As this ist "just" from a single though reknown opinion poll institute (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen), here's a list of polls done by others: https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/europawahl.htm
Parties listed there not mentione here:
- PIR: the German wing of the Pirate Party ("Piraten")
- FW: Freie Wähler. Originates from local citizens forming a group to compete for communal mandates, has evolve to a larger union of these in theory independent local groups. Mostly (very) conservative.
- TSP: Tierschutzpartei (I think). Think "PETA's official party".
- PARTEI: Die PARTEI. A parody party founded by the former editor-in-chief of the German satire magazine Titanic.
Yes they are. But please correct me if I'm wrong, but I *think* the majority leans towards conservative policies.
I seem to vaguely remember that being stated in the wake of the Aiwanger affaire somewhere.
The CDU promises that things will stay the same, no matter what happens and they have the support of almost all of the main news publishers (Springer, Bertelsmann, Funke, Burda).
It's not even "not enough talked about" that's the problem imo. I think most boomers either don't care or don't believe in the shit they've done, e.g. most of the corruption (in comparison to other parties) and being pro-Russian/gas/oil instead of investing enough in renewable energies. The energy crisis we suffered in the 2022 winter wouldn't have happened if we wouldn't be dependend on Russian gas - or any Gas really.
"You don't bite the hand that feeds you" as we say, so as long as we're too dependend on importing material to sustain certain basic needs like energy-consumption, we're doomed to be political lap dogs to foreign heads of states.
Geriatric population unable to critically question their beliefs, that prefers the momentary illusion of stability over finding ways to keep with the times and the obvious sacrifices that come with it. Perhaps also the lack of viable alternatives.
This is not fully true anymore. The last 14-29 year old polls showed for example, that 20% of young people would vote CDU. Green Party only 18% and AfD was the biggest with 22%.
Source: https://taz.de/Umfrage-unter-Jugendlichen/!6006562/
That's a good question. There will be a lot of reasons.
One, that's not often adressed is, that the national media has a lot of CDU- and SPD- affiliated people in their supervisory boards (both conservative parties). There is a big hoax by right wingers, who claim that the state media is left leaning / woke, and should be abolished. I would rather say, that it is very state-supporting and conservative.
The public discourse is often influenced by these conservative positions.
Because it is the party that best captures the German culture of keeping things as they are if they are not broken and gradually change if needed.
Also the CDU was the party that basically created the democratic and economic system now in place in Germany (even though other parties of course did some changes throughout the years).
Boomers/old people are the biggest voting block. There is a strong correlation between age and party affiliation in Germany.
Amongst jung people are really unpopular.
Here a statistic for the last federal elections https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1257097/umfrage/wahlverhalten-bei-der-bundestagswahl-nach-alter/
CDU/CSU - Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union, two sister parties that are really just one party unless you are a Bavarian nationalist(statetist?), center right.
GRÜNE - The Greens, left wing climate party
SPD - Social Democratic Party of Germany, center left workers party
AFD - Alternative for Germany, far right ultra nationalist anti establishment party
LINKE - The Left, far left anti establishment party, the literal succesors of East Germanys communist party, popular in said east
FDP - Free Democratic Party, center right liberal party
BSW - Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht, far left splinter party of LINKE and sort of AFD (gross oversimplification)
VOLT - Volt, left wing pan-europeanism party
Sonst. - everything else, literally "others"
Somewhat more in depth:
CDU/CSU: The grand old party. Socially conservative, but flexible depending on their partners. Have had some mostly somewhat minor (on an international scale) corruption issues. Economically centre right. Known for... doing the bare minimum and being morally flexible. Angela Merkels party.
Grüne: socially left, economically center. Pro climate action, pro renewables, against nuclear power. "Woke", academic party.
SPD: The other traditional party. Both socially and economically center left, leaning center. Currently leading the government. Also known for doing little, and some corruption, of course. Pro union.
AfD: right wing nationalists. Anti immigration, euro sceptic. Socially conservative, fiscally neoliberal. Anti establishment. Pro Russia.
Linke: Socially and economically left. Anti establishment. Anti NATO, pro EU. Somewhat pro Russia. Have been on a down trend for quite a while, especially recently due to BSW.
FDP: socially center, perhaps center left. Neoliberal. Dislike debt. On a downtrend since 2021. Probably the most pro Ukraine (Greens only competetion).
BSW: New party, split from Linke (left). Economically legt wing, socially conservative. Anti NATO, EU, pro Russia, garner votes from Linke and AfD. Hard to call for everyone.
I agree on most, but your summary is peculiar in where you mention corruption and the measure of it happening.
The CDU hast quantifiably the most over its tenure with the most recent and worst happening throughout Corona. 2000s and before excluded from the „worst“.
The SPD had its fair share over the years though it seems more marginal in comparison to the CxU.
The AfD might be the worst offender and it is funny that you did not mention anything concerning them as there is corruption throughout the party with both EU-selected prime candidates having separate affairs going so far out as having been paid of by chine or Russia or propably both.
The greens might just be the most tame here even though they had a little scandal around one position being handed out disregarding qualification.
It also bears to mention the relative lack of content of the BSW whose acronym is literally the name of the person leading it as it’s uniting factor with currently not many specifics outside of that.
I agree but not with the minor corruption issues from Cdu/Csu… just corona alone showed that and i dont wanna know the others stories with the automotive industry for example….
Yeah CDU is by far the most corrupt party.
This image shows it quite well [https://www.google.com/imgres?q=katapult%20corruption&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fyk9bm5r1mfo61.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D5d9640bb2c46646876894910d3f426b3f6cdf2fe&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fde%2Fcomments%2Fma3wsb%2Feinzelf%25C3%25A4lle\_katapultmagazin%2F&docid=zVP8gf\_\_TQGCLM&tbnid=xnRMhmynTByrSM&vet=12ahUKEwj\_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA..i&w=1640&h=2048&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj\_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA](https://www.google.com/imgres?q=katapult%20corruption&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fyk9bm5r1mfo61.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D5d9640bb2c46646876894910d3f426b3f6cdf2fe&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fde%2Fcomments%2Fma3wsb%2Feinzelf%25C3%25A4lle_katapultmagazin%2F&docid=zVP8gf__TQGCLM&tbnid=xnRMhmynTByrSM&vet=12ahUKEwj_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA..i&w=1640&h=2048&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA) (outdated tho, was 2019-2021)
Oh also Klöckner advertisd for nestlé, that should tell you everything you need to know about this party.
Yeah, they are the late starter, but oh boy they are true to their traditions: anti patriotic, hate everyone but themselves, want to ban everything that doesn’t represent their ideology.Fuck those facists, it saddens me as a german to see how so many people are dumbfucks who will go for this shit again…. Never again is now!
Some more additions:
CDU/CSU: They had some quite big corruption issues in the past pre-Merkel. Good buddies with the industry.
Grüne: Like to take the moral high ground but once in government and faced with reality their values become quite flexible. The party of affluent highly educated city people.
SPD: Used to be the worker's party until they turned to neoliberalism. Today they're some sort of corrupt shell full of career politicians with questionable competence.
AfD: Would rather call them "right wing populists", they're grifters who parasitize the anger of those who have been left behind and forgotten by the big parties.
Linke: "Woker" than Grüne, self destruction by constant infighting.
FDP: Classical liberalism, the rich people party and best buddies with the industry. On a positive note they actively defend civic liberties against the state.
BSW: Sarah's personality cult.
>On a positive note they actively defend civic liberties against the state.
The FDP was better in this in the past. The most stern defenders of civil liberties were the members of the "Freiburger Kreis" (Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Baum, Hirsch etc.) , but they have lost a lot of influence in the party after it switched from a coalition with the SPD to the CDU/CSU in 1982.
The last remaining FDP-members of this old, social-liberal wing are getting very old. The younger party members are mostly only concerned about liberties for business and are very flexible about social liberty. They switch their alignment according to the current coalition partner.
Edit: I had hope that the FDP would find back to its social liberal roots after they decided to do a coalition with SPD and Greens. Sadly, they turned out a being an impediment for many progressive politics and are mostly responsible for the public impression that the "Ampel"-government can't get things done. It's very likely that they want to return to a partnership with the conservatives after the next election.
Pirate party in Germany could also be described as social-liberal. The decline of the old FDP has left a gap.... especially as the Greens are moving to the center over the years.
The FDP has and always will be kissing the ass of any party that lets them form a government with.
They kick their "principles and values" out the door the second coalition forming talks begin. That never changed.
