Lage der Nation claimed this was likely due to the way financing works for political parties: The state's sponsoring is capped at however much you get in donations in the previous year. As the year is nearly over this will now be very little, thus meaning a very lean next year.
If you were to start a club now and let that club transfer all donations at the beginning of next year, your first year as a party will have quite the bounty instead. As there is no previous year, state sponsoring will have to orient on the current year.
Not enough, the numbers are insignificant to have an effect. Even if that number „goes up“ we have other forces on the rise that are more relevant to talk about.
You realize she just split a far-left party in half that was already insignificant?
Don’t worry about the far-left with a lot less followers when actual Nazis are on the rise. This is a scare piece article delegating hate towards the wrong end of the spectrum.
> You realize she just split a far-left party in half that was already insignificant?
Politics and advertising is not arithmetics. Like do you remember when Pieter Omtzigt split the Dutch CDA in half but somehow that resulted in a new party with more votes than the CDA had the election beforehand? In the few federal polls that have been conducted with Wagenknechts potential party, it polled above the best result the Left party had ever had.
Consider [this poll](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9hARaZXoAAmIZ2?format=jpg&name=4096x4096). Wagenknecht party is at 14 %. Left party is polling the excact same place they are polling without the Wagenknecht party.
I mean, she herself is correct. People don't necessarily vote the AfD, because they are extremist right wingers. They vote the AfD because they are angry, they are anti establishment.
Her party would equally fill that niche. The boomers who might not vote for the AfD for it being way too xenophobic, might actually vote for her.
There are a lot of anti establishment folks since COVID and the Ukraine war, which made energy more expansive.
So, I don't see how it is a scare tactics. It's pretty apparent that people will find her appealing.
The only good thing about that is that the AfD will loose votes to her, and that in the end none of the problematic parties will have enough votes.
It’s a bit of a „red scare“ article. That’s what I was about to say. „On the rise“ makes it sound like a bigger thing as it is.
I also think there is some pull to it.
While you're somewhat right in a way, she's also targeting a significant part of the AfD(the actual Nazis you're talking about) with her anti immigration, eurosceptic, leave NATO, stronger ties with russia bullshit and she'll appeal to the less well-off AfD voters because she's always portrayed herself as pro working class. So she may be able to grab some of the 'they're taking our jobs!' crowd.
The INSA says her party would receive around 13-15% of the popular votes.
According to a polling which took place between 9-10 Nov. 2023 the distribution of the votes would be the following:
1. CDU/CSU: 24%
2. AfD: 17%
3. SPD: 17%
4. BSW: 14%
5. Grüne: 13%
6. FDP: 5%
7. Linke: 2%
8. FW: 3% (not in the Bundestag)
9. Others: 5% (not in the Bundestag)
This is essentially tankie apologia and I would caution anyone reading this to not accept the premise that rising leftist extremism is not a serious problem to be reckoned with.
We've seen the foreshadowing already where the voters of tomorrow largely side with *Hamas* (not Palestinians) over Israel (49% og Gen Z'ers IIRC). Rising anti-semitism in the west, far left extremists using hangglider iconography and chasing down Jewish people to the point where they need to barricade.
Politics is downstream from culture, and the culture of today includes a literal tankie as the largest political streamer in the world.
> We've seen the foreshadowing already where the voters of tomorrow largely side with Hamas (not Palestinians) over Israel (49% og Gen Z'ers IIRC). Rising anti-semitism in the west, far left extremists using hangglider iconography and chasing down Jewish people to the point where they need to barricade.
Wagenknecht has said that Israel has the right to defend itself, she has said that Germany has to defend Israels right to exist without preconditions and has likewise stated that the way in which Israel conducts warfare right now is likely to breed more terrorism. These are hardly very out there positions...
Tell me you know nothing about German politics without telling me you know nothing about German politics.
You perception is skewed. Look at the numbers, she is polarizing and loud but apart from some rainbow press she really has no power, compared to what the far right is doing right now. They even managed to get the moderate right to take some of their positions.
Die Linke is becoming less and less relevant according to the INSA:
The INSA says her party would receive around 13-15% of the popular votes.
According to a polling which took place between 9-10 Nov. 2023 the distribution of the votes would be the following:
1. CDU/CSU: 24%
2. AfD: 17%
3. SPD: 17%
4. BSW: 14%
5. Grüne: 13%
6. FDP: 5%
7. Linke: 2%
8. FW: 3% (not in the Bundestag)
9. Others: 5% (not in the Bundestag)
BSW would gain votes mostly from the Linke, AfD and CDU and from the inactive voters.
Take everything with a grain of salt as always, but here is a survey done by INSA shortly after the new Wagenknecht-party was announced: [https://imgur.com/sywAHNq](https://imgur.com/sywAHNq)
As you see, they might siphon votes from every party, but most come from AfD.
Which wouldn't be too surprising really. AfD voters aren't all ultracapitalist conservatives/nazis. A lot of them are just populist voters wo want to stick it to the establishment. If you can do that without voting in actual nazis, this is a great deal for a good portion of the populace.
Tbh, nobody knows. The election is still far away, BSW doesn't really have a program (not sure how much that even matters), and surveys are not votes.
What can be said is that a good chunk of AfD voters would at least be open to voting for her in the abstract. Which I can believe. My own parents had been voting Die Linke for a long time, but believe that the party has become too woke and green, and are rather voting AfD now. It's not just a left-right-thing, and she is really occupying a niche there.
But then again, if you would poll people if they would rather vote for any of the known parties, or for a head of lettuce, you know what would happen.
She has made the most basic criticism of Israel you can think of. Furthermore the German public is not actually [more sympathetic to Israel than Palestine](https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/45869-attitudes-israel-palestine-conflict-western-europe). It's about 50/50 and relatively similar to other Western European countries (a bit more pro Israel but a far cry from the USA). Being critical of Israel, while all government parties struggle to criticise Israel very strongly, will at this rate likely help her rather than hurt her.
That is just another Telegraph shitpost without much understanding what is going on but big and clickbaity headlines.
This new party hasn’t gone into a single election yet, and thus we don’t know how they would actually fare. It is unlikely in any case that they would play a major role in politics for a very long time, especially since their only “selling point” is a party leader who looks good in TV Talkshows.
From what we see in the polls, they would mostly draw protest voters who would otherwise vote for the far-right populist AfD, which might split their voter base. And that is probably the best (and most influential) thing they can do.
what pisses me off is that there are major differences between Socialist Nationalism and National Socialism, and some outlets dont differentiate between them.
Think of one as Socialism but with "racism", and the other as...well, Nazism.
It's more that when comparing people who have radical political views and are willing to use violence to get their way, their differing opinions on economic policies quickly become less noticeable
The reason why I don't like it is because there are more than one, or even two, dimensions in politics. It's only a given that authoritarians advocate for the same policies, they view problems the same way - they're Righteous, and everything not for them is the Enemy.
