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    #26
    When I lived with two polish lads, they showed me a map of where law and Justice had the upper hand, and the country was split on an east west basis. Then they showed me a map of where the border between Germany and Russia was during the last period that Poland didn't exist, and fuck me but it was basically the same line.

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      #27
      By way of explanation, that's a map of the NSDAP's vote in the 1933 election, and it pretty much exactly corresponds to the degree of urbanisation/industrialisation. Those dark areas in the north west are rural Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein which are the most solidly CDU areas to this day. The deep-brown bits are all in Poland and Russia now, and Bavaria looks relatively pale because they all voted for the Zentrum, the forerunner of today's right-wing catholic CSU. The easternmost, most industrial part of Silesia was also relatively low on the scale.

      Hawes is talking bollocks.

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        #28

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          #29
          That's astonishing, but also quite strange because an awful lot of the people living in the western, formerly German portion of Poland are those who got shoved out of the eastern parts of Poland that are now in Belarus and the Ukraine.

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            #30
            In my experience nearly all Eastern European countries are simultaneously dealing with a massive drain of their people and a mortal fear of a tidal wave of immigrants (having in most cases never having met a single individual). This may be somewhat different in East Germany which is something of a special case

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              #31
              On thought prompted by that map [edit: the one posted by AB on the previous page] is that the areas of Germany ith the greatest percentage Nazi vote immediately pre-3rd Reich are no longer German, and the surviving ethnic Germans from those areas fled west, and settled, I believe, overwhelmingly west of the Elbe (and the Vertriebenenverbaende were a major force in conservative poiitics in the Federal Republic for some decades afterwards), so that the inheritances from different regional German traditions were well and truly blended. Which is another reason to say that Hawes' thesis is probably largely a waste of time.
              Last edited by Evariste Euler Gauss; 02-09-2018, 20:49.

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                #32
                That's a very good point as well.

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                  #33
                  On ad hoc's point, I think it is very important that the "drain" is precisely of the youngest, most ambitious and least fearful of "others".

                  And that dynamic isn't limited to Eastern Europe. It has been driving Italian politics for some time and is also a key feature of "red" states in the US and pro-Brexit areas in the UK.

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                    #34
                    Originally posted by Alderman Barnes View Post
                    That's astonishing, but also quite strange because an awful lot of the people living in the western, formerly German portion of Poland are those who got shoved out of the eastern parts of Poland that are now in Belarus and the Ukraine.
                    AB, it's worth pointing out that that map doesn't say how many potato man voters there were in the west. They could have got 1% less than the winners.

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by Alderman Barnes View Post
                      By way of explanation, that's a map of the NSDAP's vote in the 1933 election, and it pretty much exactly corresponds to the degree of urbanisation/industrialisation. Those dark areas in the north west are rural Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein which are the most solidly CDU areas to this day. The deep-brown bits are all in Poland and Russia now, and Bavaria looks relatively pale because they all voted for the Zentrum, the forerunner of today's right-wing catholic CSU. The easternmost, most industrial part of Silesia was also relatively low on the scale.
                      On a point of order, of Niedersachsen's 11 post-war, premiers 7 were SPD, including the incumbent. Schleswig-Holstein used to be solidly CDU from the 50s-80s, but since 1988, three of the five premiers were SPD, serving 22 of the 30 years. That isn't just due to Lübeck and Kiel voting red (and green).

                      The most solidly CDU area traditionally is Baden-Württemberg, which was happy to vote for only CDU premiers from 1953-2011 (though presently it's a Green in office). Rheinland-Pfalz was solidly CDU until 1991; since then the premier has always been from the SPD. Conversely, Hessen used to be almost always SPD until 1999; since then the premier has been CDU.

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                        #36
                        So with Merkel getting ready to clear her desk as CDU head soon, three frontrunners to succeed her seem to be emerging.

                        Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the party's general-secretary (whose name, commonly abbreviated AKK, would be useful for every satirical meme about the German language), is Merkel's protegé. She has taken some positions which the left can subscribe to. Plus: she's a big AC/DC fan. As gen-sec she has an obvious advantage, but being Merkel's choice will also harm her chances.

                        Jens Spahn, health minister, is young, dynamic and conservative. He'd be the obvious choice for those who want a reboot of the party but not a radical recallibration. Social conservatives might reject him on account of being openly gay, though that is not a big issue in German politics any longer. Spahn might get heat for his opposition to increasing pensions at a time when people nearing (the ever increasing) pensionable age are nervous about their future.

                        Friedrich Merz, a former CDU chairman and corporate lawyer, is the supposed dark horse. Merkel's erstwhile rival for the CDU leadership, he's the neo-liberal right-winger who can dress up his racist positions in a coat of reason. His redeeming feature: he seems to hate Donald Trump even more than Merkel -- but not so much because Trump is evil but because of the trade war.

                        Merz might be the choice of both those whose default position is that the economy is going down the drains and/or too much money is spent on welfare exploiters, and those who believe the CDU needs a racist in charge to beat the AfD at their own game.

                        The SPD, a party populated by clueless idiots, seems to secretly hope that Merz will win so that they can hoover up the votes from CDU voters who are disgusted by his right-wing positions. Which is a dangerous game (many of those votes would, in any case, go green).

                        Merz's divisiveness might work against him; and his presence in the contest could cost Spahn votes and help AKK.