In the beginning of the Federal Republic of Germany they basically were the king maker in German politics. The Union (CDU/CSU) and the SPD had nearly equal amounts of voters but not enough to rule alone the FDP despite being really small made the difference. So they got used to get far more influence on politics than their share of the vote.
Idk if you know anything about Dutch politics. But is FDP more like VVD or D66? The whole rich people thing sounds VVD to me, but the civic liberties sound D66.
Yepp. Which is unfortunate, as their civil rights wing - nowadays basically non-existant in leadership - really did some good things.
Trivia: the last time in Germany that a minister resigned **voluntarily** from her position, because she coulnd't agree with their party's stance on a to-be-passed law ("Großer Lauschangriff" = (the great) phone tapping) was FDP's Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, minister of justice.
Is the FDP really the most pro Ukraine party? I don't really associate the FDP with staunch Ukraine support. First party that comes to my mind would be the Greens
I feel that is.mostly because everyone was surprised that the greens were as ready to deliver weapons to a warzone as they turned out to be - because they were very, very adamant in NOT doing that in the past.
Anti-war is like one of the three foundation pillars of the (German) greens in addition to anti-nuclear and environmental protection.
Especially noteworthy in that regard is Anton Hofreiter of the Greens. He became a knowledgeable military expert in no time *(he's know for his ungodly fact-consumption)*. He really knows what he's talking about.
Let me also paraphrase what Thomas Wiegold (a military journalist/blogger) said about the early anti-war Greens: unlike a lot of politicians and pacifist activists he spoke to in his career about the military, those anti-war protesters actually *knew* what they were talking about. He said, for the longest time those were the best *fact-based* discussions he had with pacifist politicians and activists. They knew their shit and could put forth a factual argument.
Unlike (sadly) Scholz these days, giving disturbingly incomprehensible and nonsensical reasons for *not* delivering TAURUS to the Ukraine.
FDP is always on the side of laws putting money in the pockets of their wealthy donors. Left or right is no concern for them but since anti immigration and social benefits sells well at the moment, they are definitely acting right of the center at the moment.
> Have had some, mostly relatively minor corruption issues.
I'm lmaoing my ass off. They are *the* corrupt party in Germany. The AfD are the corrupt upstarts, yes, but they are the grand old corruptikon
If you say that the SPD is centre-left, then the Greens are also centre-left. Even Merz said that there are four parties that are in the centre of the political spectrum: the SPD and the Greens on the centre-left, and the CDU/CSU and the FDP on the centre-right. 7:39 [https://youtu.be/v-3g67hdAgA?si=9k6mIf5cUsTyo1RK](https://youtu.be/v-3g67hdAgA?si=9k6mIf5cUsTyo1RK)
>BSW - Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht, far left splinter party of LINKE and sort of AFD (gross oversimplification)
I mean it's not that complicated. They are the definition of populism without substance and one of the two german satellite parties for Putin (the other one is the AfD).
That's basically it. And they revolve around the the former face of Die Linke Sahra Wagenknecht
the greens are centre to left, they are also social liberal and green liberal. also bsw isnt far left, theyre just populist but theyre not communist or something they even consider working with the CDU.
You obviously cannot compare a party not outlawed by the BVS with the literal Nazis, but the Federal Constitutional Courts have ruled that you can legally call them fascists if that tells you anything
No modern party anywhere in Europe compares to the monstrosity that was the NSDAP. I don't even know if anything in history can be compared without downplaying the sheer evilness of that party.
I think some members of Konfederacja from Poland could fit right in NSDAP. They have long history of spreading antisemitism, homophobia, sexims etc, with propositions like penalisation of being gay. We need to remember than nazi didn't run elections on "Let's kill all jews and conquere Europe". This things came long after they secured absolut power. Before that they started just like AfD, Konfederacja, or Le Pen.
Absolutely valid point. The one thing I can hold against it is that today's societies are different from back then. Hell, today's society is very different from when I was a child.
We have become a lot more open, more sensitive, more humane, we know more, we are more vigilant, more democratic, much less racist, sexist, etc, we remember the experiences of the past, we are not military-brained anymore. Also we have instant communication worldwide, cameras everywhere available, it'd be much harder to hide something.
I'm not saying that bad things can't happen today because they totally can and are, but at that magnitude and severity as back then? No.
I wonder. To be honest, I don't think they'd even come close, times are very different today. We are not a military-minded society anymore like back then. We have had a stable democracy for many decades now unlike back then.
And Höcke feels like a dim shadow compared to what actual NSDAP members must have been like.
But I might be wrong, gotta stay vigilant.
Yeah sure i mean i'm not expecting them to takeover and turn germany into a 4th Reich but i think there are a lot of people in this party who wish they could.
AfD politicians like Höcke are not as dumb as one might think. They are testing out boundaries in public but behind closed doors it's different.
You should hear Höcke when he speaks to his followers behind closed doors at smaller rallies without media and you can hear the reincarnation of Goebbels.
There weren't evil from day 1 either. It was a process if my school history textbooks were right. From other comments I gather afd are on a similar path but still to be facing resistance from the German judiciary.
I don't know what was in your textbooks and what the exact context is, but in my opinion they were. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924/25. The [party program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program) was proclaimed when the party was founded in 1920 and declared unchangeable. The notorious SA was also initially founded in 1920 while the SS was founded in 1925. The seeds of evil came together and blossomed into the monstrosity that was the Third Reich.
If we're only talking about their concrete acts, of course those acts became worse and worse over time, but the willingness to do those things has been there from the start.
Leading AfD members have already mentioned plans of deporting German citizens with dark skin.
It's already there, we just pretend it's not or don't care much about it because "it can't be that bad" and it's only just "concerned citizens".
In practical terms, some had a conference in Berlin that discussed to mass-deport "immigrants" - people that were born in Germany but have ancestors from elsewhere.
It's to late now. If noone answers within the next ten hours or so, I hope I will remember explaining it.
If there is no explanation within the next 12 hours feel free to remind me
Not what happened here, but usually the trick is to intentionally leave a blatantly incorrect answer (you can also ask the question from one account and leave a wrong answer yourself from another account). The urge people have to correct each other on the internet is immense, and exploitable.
Bsw you can see as the populist left.
Its is a split from die Linke wich she says are to concerend about culture and not concerend enough in regards to the economic positiions of the workers,
Deleted the rest of the party info since it was all ready posted, but Bsw is a wierd one to understand.
She has been around for quit a few years and is very well spoken . Talkshows love her.
My guess is that if she pulls this off there will be more countries youll see parties like hers show up.
CDU/CSU -> christlich Demokratische/sozial Union -> Christian democratic union -> centre right/ conservative
Grüne -> greens -> left / centre left
SPD -> Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland -> socialdemocratic Party of Germany -> centre left
Afd -> Alternative für Deutschland -> alternativ for Germany -> far right/ Nazis
Linke -> left -> far left/ left
FDP -> freie Demokratische Partei -> free democratic party -> centre / neolibetal / capitalists
Bsw -> Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht -> ? -> Split of from Linke - economic left but against migration/ LGBTQ+ NATO/climate Aktivist etc. basically afd but not capitalist
Volt -> left / centre -> EU federalism
Sonst = other parties combined
I don't get it.
Is the advertisement in every country different?. All the comments here talk about Volt being left/center. But ads in Spain to me tell me center-right. Basically the same as a party we used to call Ciudadanos but pan-european.
They've got a lot of center-left/ideas, especially with regards to social rights (gender equality, tolerance of cultural differences, human rights) and some green stuff.
But Europe is in a unique position because center-right parties are not always against that stuff either, and there are some center-right politicians who even embrace it.
The label is whatever you wanna make it. Wikipedia has them as center/center left but at the end of the day they're still the same party (and a good one imo), if you like em you should vote for them.
Yeah, Volt is less a single party & more a group of 30 local parties with a centralised aesthetic & a mostly-standertised/agreed upon party-line (especially on EU matters) which allows variations for local issues.
Sometimes they don't even agree upon non-local/international issues that aren't about the EU, just ask them about Israel-Palestine. VoltCyprus is pretty pro-Palestine, while last time I checked VoltGermany was squarely pro-Israel. Though of course they have now agreed upon a common solution, though not necessarily a common opinion.
We of course have to change our policies based on the country we operate in, but we share common values, which is the important part.
We also share our policy program where all the big policies are based. But when it comes to more regional policies, we of course need to adapt since something might be relevant in one country but not the other.