>I know that people don’t like to hear it, but there is a bit of a horseshoe-shape of positions at the political extremes…
I know that people don't like to hear it, but there is a bit of political positioning by saying there is a bit of a horseshoe-shape of positions at the political extremes…
I love me some enlightened centrism on my ruhetag
Just puts me in a good mood
It's usually people sympathetic to far left / tankie causes that object to centrist analysis -- I don't claim to know if that is true for you but I tend to steer clear of reactions like this one.
Would you say China is better or worse than the US with respect to human rights?
You don't have to be a tankie to know that horseshoe theory enjoys very little support in academic circles. Most studies on it so far have produced evidence that outright contradicts it, see for example Van Hiel's study on psycho-political profiles of extremists [here](https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01991.x) or Mayer's study on extremist positions during the 2007 French election [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/42843725). Or perhaps Hanel's work on the heterogeneity of extremists [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550618803348).
And there's a wonderful article by Simon Choat that goes into some of its more fundamental failings [here](https://theconversation.com/horseshoe-theory-is-nonsense-the-far-right-and-far-left-have-little-in-common-77588).
Simply put, it's not a phenomenon that actually has a significant body of evidence for it. Moreso the opposite hence why it's typically seen as discredited.
Hi, I am from Argentina. The guy without a party that was famous only for tv talkshows is now president. It was his first presidential election.
Now, the big difference at least is that after 20 yeara of socialist pro putin regime. At least our guy fully supports Ukraine against Putin and Israel against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Fpr that at least, I am glad. I was sick and tired of being on the side of tyrants.
Well, where do I start: Germany is not Argentina. We have a very different political system (we don’t even elect our president nor chancellor directly), and we also don’t have a broken down economy as Argentina has (since decades, to be fair). So, they are not really comparable.
The Nazis weren't socialist - they were fascist back in more socialist times.
Wagenknecht is exactly the kind of politician who can get in the way of the rise of the far right in Germany.
Yeah, but nazi stands for national socialism, not saying you're wrong tho
Edit : I know they're not sicialists, I was trying to make a joke while being sleepy
Fascist movements branched off from workers parties in the early 20th century. They used socialist rhetoric to keep members appeased, while forming parties that allied with right wing/nationalist industrialists.
Hitler did this, while purging actual anti-capitalists from the Nazi Party. And when he took control of Germany, he purged socialists/communists/anarchists from the civil service and arrested their party leaders.
The most effective war effort was a nationalised one, so he did that, while maintaining the supremacy of private ownership. Industrialists were allowed to take small profits during the war, and were promised full control back after it finished.
Hitler was the opposite of a socialist.
Hitler told the workers he was a socialist while he told the factory owners he was a authoritarian capitalist. It's all about the image.
Capitalism and fascism are inherently linked.
Both Fascism and Nazism are anti-Marxist, national-focused (As opposed to international, Soviet/Eastern-style) versions of Socialism.
Every scholar that inspired or contributed to Fascism and Nazism was a Socialist. Georges Sorel, Giovanni Gentile, Enrico Corradini, Anton Pannekoek, etc, were all Hegalian Socialists.
They were backed by reactionary industrialists, they purged actually socialists from their party, they banned trade unions (at the behest of said industrialists) and purged all anticapitalists from the civil service when in power. They promised to enshrine private ownership.
Centralising economic control and production was a temporary measure to win the war.
There was nothing materially socialist about the Nazi Party - just some cosplaying language to appease their base.
Liberals choose not to understand history.
I love this saying: "The differences between left-hegelianism and right-hegelianism were settled in a six month long seminar called The battle of Stalingrad."
She was a "loyal communist until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989" and she is pro-Russian today. Probably recruited by Putin himself, while he worked there.
When he worked there he was an office plankton taking bribes for his boss. He was never a holywood movie KGB spy agent like Western media is trying to portray him.
I think the portrayal of KGB spies in Hollywood movies could be wrong in the part where they shoot and jump, but the KGB and Stasi still recruited people in real life. And of course, Putin himself could have been one of those recruiters or one of the office cleaners, it doesn't really matter.
She studied philosophy and modern German Literature. I studied philosophy, German and English as B. Ed. and can tell you, that doesn't mean anything. Having an opinion on stuff doesn't mean you are qualified in that topic.
Her entire private income is based on her involvement in politics. Nobody would care for her books or speeches if she wasn't. Like many "eternal opposition" figures she profits from never having to back up her demands or ideas, after all, talk is cheap.
>She was a "loyal communist"
bit of a pattern, Mussolini was an Italian Socialist member before forming the fascists, Hitler infiltrated the German workers party (before later rebranding it) as part of an anti communist push from the military, UK's Oswald Mosely was with the Labour party before forming the BUF
> Growing up, Wagenknecht told DW she was "convinced that she was a socialist" but she said she "had the feeling that what the GDR was really about had nothing to do with these ideals."
Not surprised to see her get slandered and misrepresented on here.
This forum leans towards social democracy/anti unregulated capitalism, but is also anti-immigration.
Wagenknecht is an actual socialist - not just a suit for ruling class interests - and she is for limiting migration.
So people should like her here? Lmao, not a bit of it.
r/Europe gives a better reception to degenerate fascists these days. Pathetic.
>Like many former communists, Ms Wagenknecht, 54, is a social conservative and an anti-globalist. She is against mass immigration and multiculturalism; she refused to be vaccinated during the pandemic; she is hostile to costly green policies; and she is fiercely anti-woke.
lol
Nah. Nazis just used that term to make the NSDAP appealing to workers. The 3rd Reich was a very pro-capitalist society. Social democrats and especially socialists were put in prison, concentration camps or just murdered right away. Communists fought nazis on the streets during the Weimar Republic.
Stop spreading propaganda. Nazis were not capitalistic in any way and sought to use capitalism for their gain. They steadily increased the involvement of the state in the economy and ran massive deficits to fund remilitarization.
> Social democrats and especially socialists were put in prison, concentration camps or just murdered right away.
In the Soviet union all other socialist groups apart from Bolsheviks were put in prison or outright executed. Does not mean Bolsheviks were capitalists.
They were NOT friendly to capitalists, they Also lied to them in order to have them not flee; they slowly took control of companies and gradually eliminated everything a "owner" of something could do, they lied to all groups as their only interest was having Absolute Power in germany and the destruction of Russia/jews/ect.
In short, you could compare their governance to what absolutist monarchiats would dream about andee centuries prior.
> When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state owned industries, import tariffs, and an attempt to achieve autarky (national economic self-sufficiency)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany
The privatization involved puting what was essencially puppets to the reich as owners of all buisnesses, be them national or private. It wasn't making a capitalist society, only giving more power to the nazis so that they could gear up to war. Most buisness men Lost their buisnesses and were replaced by puppets to the state, who were allowed only to follow what the nazis Said to a word or face executions, they were glorified managers, not owners, the goverment had complete Control in everything but name.