                        My preference: for all of them to just fuck off. But, if pushed, I'd rather have the lesser evil of AKK than pin my hopes on the electorate rejecting Spahn or Merz.
                        Last edited by G-Man; 07-11-2018, 06:06.

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                          #37
                          Merz’ re-emergence after more than a decade of hoovering up cash as a director of DAX 30 companies is a bit strange, but he’s obviously got money behind him and some media support. My sense is that there are a lot of men in the party who just don’t want another woman leader, especially one who is clearly smarter than they are.

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                            #38
                            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                            My sense is that there are a lot of men in the party who just don’t want another woman leader, especially one who is clearly smarter than they are.
                            I'd wager that quite a few of those men would also object to a gay leader, which would put Spahn at a disadvantage.

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                              #39
                              Originally posted by G-Man View Post
                              So with Merkel getting ready to clear her desk as CDU head soon, three frontrunners to succeed her seem to be emerging.

                              Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the party's general-secretary (whose name, commonly abbreviated AKK, would be useful for every satirical meme about the German language), is Merkel's protegé. She has taken some positions which the left can subscribe to. Plus: she's a big AC/DC fan. As gen-sec she has an obvious advantage, but being Merkel's choice will also harm her chances.

                              Jens Spahn, health minister, is young, dynamic and conservative. He'd be the obvious choice for those who want a reboot of the party but not a radical recallibration. Social conservatives might reject him on account of being openly gay, though that is not a big issue in German politics any longer. Spahn might get heat for his opposition to increasing pensions at a time when people nearing (the ever increasing) pensionable age are nervous about their future.

                              Friedrich Merz, a former CDU chairman and corporate lawyer, is the supposed dark horse. Merkel's erstwhile rival for the CDU leadership, he's the neo-liberal right-winger who can dress up his racist positions in a coat of reason. His redeeming feature: he seems to hate Donald Trump even more than Merkel -- but not so much because Trump is evil but because of the trade war.

                              Merz might be the choice of both those whose default position is that the economy is going down the drains and/or too much money is spent on welfare exploiters, and those who believe the CDU needs a racist in charge to beat the AfD at their own game.

                              The SPD, a party populated by clueless idiots, seems to secretly hope that Merz will win so that they can hoover up the votes from CDU voters who are disgusted by his right-wing positions. Which is a dangerous game (many of those votes would, in any case, go green).

                              Merz's divisiveness might work against him; and his presence in the contest could cost Spahn votes and help AKK.

                              My preference: for all of them to just fuck off. But, if pushed, I'd rather have the lesser evil of AKK than pin my hopes on the electorate rejecting Spahn or Merz.
                              Spahn sounds remarkably like Varadkar before he actually took office, and confidence-and-supply forced him to moderate his programme.

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                                #40
                                The SPD, a party populated by clueless idiots, seems to secretly hope that Merz will win so that they can hoover up the votes from CDU voters who are disgusted by his right-wing positions. Which is a dangerous game (many of those votes would, in any case, go green).
                                God, they're so stupid. I get the impression just about anybody who would support a non-shit SPD has fled to Linke or the Greens (mostly the Greens) so it's just the Blairite true believers at this point.

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                                  #41
                                  Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
                                  God, they're so stupid. I get the impression just about anybody who would support a non-shit SPD has fled to Linke or the Greens (mostly the Greens) so it's just the Blairite true believers at this point.
                                  http://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1060178358540161024

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                                    #42
                                    German 30-year yields are negative. Its fiscal stance is getting ridiculous.

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                                      #43
                                      And now GDP growth has gone negative. But still no fiscal stimulus, says Merkel.

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                                        #44
                                        They would rather have a recession than face the screaming headlines in Bild.

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                                          #45
                                          Until I was perusing Wiki last night, the results of the Brandenburg and Saxony state elections had completely passed me by. Bloody hell! The AfD were close to coming first in both, with 23.5% in Brandenburg, behind the SPD with 26.2% and 27.5% in Saxony, behind the CDU on 32.1%.

                                          Their national vote seems quite stable though, albeit around 15%.

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                                            #46
                                            And yet those results were less favourable to the AfD than many had expected.

                                            The East/West split is quite profound and arguably becoming wider.

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                                              #47
                                              Maybe there should be more Eastern representation in the German cabinet, symbolic though this might be.

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                                                #48
                                                That is rendered more difficult by the party alignment, as neither die Linke nor the AfD are likely to be part of a government anytime soon.

                                                I was reading an interesting piece last week about how the AfD have also gotten significant mileage in the East out of being the most vocal anti-Green party in the region that still produces the large majority of the country's coal.

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                                                  #49
                                                  The AfD's leader in Thüringen is a real piece of work.

                                                  An Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician has walked out of an interview and threatened a journalist after he was confronted with parallels between his rhetoric and that of Adolf Hitler.

                                                  An interview with Björn Höcke by the state broadcaster ZDF, recorded last week but screened on Sunday, shows the AfD politician threatening “massive consequences” to a journalist who refused to restart an interview after a series of difficult questions.

                                                  The interview started with a segment in which a number of AfD politicians were read a quotation from Höcke and asked if it was from their party colleague, the figurehead of the AfD’s hardline nationalist wing, or from Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

                                                  Five AfD delegates said they could not tell if the line “When the turning point is reached, then we Germans won’t do things by halves, we will dispose of the rubbish heaps of modernity” was from Höcke or Hitler, and one delegate said the line was more likely to be from Mein Kampf.

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                                                    #50
                                                    More grim economic data

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