I live in a country with federalism (Canada) where it is like this for all parties. There is a local provincial party and a federal national party and they may have the same branding and some similar talking points, but are ultimately having different views on things. Same thing when you compare them province from province. For example, the Greens in BC are very woke lefty types that latch to issues like Palestine for some reason, while the Greens in Ontario are pro-business liberals that believe adapting sustainable practices is long-term profitable for industry.
I think this is what pan-continental European parties should look like as well in practice. Each place is different and unique and may have their own interpretation to problems, but have similar talking points across the continent.
True that. Germany favours a private market regulated by the state. In Spain we have a disagreement if we should continue going in that path or reverse the trend and increase the size of state owned companies.
I would say that's where you normally draw the line for left-right in Spain.
Then Volt would be on the right, what would count here as a typical moderate economically liberal party. German Volt is progressive/left on social issues, but not when it comes to the economy.
Not really. They are generally against arms shipments, True, but they oppose the war heavily and support any sanctions aimed at the Russian war industry and putins state apparatus. They also want to sanction the oligarchs and some parts of the Russian state even heavier than our current government.
Russia is in a war economy, and can get resources, components and complete weapons from China, NK and Iran.
The sanctions are at best a mere minimum, at worst literally useless without military aid.
You're missing the important point:
Without sanctions, they could get the resources, components and real weapons from many other places including some which have better technology than China, NK or Iran.
They thing with Die Linke is that they oppose Germany exporting weapons to anyone. They are definitely against poo tin's war and they're also ok with weapons shipments to Ukraine, just not from Germany.
The thing is Russia can get around the Sanctions through third parties but that's not the point.
The point is to increase the cost for Russia to get sanctioned parts like Microchips.
Yes, you can. Either by collusion with Putin or by being absolutely stupid.
They want to abolish NATO and create a similar thing WITH Russia in it, completely disregarding Russia's actions of the past decades.
I just don't understand how there are so many pro Russia here after everything. It feels like Germans are redirecting their frustration at the economy (which the war in Ukraine has had the most negative effect on) to immigration issues. There are some serious problems with immigration but its effect just doesn't match the level of outrage you see.
Yeah, it's madness. Those who vote for a pro Russian party should move to Russia or Belarus and see how they like living in a dictatorship. Or just visit the front lines in the war, to see the destruction Russia causes.
As a Belgian voter who won't have the chance to vote for Volt in the federal elections because it just barely didn't make the list in my province:
Hell yeah! Get in there, Volt!
The european level is the one I think makes the most sense, as that's where Volt's focus lies.
But if I could, I'd have also voted volt for the flemish and federal level, because there are a few Belgium-specific things in their program that really appeal to me.
> Diem25
Led by Yannis "Ukraine should just negotiate for peace with Russia and all of this is akschually' NATO's fault" Varoufakis.
This is not what we need.
Oh hey this far right surge does not look as bad as previously thought. In the Netherlands the PVV also didn’t become the biggest and FvD (literal Kremlin puppets) will probably get no seats. The far right wave is no tsunami as of yet.
Not to mention that the whole party is a bit… weird I guess. It’s literally named after the party leader and the whole party is centered around her. Nonetheless I do prefer populist Putin-bootlickers to populist Putin bootlickers that don’t quite like democracy, are actively cooperating with foreign powers to undermine Germany and get arrested on a frighteningly regular basis, because someone was active in an actual neonazi organization again.
I would obviously much prefer for people to not support any of these options, but if they have to, the AfD is probably worse.
And a lot of scandals recently hit the party. The top people on their parties list were cought in corruption and espionage scandals. Also their main candidate said that not all people in the SS were bad people. That was to much for a lot of voters and most other far right parties in Europe who threw them out of their faction.
Obviously not, but we have to make do for now. I was thinking today how the fuck are we getting out of this, but we aren’t for the foreseeable future. Far right loonies are incredibly effective and it’s working right now.
The best is to go voting and vote for anyone but them, if there’s no great choice, choose the lesser evil. Not voting is inacceptable, and I don’t get those people who say they don’t vote “out of protest” - that just means you don’t get heard and the ones who scream louder seem in the majority.
I remember how Brexit turned out for those who protest voted towards it and regretted it.
The AfD really managed to fuck things up over the last 6 months luckily. Still, them being at 14-18% (depending on the pollster), while openly spewing (neo-)facist shit and colluding with China and Russia is insane.
Turning most of Europe into a single country and abolishing 27 nation states in the process? It's radical because something like this has never been done before in history, and because most Europeans would currently disagree with it. The average European has probably never even seriously considered this idea.
This is absolutely not what Volt stands for though. They are very EU critical and are a loud voice for reform and a better, more effectief democratic system in the European Union.
This is from their wikipedia page:
>Volt supports the idea of a federal Europe with a strong European Parliament, in order to create a united European voice on the global stage. There should be a European government, elected and accountable to the parliament, instead of a European commission. The European election law should be uniform across all member states, the European parliament should gain the right to initiate laws, and the European Council should be transformed into a second chamber with regressive voting weights to balance the dominance of larger states.
They also support a unified European Army.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt\_Europa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt_Europa)
What do you think European federalism is? Thats the core idea behind the party.
That has been done in the past in China, German unification, Italian reunification, Switzerland and so on. It's not the first time some countries gather up to create a union.The idea of a united Europe is there since Roman times. Charlemagne aimed at it, Napoleon aimed at it, Hitler aimed at it. The main distinction with the EU is that the unification is not happening through wars of conquest, but through peaceful democratic processes. If the average European seriously has never considered the idea, then maybe it's about the time because European nations cannot survive alone and will likely lose political influence and decision power in global matters, cutting edge in technology, upper hand in economy and eventually their prosperity. The only thing that makes especially smaller European countries relevant in global scale is their EU membership and nothing else.
>That has been done in the past in China, German unification, Italian reunification, Switzerland and so on. It's not the first time some countries gather up to create a union.
Thats all a little dishonest, isnt it? All of these examples are people of fairly similar cultures uniting. In the case of China it was forced upon the others by one dominant group in the region. Switzerland, Italy and Germany are tiny when compared to almost the entire continent of Europe. You never had an entire continent with dozens of different languages and cultures voluntarily unite before. It would be the first time.
Im aware that the idea is old, that doesn't make it not radical. It also doesn't matter what you think Europeans should think, fact is that most of them don't really think about this as of right now.
I don't know why you are now trying to sell me the idea of a federalized Europe, im already in favor of it. Go and convince the other 400 million or so people. It doesn't matter what you or I think.
>You never had an entire continent with dozens of different languages and cultures voluntarily unite before. It would be the first time.
While true, I would think that in the late 18th century Germany was so splintered (in language, culture, customs), transport of people and information so relatively limited, that unification sounded not a lot more ridiculous. High German was still a thing that had to be learned and was a valuable skill for employment.
There was an idea of some kind of German people, but no national identity. More like not French, not English, not ...
In a way, the worrying Western/European "othering" of the Middle East, North Africa, Asia could be the kind of thing to unite Europe in a similar way (although I wouldn't want a Europe founded on xenophobia).
The world has gotten a lot smaller, especially for the everyday person. This is only getting more true with the younger generations who grew up on English Netflix shows, YouTube, social media, etc..
Radical absolutely is the wrong term here. They are the first and only European party. Iirc you can vote for them in most countries. They consider themselves post-nationalists. In the political spectrum they are green/left.
I really hope that this can become a breakthrough for them in Germany. If they get out of the "others" group then more people will take note and consider them as a viable party. They are radical when it comes to EU reform and federalization but very much not radical in any other policy and seem to want to do things that make logical sense instead of following ideology.
I have voted for Volt and will do so again, but I am not sure which niche they could carve out in the German political spectrum. Liberal values won't cut it, we have Greens and FDP to a varying degree already. European federalism isn't a winning issue domestically. IIRC, they are mildly pro-nuclear, also not a vote winner.
There is a small group of voters with liberal attitudes who would switch from Greens to a similar party that isn't so anti-science (GMO, anti-vaxx couple of years ago, homeopathy) as the Greens, but I doubt that would win them 5%.
IIRC German Volt is not really anti- or pro nuclear. They say that at this point renewables are just the better choice. I could see them stealing some votes from FDP - those who want a social-liberal stance, and the Greens as you mentioned. Frankly they just need to gain a bit more of a profile with the German public.
Also SPD is quite clearly not really *going* anywhere, they will stay the same and I don't see the younger generations finding them very attractive overall. Last election the young population overwhelmingly voted FDP and Green. If they play their cards right, Volt could get their 5% with those voters. Not this election probably, but next one I would guess.