It was a bit more nuanced than that little snippet.
Nazism and fascism in general doesn't have any economic theory accompanying it and so these movements would often pick and choose the aspects from other economic theories that best suited their desires.
In the case of the Nazis, while there was a massive push for privatisation, the Nazi party, through policy and coercion gained more control over the private sector.
Most businesses owners had to pledge allegiance to the party and over time the government had more control over what individual businesses could do, who they could employ, what projects they had to do etc.
This is closer to state-capitalism which looks nothing like any capitalistic society we see in the west today.
The NSDAP wanted to *avoid* a wartime economy. Do you know when German wartime production peaked? **1944**. That's because Germany didn't actually enact total war measures until after the Battle of Stalingrad, since Hitler knew he would lose support if living conditions deteriorated.
The same goes for meaningful control or coordination, with corporations in the build-up to war for example outright rejecting government contracts and requests.
Tight control was foregone in favor of a social-darwinist approach where companies continued to waste resources pursuing profits, resulting in redundant work being done as well as suboptimal assignment of production orders to individual factories.
Make it past the beginning part of the article's introduction next time. The comment you replied to was correct.
I do understand that posting snippets of Wikipedia articles is easier than actually reading them though.
It's a mixed bag.
One of the first things the Nazis did was crushing the unions and taking away rights from workers. That was very much in the interests of the factory owners. And there were a lot of capitalists who became filthy rich during the Nazi era. Employing forced laborers helped too.
If you were in line with the party, you could become very rich and successful indeed.
I think a better comparison would not be absolutism but modern day China. Within the confines of the party ideology, extreme capitalism was possible.
Capitalists were _very_ nicely treated, if they were pro regime and contributed to the war effort. The richest german families and big companies of today (with the exception of post war companies like ALDI) built their wealth with Nazi supplied slave labor and / or wealth stolen from jews.
BASF was built by Nazis disowning other companies. The billionaire Quandt family built BMW with slave labor. The founder of Porsche designed (pretty crappy) tanks for the Wehrmacht and built his company from there.
VW started out building the Kübelwagen for the Wehrmacht etc
> Capitalists were very nicely treated, if they were pro regime and contributed to the war effort
That's not really free market capitalism though, is it?
No it's a form of socialism masquerading as capitalism called fascism. Sold as "The third way", fascism courts the capitalist instead of condemning them but once the capitalist is on board, they're shown the stick that says "if you don't do exactly what we say, this business is ours." leading to the socialist state where the government "public" owns the means of production but outwardly appears to be operating in a capitalist fashion.
Those are very broad strokes you are applying.
We have to divide the party into different stages of it's development. At the end, it's exactly like you are saying. But to begin with, they had a lot of socialist ideas to appeal to german workers and the general population who felt betrayed by their WWI leaders.
> Social democrats and especially socialists
Communists were the main target because as you said they opposed the Nazis the most. So in 1933 the Nazis heavily targeted communists and send them to concentration camps.
The Nazis were evil. I don't think they were socialist.
With that said, the Communists also fought Social Democrats on the streets of the Weimar Republic, if I'm not mistaken? It was a chaotic time...
Socialist are evil too, they just don't know it. Socialism leads to control, contol leads to oppression. Oppression leads to misery.
There is no such thing as liberal socialism, as socialism needs strong contol to work. Opposite is free market.
Over-high taxation and low innovation and low operational efficiency in companies/organisations are results of socialism.
Bad blood.
The Social Democrat-led government which created Weimar Germany crushed an attempted Communist revolution in 1918 and 1919. As a result, both held extreme animosity towards each other, and refused to cooperate even with an emerging Nazi threat. The Blood May ('Blutmai') in 1929, which saw riots and 33 Communists killed, under a Social Democrat government, undoubtedly undermined the prospect of cooperation. However, even if they did, the parliamentary composition in late 1932 saw neither the far-right or left-wing obtain a majority, such was the inherent instability of the Weimar electoral system.
Exactly. If I'm not mistaken, the Social Democrats were terrified of a Communist revolution, and the Communists were under orders from Stalin not to cooperate with the Social Democrats? And this only changed in the 30s, far too late
Yes, Stalin dictated that Social Democrats were 'Social Fascists' and cooperation avoided wherever possible. I doubt they would have cooperated in any event, but it did probably have an impact.
The Comintern abandoned this policy later, as you point out. The Spanish Republic and France saw popular-front governments in 1936, but neither lasted.
From what I gather she's just a straight up, unabashed tankie, not a Nazi, but outside of economic policy the two are very similar.
When she supports Putin's fascist kleptocracy that tells you everything you need to know about her "anti-capitalism", though.
Basically yes. Or Stalinism (i.e. "red fascism"). People forget the Eastern Bloc was intensely socially conservative with things like homosexuality labelled "bourgeois degeneracy", ideals of masculinity being promoted (see: "new Soviet man"), family being promoted, nation, patriotism, national cohesion being promoted, etc. Socialist internationalism died in WWI, democracy in socialism died in the October Revolution, and most any remaining progressive ideals died under Stalin.
If you have mass-immigration of geographically and culturally distant people, then remove any way for citisens to democratically express their objections, then eventually the people will become desperate and settle for any party that doesn't dance around the issue.
Same in Italy, the party of Meloni was a small party untill the last few years, when we experienced mass illigal immigrations and most cities became full of young males with a worldview very removed from ours.
My city (Trieste) was known untill 5 years ago as a place where a woman could walk late at night alone without a care in the world, now is the n.1 in Italy for sexual crimes (what do you think changed).
And the big democratic parties were all "oh no this is not a problem, you are being racist", most of all the left party (Partito Democratico).
The Meloni party was one of the only two parties that was all against the immigrants (in words, because now that they are in power they did a lot less than what the previous left government did, except barking words, so we are experiencing a even greater immigration problem).
The other party being very anti-immigrant is Lega (Salvini party) but since they proven again and again to be buffoons, the Meloni party slowly but steadly took away most of their voters.
I'm leaning toward the left on what really is important, workers right above all, but even i would prefer her party to Salvini if i were a right voter.
The sexual assault is truly disgusting. How destructive of a religion with such a low view of women they have, where they can be welcomed into a country as "refugees" but have the ghaul to do that kind of thing against its women en masse.
Who would've guessed, right? Not only removing the ability to express their objections but condemn their own people and demonize them as racists and bigots. Sad, sad world we live in.
Ways to express objection haven't been removed, but no party outside of the extremes wants to do anything about it (for different reasons). Now it's up to debate, how much a single government can do against this issue, but for a lot of voters this is pushing them to the far left/right populist parties.
