratulate them on their healthy democracy. Better to acknowledge serious problems in how unrepresentative German policies are, especially with respect to defending German industry and infrastructure. (Think of the unresolved Nordstream sabotage.)
This was excellent until the last paragraph. Which is just imo partisan nonsense. Measured immigration does not equate racism. Die Linke stands for "decent social standards?" - come on. What's the empirical foundation for ESG outside of the green religious cult with its made up science and repression of critical studies?
What were you saying about partisan nonsense?
Great article thanks! Better than the explanations on ZDF last night.
Workers and self-employed are poor proxies for socioeconomic status of the voters. Better is education. Low to medium educated people vote 24% to 28% for AfD. Higher educated ("Abitur") and University degree people 17%, respectively 10%. As I wrote in my comment to yesterday's Chartbook on this issue, immiseration and lack of trust in the state and its institutions are always the main reasons for the success of right-wing movements.
In this sense one also has to understand that the youngest group of voters, 18-29, is keenest on voting Die Linke (24%) but also votes 21% AfD. They only voted 12% Greens, after having been with 24% in 2021 the biggest fans of that party. BTW, in 1990 the 18-29s still made up 23.2% of the electorate.
You might like Jonathan Hopkin's "Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies"
In South Korea, gender politics and anti-feminist backlash drove the gap.
In the US and UK, the election of right-wing governments led young women to shift left.
In Germany, the Eurozone crisis and migrant policies created divisions, with young women leaning liberal and men becoming more conservative.
Each of these inflection points highlights how political events, social movements, and policy changes can deeply impact generational ideologies, often driving men and women in opposite political directions.
The silent majority would disagree as Merz reneged on immigration, the largest issue at his first, opportunity after being elected.
Funny. As one not a republican or democrat (in USA politics), I look at the "green" and "progressive" parties as being the party most racist, exclusionist, for censorship, and warlike. This author is projecting theory with reality, and we all know what Yogi Berra said about that.
One can feel your country's tribal partisanship from your words. In Germany, not everything is that black-and-white, and those parties (e.g. the Greens) have gotten far less "progressive" than you think, especially in this election which made almost every party move to the right (except Die Linke).
Had anti-war parties performed better, I can guarantee that you'd be singing a very different tune.
Germans are much like Americans, in that the keep getting shafted by the legacy parties, and in response, vote for the other legacy parties, expecting something to change.
Well yeah, then AfD would get to be the governing party and we would rather talk about fascism (and letting Putin take over Eastern Europe as he wishes to do).
So, you're only in favor of democracy if it delivers the results you like.
Had history lessons? Fascism is not democracy. https://www.politico.eu/list/politico-28-class-of-2024/bjorn-hocke/
So if the wrong side wins, it's not democracy. Yup, you care at all for democracy, just for your preferred outcome.
Fictitious Capital:How Finance Is Appropriating Our Future
by https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/durand-cedric
Translated by https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/broder-david
I haven't been to this comment section in a while - there are people here who reference Baader Meinhof as a positive example of women involved in politics? Maybe it is time to let this aging, idea-less country finally expire underneath the dust pile that is European history.
Thanks for this - I found the BBC coverage downright confusing.
it was Baader -Meinhof after all so women on the Left in Germany especially have a long and illustrious history.Rosa Luxembourg and Clara Zetkin---it takes more than Balls to cuase a revolution
Right. Which revolution did those women lead again? Reality: gender is superfluous, it's a question of policy.
hmm and Marx and Engels led what revoluution but would you doubt their influence and Meinhof shot off more then her mouth as you do