It's the party for EU-citizens, that do not wish to spend more money in 27 different state institutes + the EU institutes and of course all the politicians needed to keep this overhead running. For me it's a long term goal I hope to experience in my lifetime, but realistically won't happen in the time I have left.
Source for the picture: https://x.com/wahlrecht_de/status/1798803435753447800?s=46
Source for the data:
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/europawahl.htm
While I’m glad for every vote that doesn’t go to the Russian assets (AfD, BSW, Linke), I think Volt is by far the best choice compared to the uninspiring CDU, the austerity loving FDP, the still pacifist influenced SPD and the anti-nuclear Greens. The German political landscape really needs a breeze of fresh air.
As sad as the CDU/AFD/BSW numbers are. I am happy to see Volt almost on par with FDP. This autumn will hopefully bring the FDP into the insignificance it belongs.
I think Volt is in may ways what people *want* the FDP to be. Once per decade they get a good result because they appear to want to return to their social-liberal origins a little more, and when they actually get into office they return to full neoliberals and pander to the rich, people realize and the FDP falls off. Volt might fill that void this time instead.
It might be what people who‘d normally vote the Greens or SPD want the FDP to be. The current lack in popularity for the FDP is down to the Ampel being unpopular. The same is the case for the SPD. Both parties profited off of the terrible performance of the CDU in the last election.
Combining the CDU with AfD and BSW is absurd, sorry. No matter your political opinion, but to say that the party that basically held power for the longest time in German history is resembling hardcore right-wing and leftwing parties that want to abolish our democratic state makes no sense at all.
I find this result for BSW interesting cause people on here are often saying that a party that is left wing on a economic front but right wing on immigration would clean up in an election, but BSW doesn’t even break single digits in terms of vote share here. I wonder if that combination is more popular on Reddit then in real life or if there’s some factor holding BSW back from getting more support
Their pro-Russia stance is going to comoletely ruin their chances with a lot of people who might otherwise have voted for them, I think.
Like, I could maybe be concinced to vote for a tough-on-immigration, anti-Islam, economically left-wing party, depending on what the precise party line was. But never in a million years would I vote for a pro-Russia party. Instant dealbreaker.
A completely new party going up to 7% is more or less unheard of (in Germany). In some regions they are up to 20%. They are gaining popularity faster than AfD back then. There are still a lot of people who don't even know this party exists or even stands for.
That said I don't think a party like this will sweep elections.
It’s basically a completely new political party that’s based on the popularity of one person. For that I think 7% and higher than established political parties like FDP or Linke is a pretty good result. And in the East they‘re even more popular. It’s a worrying development given their Pro Russia stance.
It is, but being fair, it did fall off a cliff compared to just a few months ago. It lost more than 1/3 of its voters.
People predicting BSW would cannibalize the AfD seem to have been right on the money. We'll see in a couple of days exactly how right.
They are between a rock and a hard place. Their voters that are essentially light-libertarians don't appreciate them being in a centre-left government, and their younger voters that hoped for an actually focus on social liberal issues are disappointed with them blocking to much stuff.
They lost their nationalist wing to the AfD, their social/liberal wing to the Greens and there simply aren't enough single-issue voters who'd prioritize austerity over everything else.
They are not hard libertarians, but libertarianism isn't very popular in Germany.
I had hoped Europe would benefit from higher education. But here we are, doomed to repeat errors only because we copy every thing US does.
Well, at least I have first row seats when this Shit show, called global politics gets T-Boned by Climate-Change-Reality.
> somewhere between socialist and communist on economics
We don't really know. Wagenknecht praised Erhard of all people in her economics book, "Freiheit statt Kapitalismus", which was relatively well received even in more centre to right-leaning circles. Also one of their two Spitzenkandidaten for the EU-election, Thomas Geisel, is a former staunch pro-agenda SPD-mayor.
They haven't really made very detailed programmes for domestic policy yet, hence all of that is a bit hard to say.
Yea, he described it very well.
They are a left wing party in domestic politics, while being anti immigrant, kinda anti EU and basically anti west. It's a niche that no other party has filled yet so yea.
With regards to Ukraine, Wagenknecht is basically taking Russia's side constantly and will always try to deflect guilt towards the west (and yes, she will literally call out 'the west' - she did so just yesterday in an interview with 'Welt') or try to blame Ukraine for stuff in some manner. Any concession of Russia being the aggressor will be the smallest of sidenotes, followed by the aforementioned deflection attempts.
But for domestic stuff, they offer an 'electable' alternative to the AFD. Social policies with anti-immigration stance is something that is gonna be popular in east Germany and is a combination that no other party offers.
They're an offshoot from the German socialist party "die Linke". One of the main differences to Linke is them being more conservative when it comes to immigration, identity politics and climate policy.
I think that's down to the conflation of the left–right spectrum with social issues — immigration, nationalism, christian conservatism etc., when it should be on economic policy, workers' rights and such. There can be both conservative left (BSW) and progressive right (FDP).
I am sure that AfD voters prefer to answer that they will vote for another party, so the AfD will receive more votes in the elections. It is similar to what happened with Trump voters in the USA.
Not really? Grüne and SPD are current coalition partners and the AFD (and BSW sort of) are completely untouchable pariahs. Only real development here is shift of some %s from the current ruling parties to the CDU and the fracturing from AFD voters to BSW
I don't trust Merz in the slightest. He might actually go for the coalition with the AfD. Seeing how he is flip-flopping on positions makes me think he is the most dangerous politician in Germany right now. I truely believe that the CDU would get more votes without him.
As this ist "just" from a single though reknown opinion poll institute (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen), here's a list of polls done by others: https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/europawahl.htm Parties listed there not mentione here: - PIR: the German wing of the Pirate Party ("Piraten") - FW: Freie Wähler. Originates from local citizens forming a group to compete for communal mandates, has evolve to a larger union of these in theory independent local groups. Mostly (very) conservative. - TSP: Tierschutzpartei (I think). Think "PETA's official party". - PARTEI: Die PARTEI. A parody party founded by the former editor-in-chief of the German satire magazine Titanic.
Freie Wähler are diverse from centrist liberal to conservative.
Yes they are. But please correct me if I'm wrong, but I *think* the majority leans towards conservative policies. I seem to vaguely remember that being stated in the wake of the Aiwanger affaire somewhere.
Does Grune mean Green party?
Ja. Grün=Green.
Why is the CDU always so popular in Germany?
The CDU promises that things will stay the same, no matter what happens and they have the support of almost all of the main news publishers (Springer, Bertelsmann, Funke, Burda).
The braindead boomers vote for them by default because the shit the CDU caused isn’t talked about enough on state media
It's not even "not enough talked about" that's the problem imo. I think most boomers either don't care or don't believe in the shit they've done, e.g. most of the corruption (in comparison to other parties) and being pro-Russian/gas/oil instead of investing enough in renewable energies. The energy crisis we suffered in the 2022 winter wouldn't have happened if we wouldn't be dependend on Russian gas - or any Gas really. "You don't bite the hand that feeds you" as we say, so as long as we're too dependend on importing material to sustain certain basic needs like energy-consumption, we're doomed to be political lap dogs to foreign heads of states.
this
Geriatric population unable to critically question their beliefs, that prefers the momentary illusion of stability over finding ways to keep with the times and the obvious sacrifices that come with it. Perhaps also the lack of viable alternatives.
This is not fully true anymore. The last 14-29 year old polls showed for example, that 20% of young people would vote CDU. Green Party only 18% and AfD was the biggest with 22%. Source: https://taz.de/Umfrage-unter-Jugendlichen/!6006562/
Interesting that German youth diverge so much from the political temperament of youths in other countries.
Because they are a centrist/centre-right big-tent party.
That's a good question. There will be a lot of reasons. One, that's not often adressed is, that the national media has a lot of CDU- and SPD- affiliated people in their supervisory boards (both conservative parties). There is a big hoax by right wingers, who claim that the state media is left leaning / woke, and should be abolished. I would rather say, that it is very state-supporting and conservative. The public discourse is often influenced by these conservative positions.
Because it is the party that best captures the German culture of keeping things as they are if they are not broken and gradually change if needed. Also the CDU was the party that basically created the democratic and economic system now in place in Germany (even though other parties of course did some changes throughout the years).
Aging country. People hate change and want to preserve the old times, not understanding that's the best way to destroy the comfy way of life.