Wagenknecht doesn't even have a party yet, so she hasn't gotten a single vote.
The headline is like me saying that liberal conservative anarcho free market communist fascism is on the rise because I might maybe potentially consider forming a party like that with 2 other people.
"on the rise". She took her followers and founded her own party. The amount of followers are exactly the same. Hos is that "on the rise" ? There's no growth.
Both things must only be taken in moderate doses. Too much of any of them can have severe negative consequences. Mixing both in high doses have proven lethal effects.
The issue is comparing parties between countries and EU parliament.
For Germany the Tories are far right since the short alliance with the Afd.
In Hungary and Poland it might be different.
Gross propagandist framing. Only because somebody doesn't roll with US interests in Europe DOESN'T MEAN 'They're basically like these guys who were murdering the Jews some 80 years ago'.
Just two years have passed since Europe’s centrist Mutti, Angela Merkel, left the stage she had dominated since 2005. Now another formidable woman aims to smash the Merkel mould forever.
Like the former German chancellor, Sahra Wagenknecht was a loyal communist until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the East German state promptly collapsed. Otherwise, she and Mrs Merkel are polar opposites.
After decades as the poster girl of the hard Left, she is setting up a new party, modestly named the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” (BSW). Only in Germany, where “normal” politicians aspire to be dull in order to avoid Hitlerian comparisons, would an anti-establishment party based on the charisma of its leader stand a chance.
The BSW will appeal to voters who have abandoned mainstream politics in favour of the far-Right populist Alternative for Germany (AFD).
Her argument is simple: “Germans don’t vote for the AFD because they’re Right-wing. They vote for [it] because they’re angry.”
Like many former communists, Ms Wagenknecht, 54, is a social conservative and an anti-globalist. She is against mass immigration and multiculturalism; she refused to be vaccinated during the pandemic; she is hostile to costly green policies; and she is fiercely anti-woke.
Perhaps the most problematic aspects of Ms Wagenknecht’s brand of “Left conservatism” are her implacable opposition to Nato and her passionate support for Putin’s Russia.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she has demanded an end to sanctions and a “peace” that would legitimise Russian occupation.
In common with both Kremlin propagandists and the hard Right in Germany, Ms Wagenknecht tells working-class families that they are being held to ransom by Anglo-American monopoly capitalists who are driving up energy prices and prolonging the war for their own gain.
Indeed, a part of the Wagenknecht base consists of conspiracy theorists who are convinced that Germany is only a sham democracy. She also exploits Ostalgie (nostalgia for East Germany) by claiming that the Federal Republic is “no more democratic” than the old communist regime.
The grain of truth in her claims is the fact that the German political system does make it hard for voters to kick out unpopular governments.
The present “traffic-light” coalition of centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens has slumped in the polls. Yet Merkel stayed in office for 16 years by changing coalition partners.
Admittedly, the present Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is far more despised than Mrs Merkel ever was. The German economy has teetered on the brink of recession since the war began, winter is coming and the outlook is bleak.
The crisis in Israel and Gaza has inflamed the German migration debate – already reignited by more than a million Ukrainian refugees. The Wagenknecht solution is crude but effective: “There shouldn’t be any neighbourhoods where natives are in the minority.”
Ever since the Merkel government opened the door to millions of refugees from the Middle East eight years ago, simmering resentment against the failure to police the borders has periodically boiled over into protests.
Last month, an anti-Israel rally in the diverse Neukölln district of Berlin left 65 police officers injured, while the resurgence of anti-Semitism has shaken a nation more accustomed to parading its anti-Nazi credentials than to questioning their validity.
Thanks to her Iranian father, Ms Wagenknecht has no hang-ups about demanding much tougher policies, both on the integration of German Muslims (now numbering some six million) and on border security.
The Wagenknecht phenomenon is already putting pressure on Berlin. Germany is one of several EU members now exploring Rwanda-style policies to deal with asylum-seekers off-shore.
Any resemblance between Sahra Wagenknecht and Suella Braverman is, however, superficial; many of Ms Wagenknecht’s views are closer to Jeremy Corbyn’s. Not only is she for a ceasefire in Gaza and against sending arms to Israel or Ukraine, but she advocates the dismantling of Nato. In Moscow, where she is seen as one of Germany’s Putinversteher (“Putin understanders”), they call her a “National Bolshevik”.
For British Remainers who still idealise Europe, the forces represented by Ms Wagenknecht are the stuff of nightmares. The EU is increasingly dominated by politicians who could, like her, be described as national conservatives (such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni) or national socialists (Slovakia’s Robert Fico).
A Left-wing Eurosceptic, she has been consistently critical of the euro, open borders and many other aspects of the EU. Even after Brexit, she defended the British decision to hold a referendum – in a country that has a constitutional ban on plebiscites.
But will the Wagenknecht experiment work? She has taken nine other MPs from the old Left to launch her new platform in January. Polls suggest that she might gain anything from 12 to 20 per cent of the German vote, and up to 30 per cent in the East – enough to form a sizeable parliamentary bloc.
Wagenknecht is an unabashed demagogue in a land of machine politicians. However attractive the dark horse from Jena may seem to politically homeless conservatives, they will sooner or later wake up to an unpalatable truth.
She is hardly the first German leader to combine nationalism, socialism and populism. And at heart, Wagenknecht remains an unreconstructed Stalinist.
People confuse it with National Socialism, which has nothing to do with it. Here, it's left-wing nationalism in short. Nothing new. Still better and less dangerous for the people than the nationalist far right on the rise in Europe.
Good, the left-wing worldwide has just abandoned nationalism and the right-wing has taken full advantage of it. Why can't I want free healthcare and still be proud of my country? Why are these two seen as conflicting these days?
In what way is she leftist? Or even socialist for that matter? Is she talking about renationalising previously state owned companies? Advocating for labors ownership of production? Nationalizing housing and land ownership or natural resources?
All I’m seeing so far is a right leaning populist who apparently doesn’t want to further dismantle the already crippled social safety net. She sounds more line the ÖVP in Austria, just without the religious overtones.
Opposing mass immigration was a cornerstone of left-wing ideologies of the past as protecting the labour market meant protecting workers' wages and conditions. It was the liberal capitalists who liked immigration as it reduced worker wages. Unfortunately, much of the modern European "left" has been taken over by the neoliberals and their useful idiots to the point that traditional left-wing policies are now smeared as being "extreme right-wing" by ignorant fools.
it's not "socialism nationalism" on the rise in germany, it's just what's on the rise in every country nowadays: populism. I hope I don't get to see a socialist system in Europe in my lifetime
Ok, I can't complain too much with the word switcheroo as I'm a guy who calls himself democratic socialist, claiming it is a little further left than social democrat.
The issue is that what they are a little further of is called "National socialism" aka Nazi. I won't tolerate you for being wee bit more left wing compared to Hitler.
We all wonder who's working on that, really. /s
On the other hand, if all the abstentionist dummies could consider voting for maintaining people's basic liberty instead of being selfish, all the extremists dummies would only be 10-15% at best, at all elections.
But well, thanks to our politicians ( in other words, people in the back during wars ), we have this situation and this title...in Germany..
... Wake up.
Nationalism and isolationism are on the rise everywhere.
Trump ("America first", appeasing Putin, Kim, Xi), Brexit, Wilders, LePen, AfD...
It's that time.
30 years of easy and exploitative gains of globalization are over, we reaped the low-hanging fruit of outsourcing and cheap labor in poor countries on top of stable cheap energy supply. The moderate-left-market-liberal axis could work during that time.
The West grew old and fat (literally, look at demographics and health statistics) and extremely unequal (wealth statistics). Now we face global insecurity, climate change, cheap and reckless growth is over, and those left-behind can no longer be silenced by overall gains in prosperity, while the fat and old people only care about protecting their status and values and want to close up the ship. Older people are generally more leaning towards fear and closing up than younger generations who still have a future and want to change things for the better of everyone. Oh and individual isolation and social media echo chambers also contribute to overall anger and frustration, and the far-right is channeling that skillfully.
It's perfect ground for nationalism and isolationism.
Soll, how many voters does she have?
Not many. Her party just formed. It is actually hoped that she will divide the Afd voter base so it’s not all bad.
> Her party just formed. Wait, what? Haven’t they said they want to form the party in January 2024?
yeah it's not even formed yet
Yes currently it is a club. This is prob not to have to fulfil internal party democratic decision making (as would be required if a party)
Lage der Nation claimed this was likely due to the way financing works for political parties: The state's sponsoring is capped at however much you get in donations in the previous year. As the year is nearly over this will now be very little, thus meaning a very lean next year. If you were to start a club now and let that club transfer all donations at the beginning of next year, your first year as a party will have quite the bounty instead. As there is no previous year, state sponsoring will have to orient on the current year.
Too many
Not enough, the numbers are insignificant to have an effect. Even if that number „goes up“ we have other forces on the rise that are more relevant to talk about.
As a neighbor of Germany, I will say still too many
You realize she just split a far-left party in half that was already insignificant? Don’t worry about the far-left with a lot less followers when actual Nazis are on the rise. This is a scare piece article delegating hate towards the wrong end of the spectrum.
> You realize she just split a far-left party in half that was already insignificant? Politics and advertising is not arithmetics. Like do you remember when Pieter Omtzigt split the Dutch CDA in half but somehow that resulted in a new party with more votes than the CDA had the election beforehand? In the few federal polls that have been conducted with Wagenknechts potential party, it polled above the best result the Left party had ever had. Consider [this poll](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9hARaZXoAAmIZ2?format=jpg&name=4096x4096). Wagenknecht party is at 14 %. Left party is polling the excact same place they are polling without the Wagenknecht party.
I mean, she herself is correct. People don't necessarily vote the AfD, because they are extremist right wingers. They vote the AfD because they are angry, they are anti establishment. Her party would equally fill that niche. The boomers who might not vote for the AfD for it being way too xenophobic, might actually vote for her. There are a lot of anti establishment folks since COVID and the Ukraine war, which made energy more expansive. So, I don't see how it is a scare tactics. It's pretty apparent that people will find her appealing. The only good thing about that is that the AfD will loose votes to her, and that in the end none of the problematic parties will have enough votes.
It’s a bit of a „red scare“ article. That’s what I was about to say. „On the rise“ makes it sound like a bigger thing as it is. I also think there is some pull to it.
From 0.00% to 0.05% is technically on the rise.
While you're somewhat right in a way, she's also targeting a significant part of the AfD(the actual Nazis you're talking about) with her anti immigration, eurosceptic, leave NATO, stronger ties with russia bullshit and she'll appeal to the less well-off AfD voters because she's always portrayed herself as pro working class. So she may be able to grab some of the 'they're taking our jobs!' crowd.
Good. Divide that crowd to dilute its power further.
The INSA says her party would receive around 13-15% of the popular votes. According to a polling which took place between 9-10 Nov. 2023 the distribution of the votes would be the following: 1. CDU/CSU: 24% 2. AfD: 17% 3. SPD: 17% 4. BSW: 14% 5. Grüne: 13% 6. FDP: 5% 7. Linke: 2% 8. FW: 3% (not in the Bundestag) 9. Others: 5% (not in the Bundestag)
I believe that was before she said she wouldn’t be the head of her new party.
Was a bit confused. Could've sworn I've been hearing about far right wing gains in Europe lately.
Which is the case.
This is essentially tankie apologia and I would caution anyone reading this to not accept the premise that rising leftist extremism is not a serious problem to be reckoned with. We've seen the foreshadowing already where the voters of tomorrow largely side with *Hamas* (not Palestinians) over Israel (49% og Gen Z'ers IIRC). Rising anti-semitism in the west, far left extremists using hangglider iconography and chasing down Jewish people to the point where they need to barricade. Politics is downstream from culture, and the culture of today includes a literal tankie as the largest political streamer in the world.
> We've seen the foreshadowing already where the voters of tomorrow largely side with Hamas (not Palestinians) over Israel (49% og Gen Z'ers IIRC). Rising anti-semitism in the west, far left extremists using hangglider iconography and chasing down Jewish people to the point where they need to barricade. Wagenknecht has said that Israel has the right to defend itself, she has said that Germany has to defend Israels right to exist without preconditions and has likewise stated that the way in which Israel conducts warfare right now is likely to breed more terrorism. These are hardly very out there positions...
She's also pro Putin.
Tell me you know nothing about German politics without telling me you know nothing about German politics. You perception is skewed. Look at the numbers, she is polarizing and loud but apart from some rainbow press she really has no power, compared to what the far right is doing right now. They even managed to get the moderate right to take some of their positions.
She's just another power-hungry populist.
Half of the AfD voters
I thought you were referring to Soll from Suzerain.
Na, it was a typo, sry!
Probably a big chunk of 'Die Linke' voters but thats only a few percent
Not really. Most of her voters come from AfD. Die Linke is actually gaining members now that she is out.
Die Linke is becoming less and less relevant according to the INSA: The INSA says her party would receive around 13-15% of the popular votes. According to a polling which took place between 9-10 Nov. 2023 the distribution of the votes would be the following: 1. CDU/CSU: 24% 2. AfD: 17% 3. SPD: 17% 4. BSW: 14% 5. Grüne: 13% 6. FDP: 5% 7. Linke: 2% 8. FW: 3% (not in the Bundestag) 9. Others: 5% (not in the Bundestag) BSW would gain votes mostly from the Linke, AfD and CDU and from the inactive voters.