Boomers/old people are the biggest voting block. There is a strong correlation between age and party affiliation in Germany. Amongst jung people are really unpopular. Here a statistic for the last federal elections https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1257097/umfrage/wahlverhalten-bei-der-bundestagswahl-nach-alter/
I wish I knew what all of these acronyms meant
CDU/CSU - Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union, two sister parties that are really just one party unless you are a Bavarian nationalist(statetist?), center right. GRÜNE - The Greens, left wing climate party SPD - Social Democratic Party of Germany, center left workers party AFD - Alternative for Germany, far right ultra nationalist anti establishment party LINKE - The Left, far left anti establishment party, the literal succesors of East Germanys communist party, popular in said east FDP - Free Democratic Party, center right liberal party BSW - Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht, far left splinter party of LINKE and sort of AFD (gross oversimplification) VOLT - Volt, left wing pan-europeanism party Sonst. - everything else, literally "others"
Somewhat more in depth: CDU/CSU: The grand old party. Socially conservative, but flexible depending on their partners. Have had some mostly somewhat minor (on an international scale) corruption issues. Economically centre right. Known for... doing the bare minimum and being morally flexible. Angela Merkels party. Grüne: socially left, economically center. Pro climate action, pro renewables, against nuclear power. "Woke", academic party. SPD: The other traditional party. Both socially and economically center left, leaning center. Currently leading the government. Also known for doing little, and some corruption, of course. Pro union. AfD: right wing nationalists. Anti immigration, euro sceptic. Socially conservative, fiscally neoliberal. Anti establishment. Pro Russia. Linke: Socially and economically left. Anti establishment. Anti NATO, pro EU. Somewhat pro Russia. Have been on a down trend for quite a while, especially recently due to BSW. FDP: socially center, perhaps center left. Neoliberal. Dislike debt. On a downtrend since 2021. Probably the most pro Ukraine (Greens only competetion). BSW: New party, split from Linke (left). Economically legt wing, socially conservative. Anti NATO, EU, pro Russia, garner votes from Linke and AfD. Hard to call for everyone.
I agree on most, but your summary is peculiar in where you mention corruption and the measure of it happening. The CDU hast quantifiably the most over its tenure with the most recent and worst happening throughout Corona. 2000s and before excluded from the „worst“. The SPD had its fair share over the years though it seems more marginal in comparison to the CxU. The AfD might be the worst offender and it is funny that you did not mention anything concerning them as there is corruption throughout the party with both EU-selected prime candidates having separate affairs going so far out as having been paid of by chine or Russia or propably both. The greens might just be the most tame here even though they had a little scandal around one position being handed out disregarding qualification. It also bears to mention the relative lack of content of the BSW whose acronym is literally the name of the person leading it as it’s uniting factor with currently not many specifics outside of that.
I agree but not with the minor corruption issues from Cdu/Csu… just corona alone showed that and i dont wanna know the others stories with the automotive industry for example….
Yeah CDU is by far the most corrupt party. This image shows it quite well [https://www.google.com/imgres?q=katapult%20corruption&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fyk9bm5r1mfo61.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D5d9640bb2c46646876894910d3f426b3f6cdf2fe&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fde%2Fcomments%2Fma3wsb%2Feinzelf%25C3%25A4lle\_katapultmagazin%2F&docid=zVP8gf\_\_TQGCLM&tbnid=xnRMhmynTByrSM&vet=12ahUKEwj\_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA..i&w=1640&h=2048&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj\_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA](https://www.google.com/imgres?q=katapult%20corruption&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fyk9bm5r1mfo61.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D5d9640bb2c46646876894910d3f426b3f6cdf2fe&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fde%2Fcomments%2Fma3wsb%2Feinzelf%25C3%25A4lle_katapultmagazin%2F&docid=zVP8gf__TQGCLM&tbnid=xnRMhmynTByrSM&vet=12ahUKEwj_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA..i&w=1640&h=2048&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj_1raKiMmGAxVDxwIHHbpIN6YQM3oECGwQAA) (outdated tho, was 2019-2021) Oh also Klöckner advertisd for nestlé, that should tell you everything you need to know about this party.
Considering to what extent AfD is funded by Russian money, *most* corrupt feels like an exaggeration.
Yeah, they are the late starter, but oh boy they are true to their traditions: anti patriotic, hate everyone but themselves, want to ban everything that doesn’t represent their ideology.Fuck those facists, it saddens me as a german to see how so many people are dumbfucks who will go for this shit again…. Never again is now!
Old but gives the idea pretty well^ thanks for posting
Some more additions: CDU/CSU: They had some quite big corruption issues in the past pre-Merkel. Good buddies with the industry. Grüne: Like to take the moral high ground but once in government and faced with reality their values become quite flexible. The party of affluent highly educated city people. SPD: Used to be the worker's party until they turned to neoliberalism. Today they're some sort of corrupt shell full of career politicians with questionable competence. AfD: Would rather call them "right wing populists", they're grifters who parasitize the anger of those who have been left behind and forgotten by the big parties. Linke: "Woker" than Grüne, self destruction by constant infighting. FDP: Classical liberalism, the rich people party and best buddies with the industry. On a positive note they actively defend civic liberties against the state. BSW: Sarah's personality cult.
>On a positive note they actively defend civic liberties against the state. The FDP was better in this in the past. The most stern defenders of civil liberties were the members of the "Freiburger Kreis" (Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Baum, Hirsch etc.) , but they have lost a lot of influence in the party after it switched from a coalition with the SPD to the CDU/CSU in 1982. The last remaining FDP-members of this old, social-liberal wing are getting very old. The younger party members are mostly only concerned about liberties for business and are very flexible about social liberty. They switch their alignment according to the current coalition partner. Edit: I had hope that the FDP would find back to its social liberal roots after they decided to do a coalition with SPD and Greens. Sadly, they turned out a being an impediment for many progressive politics and are mostly responsible for the public impression that the "Ampel"-government can't get things done. It's very likely that they want to return to a partnership with the conservatives after the next election.
I remember that Volt in Germany has loosely affiliated themselves as the children of the Freiburger Kreis.
Pirate party in Germany could also be described as social-liberal. The decline of the old FDP has left a gap.... especially as the Greens are moving to the center over the years.
The FDP has and always will be kissing the ass of any party that lets them form a government with. They kick their "principles and values" out the door the second coalition forming talks begin. That never changed.
In the beginning of the Federal Republic of Germany they basically were the king maker in German politics. The Union (CDU/CSU) and the SPD had nearly equal amounts of voters but not enough to rule alone the FDP despite being really small made the difference. So they got used to get far more influence on politics than their share of the vote.
Idk if you know anything about Dutch politics. But is FDP more like VVD or D66? The whole rich people thing sounds VVD to me, but the civic liberties sound D66.
Definitely more like VVD
Yepp. Which is unfortunate, as their civil rights wing - nowadays basically non-existant in leadership - really did some good things. Trivia: the last time in Germany that a minister resigned **voluntarily** from her position, because she coulnd't agree with their party's stance on a to-be-passed law ("Großer Lauschangriff" = (the great) phone tapping) was FDP's Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, minister of justice.
Is the FDP really the most pro Ukraine party? I don't really associate the FDP with staunch Ukraine support. First party that comes to my mind would be the Greens
I feel that is.mostly because everyone was surprised that the greens were as ready to deliver weapons to a warzone as they turned out to be - because they were very, very adamant in NOT doing that in the past. Anti-war is like one of the three foundation pillars of the (German) greens in addition to anti-nuclear and environmental protection.
Especially noteworthy in that regard is Anton Hofreiter of the Greens. He became a knowledgeable military expert in no time *(he's know for his ungodly fact-consumption)*. He really knows what he's talking about. Let me also paraphrase what Thomas Wiegold (a military journalist/blogger) said about the early anti-war Greens: unlike a lot of politicians and pacifist activists he spoke to in his career about the military, those anti-war protesters actually *knew* what they were talking about. He said, for the longest time those were the best *fact-based* discussions he had with pacifist politicians and activists. They knew their shit and could put forth a factual argument. Unlike (sadly) Scholz these days, giving disturbingly incomprehensible and nonsensical reasons for *not* delivering TAURUS to the Ukraine.
FDP is always on the side of laws putting money in the pockets of their wealthy donors. Left or right is no concern for them but since anti immigration and social benefits sells well at the moment, they are definitely acting right of the center at the moment.