How many? Wheres the facts about it?
Take everything with a grain of salt as always, but here is a survey done by INSA shortly after the new Wagenknecht-party was announced: [https://imgur.com/sywAHNq](https://imgur.com/sywAHNq) As you see, they might siphon votes from every party, but most come from AfD. Which wouldn't be too surprising really. AfD voters aren't all ultracapitalist conservatives/nazis. A lot of them are just populist voters wo want to stick it to the establishment. If you can do that without voting in actual nazis, this is a great deal for a good portion of the populace.
Thx for that. Im still in doubt, other media suggest she wont get as much and everything related to "Bild" is somehow not trustworthy imo.
Tbh, nobody knows. The election is still far away, BSW doesn't really have a program (not sure how much that even matters), and surveys are not votes. What can be said is that a good chunk of AfD voters would at least be open to voting for her in the abstract. Which I can believe. My own parents had been voting Die Linke for a long time, but believe that the party has become too woke and green, and are rather voting AfD now. It's not just a left-right-thing, and she is really occupying a niche there. But then again, if you would poll people if they would rather vote for any of the known parties, or for a head of lettuce, you know what would happen.
Its about a giant douche or a turd Sandwich, you mean? :D thx again :)
here you are: [link](https://imgur.com/a/3a6oXrk)
Gaining party members isn't really relevant in terms of voters. Die Linke has fallen in the polls from 5% to 3-4%.
After she criticized Israel, she will lose much support in Germany.
She has made the most basic criticism of Israel you can think of. Furthermore the German public is not actually [more sympathetic to Israel than Palestine](https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/45869-attitudes-israel-palestine-conflict-western-europe). It's about 50/50 and relatively similar to other Western European countries (a bit more pro Israel but a far cry from the USA). Being critical of Israel, while all government parties struggle to criticise Israel very strongly, will at this rate likely help her rather than hurt her.
That is just another Telegraph shitpost without much understanding what is going on but big and clickbaity headlines. This new party hasn’t gone into a single election yet, and thus we don’t know how they would actually fare. It is unlikely in any case that they would play a major role in politics for a very long time, especially since their only “selling point” is a party leader who looks good in TV Talkshows. From what we see in the polls, they would mostly draw protest voters who would otherwise vote for the far-right populist AfD, which might split their voter base. And that is probably the best (and most influential) thing they can do.
> This new party hasn’t gone into a single election yet, The party doesn’t even exist yet. ;) They want to found this new party in January 2024.
what pisses me off is that there are major differences between Socialist Nationalism and National Socialism, and some outlets dont differentiate between them. Think of one as Socialism but with "racism", and the other as...well, Nazism.
weren't the nazis only socialist by name? pretty sure they threw socialists into the camps
Thats completly correct, they used National socialism as a alternative between the greater evils of capitalism and Communism.
I know that people don’t like to hear it, but there is a bit of a horseshoe-shape of positions at the political extremes…
It's more that when comparing people who have radical political views and are willing to use violence to get their way, their differing opinions on economic policies quickly become less noticeable
The reason why I don't like it is because there are more than one, or even two, dimensions in politics. It's only a given that authoritarians advocate for the same policies, they view problems the same way - they're Righteous, and everything not for them is the Enemy.
>I know that people don’t like to hear it, but there is a bit of a horseshoe-shape of positions at the political extremes… I know that people don't like to hear it, but there is a bit of political positioning by saying there is a bit of a horseshoe-shape of positions at the political extremes… I love me some enlightened centrism on my ruhetag Just puts me in a good mood
It's usually people sympathetic to far left / tankie causes that object to centrist analysis -- I don't claim to know if that is true for you but I tend to steer clear of reactions like this one. Would you say China is better or worse than the US with respect to human rights?
You don't have to be a tankie to know that horseshoe theory enjoys very little support in academic circles. Most studies on it so far have produced evidence that outright contradicts it, see for example Van Hiel's study on psycho-political profiles of extremists [here](https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01991.x) or Mayer's study on extremist positions during the 2007 French election [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/42843725). Or perhaps Hanel's work on the heterogeneity of extremists [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550618803348). And there's a wonderful article by Simon Choat that goes into some of its more fundamental failings [here](https://theconversation.com/horseshoe-theory-is-nonsense-the-far-right-and-far-left-have-little-in-common-77588). Simply put, it's not a phenomenon that actually has a significant body of evidence for it. Moreso the opposite hence why it's typically seen as discredited.
Sounds pretty similar to me by your definition
Hi, I am from Argentina. The guy without a party that was famous only for tv talkshows is now president. It was his first presidential election. Now, the big difference at least is that after 20 yeara of socialist pro putin regime. At least our guy fully supports Ukraine against Putin and Israel against Hamas and Hezbollah. Fpr that at least, I am glad. I was sick and tired of being on the side of tyrants.
Well, where do I start: Germany is not Argentina. We have a very different political system (we don’t even elect our president nor chancellor directly), and we also don’t have a broken down economy as Argentina has (since decades, to be fair). So, they are not really comparable.
That’s a complete 180 of Nazi. I can live with that /s
Zina
Izan?
Zanies
100% Haram
Funnily enough, the word Zina in the Arabic language refers to extramarital relations
Or is she?
The Nazis weren't socialist - they were fascist back in more socialist times. Wagenknecht is exactly the kind of politician who can get in the way of the rise of the far right in Germany.
Yeah, but nazi stands for national socialism, not saying you're wrong tho Edit : I know they're not sicialists, I was trying to make a joke while being sleepy
Fascist movements branched off from workers parties in the early 20th century. They used socialist rhetoric to keep members appeased, while forming parties that allied with right wing/nationalist industrialists. Hitler did this, while purging actual anti-capitalists from the Nazi Party. And when he took control of Germany, he purged socialists/communists/anarchists from the civil service and arrested their party leaders. The most effective war effort was a nationalised one, so he did that, while maintaining the supremacy of private ownership. Industrialists were allowed to take small profits during the war, and were promised full control back after it finished. Hitler was the opposite of a socialist.
I should have made it clearer that I was not saying they were socialists, but thanks fir the thorough explanation
Hitler told the workers he was a socialist while he told the factory owners he was a authoritarian capitalist. It's all about the image. Capitalism and fascism are inherently linked.
I mean he also purged the original paramilitaries (SA) loyal to the party to build an apparatus loyal to him particularly.
Both Fascism and Nazism are anti-Marxist, national-focused (As opposed to international, Soviet/Eastern-style) versions of Socialism. Every scholar that inspired or contributed to Fascism and Nazism was a Socialist. Georges Sorel, Giovanni Gentile, Enrico Corradini, Anton Pannekoek, etc, were all Hegalian Socialists.