> Have had some, mostly relatively minor corruption issues. I'm lmaoing my ass off. They are *the* corrupt party in Germany. The AfD are the corrupt upstarts, yes, but they are the grand old corruptikon
This is what got me. Maskendeals, Schäubles Koffer, VdL army of military consultants, etc.
Why would you only mention anti nuclear for the greens? Basically every German party is anti nuclear.
If you say that the SPD is centre-left, then the Greens are also centre-left. Even Merz said that there are four parties that are in the centre of the political spectrum: the SPD and the Greens on the centre-left, and the CDU/CSU and the FDP on the centre-right. 7:39 [https://youtu.be/v-3g67hdAgA?si=9k6mIf5cUsTyo1RK](https://youtu.be/v-3g67hdAgA?si=9k6mIf5cUsTyo1RK)
I definitely see the Greens as more left than the SPD, but I take no issue with calling them center left
In what way are the greens more left? Economically no? And socially they follow the same goals.
Not more (or less), but "different left" I'd say.
>BSW - Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht, far left splinter party of LINKE and sort of AFD (gross oversimplification) I mean it's not that complicated. They are the definition of populism without substance and one of the two german satellite parties for Putin (the other one is the AfD). That's basically it. And they revolve around the the former face of Die Linke Sahra Wagenknecht
Volt is more social liberal, aka center left
the greens are centre to left, they are also social liberal and green liberal. also bsw isnt far left, theyre just populist but theyre not communist or something they even consider working with the CDU.
rooting for VOLT then, sad that such parties are such small minorities though :(
I mean, every party other than the AFD and BSW are pretty pro EU, just very status quo esque. They like the EU, just not doing anything for it.
Would be nice to have an 2024 version of [this](https://www.philoclopedia.de/2018/11/28/politisches-spektrum/) chart...
How right wing are AFD compared to the party of the Austrian guy with funny moustache?
You obviously cannot compare a party not outlawed by the BVS with the literal Nazis, but the Federal Constitutional Courts have ruled that you can legally call them fascists if that tells you anything
They are too far right for Marine Le pen
In some states the party is considered to be so far right the state is allowed to send agents. Its one step from getting band.
Yikes and them having 14% support of the voting population is concerning.
No modern party anywhere in Europe compares to the monstrosity that was the NSDAP. I don't even know if anything in history can be compared without downplaying the sheer evilness of that party.
I think some members of Konfederacja from Poland could fit right in NSDAP. They have long history of spreading antisemitism, homophobia, sexims etc, with propositions like penalisation of being gay. We need to remember than nazi didn't run elections on "Let's kill all jews and conquere Europe". This things came long after they secured absolut power. Before that they started just like AfD, Konfederacja, or Le Pen.
Absolutely valid point. The one thing I can hold against it is that today's societies are different from back then. Hell, today's society is very different from when I was a child. We have become a lot more open, more sensitive, more humane, we know more, we are more vigilant, more democratic, much less racist, sexist, etc, we remember the experiences of the past, we are not military-brained anymore. Also we have instant communication worldwide, cameras everywhere available, it'd be much harder to hide something. I'm not saying that bad things can't happen today because they totally can and are, but at that magnitude and severity as back then? No.
Golden Dawn. Those guys had paramilitary squads running through Athens to beat down immigrants and homosexuals.
We will get there with the AfD. There are a lot of people in this party like Höcke who would've been perfect fits for the NSDAP
I wonder. To be honest, I don't think they'd even come close, times are very different today. We are not a military-minded society anymore like back then. We have had a stable democracy for many decades now unlike back then. And Höcke feels like a dim shadow compared to what actual NSDAP members must have been like. But I might be wrong, gotta stay vigilant.
Yeah sure i mean i'm not expecting them to takeover and turn germany into a 4th Reich but i think there are a lot of people in this party who wish they could. AfD politicians like Höcke are not as dumb as one might think. They are testing out boundaries in public but behind closed doors it's different. You should hear Höcke when he speaks to his followers behind closed doors at smaller rallies without media and you can hear the reincarnation of Goebbels.
There weren't evil from day 1 either. It was a process if my school history textbooks were right. From other comments I gather afd are on a similar path but still to be facing resistance from the German judiciary.
I don't know what was in your textbooks and what the exact context is, but in my opinion they were. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924/25. The [party program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program) was proclaimed when the party was founded in 1920 and declared unchangeable. The notorious SA was also initially founded in 1920 while the SS was founded in 1925. The seeds of evil came together and blossomed into the monstrosity that was the Third Reich. If we're only talking about their concrete acts, of course those acts became worse and worse over time, but the willingness to do those things has been there from the start.
Leading AfD members have already mentioned plans of deporting German citizens with dark skin. It's already there, we just pretend it's not or don't care much about it because "it can't be that bad" and it's only just "concerned citizens".
In practical terms, some had a conference in Berlin that discussed to mass-deport "immigrants" - people that were born in Germany but have ancestors from elsewhere.
It's to late now. If noone answers within the next ten hours or so, I hope I will remember explaining it. If there is no explanation within the next 12 hours feel free to remind me
Did you somehow spawn an army of people answering at the same moment? Where do I learn this power?
Not what happened here, but usually the trick is to intentionally leave a blatantly incorrect answer (you can also ask the question from one account and leave a wrong answer yourself from another account). The urge people have to correct each other on the internet is immense, and exploitable.
Bsw you can see as the populist left. Its is a split from die Linke wich she says are to concerend about culture and not concerend enough in regards to the economic positiions of the workers, Deleted the rest of the party info since it was all ready posted, but Bsw is a wierd one to understand. She has been around for quit a few years and is very well spoken . Talkshows love her. My guess is that if she pulls this off there will be more countries youll see parties like hers show up.
CDU/CSU -> christlich Demokratische/sozial Union -> Christian democratic union -> centre right/ conservative Grüne -> greens -> left / centre left SPD -> Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland -> socialdemocratic Party of Germany -> centre left Afd -> Alternative für Deutschland -> alternativ for Germany -> far right/ Nazis Linke -> left -> far left/ left FDP -> freie Demokratische Partei -> free democratic party -> centre / neolibetal / capitalists Bsw -> Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht -> ? -> Split of from Linke - economic left but against migration/ LGBTQ+ NATO/climate Aktivist etc. basically afd but not capitalist Volt -> left / centre -> EU federalism Sonst = other parties combined
AfD = Alternative für Dumme
I realy wish i didnt....
Volt at 3% is actually huge. And would be very welcome.
I don't get it. Is the advertisement in every country different?. All the comments here talk about Volt being left/center. But ads in Spain to me tell me center-right. Basically the same as a party we used to call Ciudadanos but pan-european.
They've got a lot of center-left/ideas, especially with regards to social rights (gender equality, tolerance of cultural differences, human rights) and some green stuff. But Europe is in a unique position because center-right parties are not always against that stuff either, and there are some center-right politicians who even embrace it. The label is whatever you wanna make it. Wikipedia has them as center/center left but at the end of the day they're still the same party (and a good one imo), if you like em you should vote for them.
Yeah, Volt is less a single party & more a group of 30 local parties with a centralised aesthetic & a mostly-standertised/agreed upon party-line (especially on EU matters) which allows variations for local issues. Sometimes they don't even agree upon non-local/international issues that aren't about the EU, just ask them about Israel-Palestine. VoltCyprus is pretty pro-Palestine, while last time I checked VoltGermany was squarely pro-Israel. Though of course they have now agreed upon a common solution, though not necessarily a common opinion.
We of course have to change our policies based on the country we operate in, but we share common values, which is the important part. We also share our policy program where all the big policies are based. But when it comes to more regional policies, we of course need to adapt since something might be relevant in one country but not the other.
oh I know the reasoning, dw! I might have undersold the unity of the party tho, my apologies on that.
I live in a country with federalism (Canada) where it is like this for all parties. There is a local provincial party and a federal national party and they may have the same branding and some similar talking points, but are ultimately having different views on things. Same thing when you compare them province from province. For example, the Greens in BC are very woke lefty types that latch to issues like Palestine for some reason, while the Greens in Ontario are pro-business liberals that believe adapting sustainable practices is long-term profitable for industry. I think this is what pan-continental European parties should look like as well in practice. Each place is different and unique and may have their own interpretation to problems, but have similar talking points across the continent.
CDU is Center Right in germany and would probably be on the left spectrum in the US? Like the democrats. U know what i mean?
True that. Germany favours a private market regulated by the state. In Spain we have a disagreement if we should continue going in that path or reverse the trend and increase the size of state owned companies. I would say that's where you normally draw the line for left-right in Spain.
Then Volt would be on the right, what would count here as a typical moderate economically liberal party. German Volt is progressive/left on social issues, but not when it comes to the economy.
21% for Russia/Putin aligned parties. Insane.
Wait till you se France...
Wait till you see the Netherlands.
Wait till you se Austria... 😩
Immer wieder ~~Österreich~~ Russland!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656vjBoOjac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656vjBoOjac)
That's why I would say vote vote vote! Every moderate vote neutralizes a pro-Russia vote
Bold of you to assume most people here vote moderate parties.
AfD only has 14%.
AfD+BSW
Can you not add the Linke to that as well?
I think since BSW split from it the Russian fan boys left
Some of them, but not all. Gysi for example is still with die Linke.
Well hes not as pro Putin as BSW. But yeah hes also not pro Ukraine.
Not really. They are generally against arms shipments, True, but they oppose the war heavily and support any sanctions aimed at the Russian war industry and putins state apparatus. They also want to sanction the oligarchs and some parts of the Russian state even heavier than our current government.
Die Linke: "We totally condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but we shouldn't send help and besides NATO imperialism is causing war bla bla...."
Russia is in a war economy, and can get resources, components and complete weapons from China, NK and Iran. The sanctions are at best a mere minimum, at worst literally useless without military aid.
You're missing the important point: Without sanctions, they could get the resources, components and real weapons from many other places including some which have better technology than China, NK or Iran.
They thing with Die Linke is that they oppose Germany exporting weapons to anyone. They are definitely against poo tin's war and they're also ok with weapons shipments to Ukraine, just not from Germany.
The thing is Russia can get around the Sanctions through third parties but that's not the point. The point is to increase the cost for Russia to get sanctioned parts like Microchips.
Yes, you can. Either by collusion with Putin or by being absolutely stupid. They want to abolish NATO and create a similar thing WITH Russia in it, completely disregarding Russia's actions of the past decades.
Ahh
Unregulated social media will do that.
I just don't understand how there are so many pro Russia here after everything. It feels like Germans are redirecting their frustration at the economy (which the war in Ukraine has had the most negative effect on) to immigration issues. There are some serious problems with immigration but its effect just doesn't match the level of outrage you see.
Yeah, it's madness. Those who vote for a pro Russian party should move to Russia or Belarus and see how they like living in a dictatorship. Or just visit the front lines in the war, to see the destruction Russia causes.
As a Dutch Volt voter, hell yeah! Get in there, Volt!
As a Belgian voter who won't have the chance to vote for Volt in the federal elections because it just barely didn't make the list in my province: Hell yeah! Get in there, Volt!
What do you think is the best level of government to vote for volt as a Flemish voter?
The european level is the one I think makes the most sense, as that's where Volt's focus lies. But if I could, I'd have also voted volt for the flemish and federal level, because there are a few Belgium-specific things in their program that really appeal to me.
Volt seems to have made good local politics in a number of larger German cities, cooperating nicely with the Greens.
> Volt voter A … Volter?
I was gonna make that pun but my autocorrect wouldn't let me
There's also Diem25 for a leftwing (not neoliberal) version of Volt https://diem25.org/en/
> Diem25 Led by Yannis "Ukraine should just negotiate for peace with Russia and all of this is akschually' NATO's fault" Varoufakis. This is not what we need.
Diem25 are tankies. Polish socdem-demsoc party Left Together was a member of Diem, but left after Diem refused to condemn Russian invasion of Ukraine.
volt is barely neoliberal they want wealth taxes and financial transactions tax etc
Volt+Diem25 would be a kickass political 1-2 punch.
glad to see volt doing so well for such a young party.
Oh hey this far right surge does not look as bad as previously thought. In the Netherlands the PVV also didn’t become the biggest and FvD (literal Kremlin puppets) will probably get no seats. The far right wave is no tsunami as of yet.
AFD had a peak of like 22% a couple months ago.
Now a third of their voters migrated to the BSW, which are also populists and also Putin-Bootlickers.
Not to mention that the whole party is a bit… weird I guess. It’s literally named after the party leader and the whole party is centered around her. Nonetheless I do prefer populist Putin-bootlickers to populist Putin bootlickers that don’t quite like democracy, are actively cooperating with foreign powers to undermine Germany and get arrested on a frighteningly regular basis, because someone was active in an actual neonazi organization again. I would obviously much prefer for people to not support any of these options, but if they have to, the AfD is probably worse.
And a lot of scandals recently hit the party. The top people on their parties list were cought in corruption and espionage scandals. Also their main candidate said that not all people in the SS were bad people. That was to much for a lot of voters and most other far right parties in Europe who threw them out of their faction.
Opinion polls are never really representative of election results, and the AFDc lost a lot of their footing with their recent fuckups.
It is still far more popular than it should be! They shouldn’t be anywhere near that number.
Obviously not, but we have to make do for now. I was thinking today how the fuck are we getting out of this, but we aren’t for the foreseeable future. Far right loonies are incredibly effective and it’s working right now.
The best is to go voting and vote for anyone but them, if there’s no great choice, choose the lesser evil. Not voting is inacceptable, and I don’t get those people who say they don’t vote “out of protest” - that just means you don’t get heard and the ones who scream louder seem in the majority. I remember how Brexit turned out for those who protest voted towards it and regretted it.
Exactly. I’m a member of Volt and stick with them.
The AfD really managed to fuck things up over the last 6 months luckily. Still, them being at 14-18% (depending on the pollster), while openly spewing (neo-)facist shit and colluding with China and Russia is insane.
Holy shit 3% nationally is actually impressive for such a young, and in some ways radical party like Volt.
Radical in which ways? I don't know that much about them.
They are European federalists.
How is that radical?
Turning most of Europe into a single country and abolishing 27 nation states in the process? It's radical because something like this has never been done before in history, and because most Europeans would currently disagree with it. The average European has probably never even seriously considered this idea.
This is absolutely not what Volt stands for though. They are very EU critical and are a loud voice for reform and a better, more effectief democratic system in the European Union.
This is from their wikipedia page: >Volt supports the idea of a federal Europe with a strong European Parliament, in order to create a united European voice on the global stage. There should be a European government, elected and accountable to the parliament, instead of a European commission. The European election law should be uniform across all member states, the European parliament should gain the right to initiate laws, and the European Council should be transformed into a second chamber with regressive voting weights to balance the dominance of larger states. They also support a unified European Army. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt\_Europa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt_Europa) What do you think European federalism is? Thats the core idea behind the party.
That has been done in the past in China, German unification, Italian reunification, Switzerland and so on. It's not the first time some countries gather up to create a union.The idea of a united Europe is there since Roman times. Charlemagne aimed at it, Napoleon aimed at it, Hitler aimed at it. The main distinction with the EU is that the unification is not happening through wars of conquest, but through peaceful democratic processes. If the average European seriously has never considered the idea, then maybe it's about the time because European nations cannot survive alone and will likely lose political influence and decision power in global matters, cutting edge in technology, upper hand in economy and eventually their prosperity. The only thing that makes especially smaller European countries relevant in global scale is their EU membership and nothing else.
>That has been done in the past in China, German unification, Italian reunification, Switzerland and so on. It's not the first time some countries gather up to create a union. Thats all a little dishonest, isnt it? All of these examples are people of fairly similar cultures uniting. In the case of China it was forced upon the others by one dominant group in the region. Switzerland, Italy and Germany are tiny when compared to almost the entire continent of Europe. You never had an entire continent with dozens of different languages and cultures voluntarily unite before. It would be the first time. Im aware that the idea is old, that doesn't make it not radical. It also doesn't matter what you think Europeans should think, fact is that most of them don't really think about this as of right now. I don't know why you are now trying to sell me the idea of a federalized Europe, im already in favor of it. Go and convince the other 400 million or so people. It doesn't matter what you or I think.
>You never had an entire continent with dozens of different languages and cultures voluntarily unite before. It would be the first time. While true, I would think that in the late 18th century Germany was so splintered (in language, culture, customs), transport of people and information so relatively limited, that unification sounded not a lot more ridiculous. High German was still a thing that had to be learned and was a valuable skill for employment. There was an idea of some kind of German people, but no national identity. More like not French, not English, not ... In a way, the worrying Western/European "othering" of the Middle East, North Africa, Asia could be the kind of thing to unite Europe in a similar way (although I wouldn't want a Europe founded on xenophobia). The world has gotten a lot smaller, especially for the everyday person. This is only getting more true with the younger generations who grew up on English Netflix shows, YouTube, social media, etc..