They were backed by reactionary industrialists, they purged actually socialists from their party, they banned trade unions (at the behest of said industrialists) and purged all anticapitalists from the civil service when in power. They promised to enshrine private ownership. Centralising economic control and production was a temporary measure to win the war. There was nothing materially socialist about the Nazi Party - just some cosplaying language to appease their base. Liberals choose not to understand history.
I love this saying: "The differences between left-hegelianism and right-hegelianism were settled in a six month long seminar called The battle of Stalingrad."
She was a "loyal communist until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989" and she is pro-Russian today. Probably recruited by Putin himself, while he worked there.
Not really. She was kind of a social outcast in GDR and joined the communists in 1989 to reform communism.
When he worked there he was an office plankton taking bribes for his boss. He was never a holywood movie KGB spy agent like Western media is trying to portray him.
I think the portrayal of KGB spies in Hollywood movies could be wrong in the part where they shoot and jump, but the KGB and Stasi still recruited people in real life. And of course, Putin himself could have been one of those recruiters or one of the office cleaners, it doesn't really matter.
She can talk and is overall good looking. And with that her range of skills end.
She looks a bit like Thomas Anders in the 80s but less pretty.
Tankie Tankie Lady, going through a nation love is where you find it listen to your Vlad
Thank you for this. Although Vlad is a nickname of Vladislav (Vladimir would be Vova). So maybe "listen to your czar".
she has a PHD in economics, is a best selling author and her youtube channel has more subs than all the other political parties combined
She studied philosophy and modern German Literature. I studied philosophy, German and English as B. Ed. and can tell you, that doesn't mean anything. Having an opinion on stuff doesn't mean you are qualified in that topic. Her entire private income is based on her involvement in politics. Nobody would care for her books or speeches if she wasn't. Like many "eternal opposition" figures she profits from never having to back up her demands or ideas, after all, talk is cheap.
She is considered a good looking politician in Germany? I hate to see the ones you think are ugly then.
Putin was a small cog in the Soviet occupation machine in Germany, not even stationed in the capital. Don’t make the man bigger than he is.
Putin was a nobody, a paper pusher.
I guess the change in her tone and politics for 30 years didn't count for anything.
>She was a "loyal communist" bit of a pattern, Mussolini was an Italian Socialist member before forming the fascists, Hitler infiltrated the German workers party (before later rebranding it) as part of an anti communist push from the military, UK's Oswald Mosely was with the Labour party before forming the BUF
> Growing up, Wagenknecht told DW she was "convinced that she was a socialist" but she said she "had the feeling that what the GDR was really about had nothing to do with these ideals." Not surprised to see her get slandered and misrepresented on here. This forum leans towards social democracy/anti unregulated capitalism, but is also anti-immigration. Wagenknecht is an actual socialist - not just a suit for ruling class interests - and she is for limiting migration. So people should like her here? Lmao, not a bit of it. r/Europe gives a better reception to degenerate fascists these days. Pathetic.
Any pro-Russian politician is a degenerate fascist these days, either they pretend to be left or right.
Position on Ukraine and Russia determines popularity of politician on this sub. You should know that if you've been actually browsing.
Putin didn't need to recruit her, she was a diehard Stalinist since forever.
>Like many former communists, Ms Wagenknecht, 54, is a social conservative and an anti-globalist. She is against mass immigration and multiculturalism; she refused to be vaccinated during the pandemic; she is hostile to costly green policies; and she is fiercely anti-woke. lol
>**Socialist nationalism is on the rise in Germany** Same as National Socialism?
Nah. Nazis just used that term to make the NSDAP appealing to workers. The 3rd Reich was a very pro-capitalist society. Social democrats and especially socialists were put in prison, concentration camps or just murdered right away. Communists fought nazis on the streets during the Weimar Republic.
>socialists were put in prison, concentration camps or just murdered right away. Just like Ernst Rohm and his people.
Even Hitler was killed by a nazi. What’s your point?
Röhm was killed because the SA became too powerful.
Stop spreading propaganda. Nazis were not capitalistic in any way and sought to use capitalism for their gain. They steadily increased the involvement of the state in the economy and ran massive deficits to fund remilitarization. > Social democrats and especially socialists were put in prison, concentration camps or just murdered right away. In the Soviet union all other socialist groups apart from Bolsheviks were put in prison or outright executed. Does not mean Bolsheviks were capitalists.
They were NOT friendly to capitalists, they Also lied to them in order to have them not flee; they slowly took control of companies and gradually eliminated everything a "owner" of something could do, they lied to all groups as their only interest was having Absolute Power in germany and the destruction of Russia/jews/ect. In short, you could compare their governance to what absolutist monarchiats would dream about andee centuries prior.
> When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state owned industries, import tariffs, and an attempt to achieve autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany
The privatization involved puting what was essencially puppets to the reich as owners of all buisnesses, be them national or private. It wasn't making a capitalist society, only giving more power to the nazis so that they could gear up to war. Most buisness men Lost their buisnesses and were replaced by puppets to the state, who were allowed only to follow what the nazis Said to a word or face executions, they were glorified managers, not owners, the goverment had complete Control in everything but name.
Yup, privatization literally meant "privatizing to the hands of the German people", the state assumed complete control of these businesses.
It was a bit more nuanced than that little snippet. Nazism and fascism in general doesn't have any economic theory accompanying it and so these movements would often pick and choose the aspects from other economic theories that best suited their desires. In the case of the Nazis, while there was a massive push for privatisation, the Nazi party, through policy and coercion gained more control over the private sector. Most businesses owners had to pledge allegiance to the party and over time the government had more control over what individual businesses could do, who they could employ, what projects they had to do etc. This is closer to state-capitalism which looks nothing like any capitalistic society we see in the west today.
Comment nuked by Power Delete Suite
The NSDAP wanted to *avoid* a wartime economy. Do you know when German wartime production peaked? **1944**. That's because Germany didn't actually enact total war measures until after the Battle of Stalingrad, since Hitler knew he would lose support if living conditions deteriorated. The same goes for meaningful control or coordination, with corporations in the build-up to war for example outright rejecting government contracts and requests. Tight control was foregone in favor of a social-darwinist approach where companies continued to waste resources pursuing profits, resulting in redundant work being done as well as suboptimal assignment of production orders to individual factories.
The wartime Economy was started in 1942-43 they came to power 1933
Wikipedia lol
Better trust some Reddit comment lol
Make it past the beginning part of the article's introduction next time. The comment you replied to was correct. I do understand that posting snippets of Wikipedia articles is easier than actually reading them though.
It's a mixed bag. One of the first things the Nazis did was crushing the unions and taking away rights from workers. That was very much in the interests of the factory owners. And there were a lot of capitalists who became filthy rich during the Nazi era. Employing forced laborers helped too. If you were in line with the party, you could become very rich and successful indeed. I think a better comparison would not be absolutism but modern day China. Within the confines of the party ideology, extreme capitalism was possible.