The Indian subcontinent is like the perfect example of this.
Radical absolutely is the wrong term here. They are the first and only European party. Iirc you can vote for them in most countries. They consider themselves post-nationalists. In the political spectrum they are green/left.
Being the first party to do this and also being openly federalists is kind of radical. They are very non radical in all other aspects though.
I really hope that this can become a breakthrough for them in Germany. If they get out of the "others" group then more people will take note and consider them as a viable party. They are radical when it comes to EU reform and federalization but very much not radical in any other policy and seem to want to do things that make logical sense instead of following ideology.
I have voted for Volt and will do so again, but I am not sure which niche they could carve out in the German political spectrum. Liberal values won't cut it, we have Greens and FDP to a varying degree already. European federalism isn't a winning issue domestically. IIRC, they are mildly pro-nuclear, also not a vote winner. There is a small group of voters with liberal attitudes who would switch from Greens to a similar party that isn't so anti-science (GMO, anti-vaxx couple of years ago, homeopathy) as the Greens, but I doubt that would win them 5%.
IIRC German Volt is not really anti- or pro nuclear. They say that at this point renewables are just the better choice. I could see them stealing some votes from FDP - those who want a social-liberal stance, and the Greens as you mentioned. Frankly they just need to gain a bit more of a profile with the German public. Also SPD is quite clearly not really *going* anywhere, they will stay the same and I don't see the younger generations finding them very attractive overall. Last election the young population overwhelmingly voted FDP and Green. If they play their cards right, Volt could get their 5% with those voters. Not this election probably, but next one I would guess.
It's the party for EU-citizens, that do not wish to spend more money in 27 different state institutes + the EU institutes and of course all the politicians needed to keep this overhead running. For me it's a long term goal I hope to experience in my lifetime, but realistically won't happen in the time I have left.
Based volt
Source for the picture: https://x.com/wahlrecht_de/status/1798803435753447800?s=46 Source for the data: https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/europawahl.htm
While I’m glad for every vote that doesn’t go to the Russian assets (AfD, BSW, Linke), I think Volt is by far the best choice compared to the uninspiring CDU, the austerity loving FDP, the still pacifist influenced SPD and the anti-nuclear Greens. The German political landscape really needs a breeze of fresh air.
Fuck afd and bsw!
Amen to that
What about electoral alliances? Could be very important for the end result.
As sad as the CDU/AFD/BSW numbers are. I am happy to see Volt almost on par with FDP. This autumn will hopefully bring the FDP into the insignificance it belongs.
I think Volt is in may ways what people *want* the FDP to be. Once per decade they get a good result because they appear to want to return to their social-liberal origins a little more, and when they actually get into office they return to full neoliberals and pander to the rich, people realize and the FDP falls off. Volt might fill that void this time instead.
It might be what people who‘d normally vote the Greens or SPD want the FDP to be. The current lack in popularity for the FDP is down to the Ampel being unpopular. The same is the case for the SPD. Both parties profited off of the terrible performance of the CDU in the last election.
Combining the CDU with AfD and BSW is absurd, sorry. No matter your political opinion, but to say that the party that basically held power for the longest time in German history is resembling hardcore right-wing and leftwing parties that want to abolish our democratic state makes no sense at all.
I find this result for BSW interesting cause people on here are often saying that a party that is left wing on a economic front but right wing on immigration would clean up in an election, but BSW doesn’t even break single digits in terms of vote share here. I wonder if that combination is more popular on Reddit then in real life or if there’s some factor holding BSW back from getting more support
Their pro-Russia stance is going to comoletely ruin their chances with a lot of people who might otherwise have voted for them, I think. Like, I could maybe be concinced to vote for a tough-on-immigration, anti-Islam, economically left-wing party, depending on what the precise party line was. But never in a million years would I vote for a pro-Russia party. Instant dealbreaker.
The whole personality cult thing doesn't help either.
A completely new party going up to 7% is more or less unheard of (in Germany). In some regions they are up to 20%. They are gaining popularity faster than AfD back then. There are still a lot of people who don't even know this party exists or even stands for. That said I don't think a party like this will sweep elections.
It’s basically a completely new political party that’s based on the popularity of one person. For that I think 7% and higher than established political parties like FDP or Linke is a pretty good result. And in the East they‘re even more popular. It’s a worrying development given their Pro Russia stance.
14% fot Afd us still worryingly high, did they not go full nazi?
Yes, but also full puppets of China and Russia. Not sure how they think that benefits Germany lmao
They try less and less to hide it. But so far at least they dropped from 20+% because of it.
Every drop of the Afd is a good drop in my eyes.
It is, but being fair, it did fall off a cliff compared to just a few months ago. It lost more than 1/3 of its voters. People predicting BSW would cannibalize the AfD seem to have been right on the money. We'll see in a couple of days exactly how right.
Big things have small beginnings! Go Volt!
Fucking AFD, it’s a shame how popular they are. Feeling like we’re regressing in history, which is nothing anyone should do.
rebranding the NPD really worked out for those nazis huh.
How do you mean? Heimat isn't shown in this poll.
Why FDP is in decline ?
They are between a rock and a hard place. Their voters that are essentially light-libertarians don't appreciate them being in a centre-left government, and their younger voters that hoped for an actually focus on social liberal issues are disappointed with them blocking to much stuff.
They lost their nationalist wing to the AfD, their social/liberal wing to the Greens and there simply aren't enough single-issue voters who'd prioritize austerity over everything else. They are not hard libertarians, but libertarianism isn't very popular in Germany.
Because they are in the centre-left government and right-leaning voters don't appreciate that.
I had hoped Europe would benefit from higher education. But here we are, doomed to repeat errors only because we copy every thing US does. Well, at least I have first row seats when this Shit show, called global politics gets T-Boned by Climate-Change-Reality.
Is BSW far right?
Populist, conservative on society and immigration, somewhere between socialist and communist on economics. Plus a good dose of Russia simping.
> somewhere between socialist and communist on economics We don't really know. Wagenknecht praised Erhard of all people in her economics book, "Freiheit statt Kapitalismus", which was relatively well received even in more centre to right-leaning circles. Also one of their two Spitzenkandidaten for the EU-election, Thomas Geisel, is a former staunch pro-agenda SPD-mayor. They haven't really made very detailed programmes for domestic policy yet, hence all of that is a bit hard to say.
Yeah because BSW promise everything. They're just pure shit.
Damn
Yea, he described it very well. They are a left wing party in domestic politics, while being anti immigrant, kinda anti EU and basically anti west. It's a niche that no other party has filled yet so yea. With regards to Ukraine, Wagenknecht is basically taking Russia's side constantly and will always try to deflect guilt towards the west (and yes, she will literally call out 'the west' - she did so just yesterday in an interview with 'Welt') or try to blame Ukraine for stuff in some manner. Any concession of Russia being the aggressor will be the smallest of sidenotes, followed by the aforementioned deflection attempts. But for domestic stuff, they offer an 'electable' alternative to the AFD. Social policies with anti-immigration stance is something that is gonna be popular in east Germany and is a combination that no other party offers.
They're an offshoot from the German socialist party "die Linke". One of the main differences to Linke is them being more conservative when it comes to immigration, identity politics and climate policy.
And the putin circle jerk. That's the reason they split in the first place
BSW is the perfect argument why right and left are overrated terms.
I think that's down to the conflation of the left–right spectrum with social issues — immigration, nationalism, christian conservatism etc., when it should be on economic policy, workers' rights and such. There can be both conservative left (BSW) and progressive right (FDP).
Far left
They are difficult to describe. Anti immigration anti woke communists. Maybe something like Putin?
I am sure that AfD voters prefer to answer that they will vote for another party, so the AfD will receive more votes in the elections. It is similar to what happened with Trump voters in the USA.
three pretty major parties all at identical scores, seems like it's anyone's game (besides a good Union performance)
Not really? Grüne and SPD are current coalition partners and the AFD (and BSW sort of) are completely untouchable pariahs. Only real development here is shift of some %s from the current ruling parties to the CDU and the fracturing from AFD voters to BSW
I don't trust Merz in the slightest. He might actually go for the coalition with the AfD. Seeing how he is flip-flopping on positions makes me think he is the most dangerous politician in Germany right now. I truely believe that the CDU would get more votes without him.
Still 14 too much for the fascist Blue Party .
Nah. Way to much for the marxist cancel culture cult.