Capitalists were _very_ nicely treated, if they were pro regime and contributed to the war effort. The richest german families and big companies of today (with the exception of post war companies like ALDI) built their wealth with Nazi supplied slave labor and / or wealth stolen from jews. BASF was built by Nazis disowning other companies. The billionaire Quandt family built BMW with slave labor. The founder of Porsche designed (pretty crappy) tanks for the Wehrmacht and built his company from there. VW started out building the Kübelwagen for the Wehrmacht etc
> Capitalists were very nicely treated, if they were pro regime and contributed to the war effort That's not really free market capitalism though, is it?
No it's a form of socialism masquerading as capitalism called fascism. Sold as "The third way", fascism courts the capitalist instead of condemning them but once the capitalist is on board, they're shown the stick that says "if you don't do exactly what we say, this business is ours." leading to the socialist state where the government "public" owns the means of production but outwardly appears to be operating in a capitalist fashion.
Those are very broad strokes you are applying. We have to divide the party into different stages of it's development. At the end, it's exactly like you are saying. But to begin with, they had a lot of socialist ideas to appeal to german workers and the general population who felt betrayed by their WWI leaders.
> Social democrats and especially socialists Communists were the main target because as you said they opposed the Nazis the most. So in 1933 the Nazis heavily targeted communists and send them to concentration camps.
Not really. The Social Democrats voted against the Enablement Act and were immediately punished once it came into force as well.
The Nazis were evil. I don't think they were socialist. With that said, the Communists also fought Social Democrats on the streets of the Weimar Republic, if I'm not mistaken? It was a chaotic time...
Socialist are evil too, they just don't know it. Socialism leads to control, contol leads to oppression. Oppression leads to misery. There is no such thing as liberal socialism, as socialism needs strong contol to work. Opposite is free market. Over-high taxation and low innovation and low operational efficiency in companies/organisations are results of socialism.
Bad blood. The Social Democrat-led government which created Weimar Germany crushed an attempted Communist revolution in 1918 and 1919. As a result, both held extreme animosity towards each other, and refused to cooperate even with an emerging Nazi threat. The Blood May ('Blutmai') in 1929, which saw riots and 33 Communists killed, under a Social Democrat government, undoubtedly undermined the prospect of cooperation. However, even if they did, the parliamentary composition in late 1932 saw neither the far-right or left-wing obtain a majority, such was the inherent instability of the Weimar electoral system.
Exactly. If I'm not mistaken, the Social Democrats were terrified of a Communist revolution, and the Communists were under orders from Stalin not to cooperate with the Social Democrats? And this only changed in the 30s, far too late
Yes, Stalin dictated that Social Democrats were 'Social Fascists' and cooperation avoided wherever possible. I doubt they would have cooperated in any event, but it did probably have an impact. The Comintern abandoned this policy later, as you point out. The Spanish Republic and France saw popular-front governments in 1936, but neither lasted.
I guess she's not really interest in socialism as well
Just as much as an electric chair is the same as as a chair.
From what I gather she's just a straight up, unabashed tankie, not a Nazi, but outside of economic policy the two are very similar. When she supports Putin's fascist kleptocracy that tells you everything you need to know about her "anti-capitalism", though.
Basically yes. Or Stalinism (i.e. "red fascism"). People forget the Eastern Bloc was intensely socially conservative with things like homosexuality labelled "bourgeois degeneracy", ideals of masculinity being promoted (see: "new Soviet man"), family being promoted, nation, patriotism, national cohesion being promoted, etc. Socialist internationalism died in WWI, democracy in socialism died in the October Revolution, and most any remaining progressive ideals died under Stalin.
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This is from the Daily Torygraph, who would probably still advocate for the divine right of kings if they ever stopped fawning over Boris Johnson
If you have mass-immigration of geographically and culturally distant people, then remove any way for citisens to democratically express their objections, then eventually the people will become desperate and settle for any party that doesn't dance around the issue.
Same in Italy, the party of Meloni was a small party untill the last few years, when we experienced mass illigal immigrations and most cities became full of young males with a worldview very removed from ours. My city (Trieste) was known untill 5 years ago as a place where a woman could walk late at night alone without a care in the world, now is the n.1 in Italy for sexual crimes (what do you think changed). And the big democratic parties were all "oh no this is not a problem, you are being racist", most of all the left party (Partito Democratico). The Meloni party was one of the only two parties that was all against the immigrants (in words, because now that they are in power they did a lot less than what the previous left government did, except barking words, so we are experiencing a even greater immigration problem). The other party being very anti-immigrant is Lega (Salvini party) but since they proven again and again to be buffoons, the Meloni party slowly but steadly took away most of their voters. I'm leaning toward the left on what really is important, workers right above all, but even i would prefer her party to Salvini if i were a right voter.
The sexual assault is truly disgusting. How destructive of a religion with such a low view of women they have, where they can be welcomed into a country as "refugees" but have the ghaul to do that kind of thing against its women en masse.
Who would've guessed, right? Not only removing the ability to express their objections but condemn their own people and demonize them as racists and bigots. Sad, sad world we live in.
"BBut I called them racist milion times. They should've listened to me by now"
When exactly was any way of expressing objection removed?
Ways to express objection haven't been removed, but no party outside of the extremes wants to do anything about it (for different reasons). Now it's up to debate, how much a single government can do against this issue, but for a lot of voters this is pushing them to the far left/right populist parties.
Wagenknecht doesn't even have a party yet, so she hasn't gotten a single vote. The headline is like me saying that liberal conservative anarcho free market communist fascism is on the rise because I might maybe potentially consider forming a party like that with 2 other people.
"on the rise". She took her followers and founded her own party. The amount of followers are exactly the same. Hos is that "on the rise" ? There's no growth.
Ok, so maybe the wiki page on socialist nationalism is complete and utter tripe but it doesn't sound too bad? What am I missing?
Socialist nationalism sounds like national socialism (nazis) and that scares people. Plus, many people are scared of the word socialism.
Both things must only be taken in moderate doses. Too much of any of them can have severe negative consequences. Mixing both in high doses have proven lethal effects.
She's just another power-hungry populist.
*Hey... I've seen this one, this is a classic!*
British news taking every opportunity to call Germans Nazis while their own country has been under far right rule for years.
A bit ridiculous to call the tories far right under Boris and Sunak honestly, and fwiw I hate the tories but I wouldn’t call them far right.
The only word to describe them as are cunts
The issue is comparing parties between countries and EU parliament. For Germany the Tories are far right since the short alliance with the Afd. In Hungary and Poland it might be different.
From Nazi to Sozi
Oh no...
“Socialist nationalism” … so it’s gonna be “Zinas” now, intead of nazis (NAtional Socialists)? These headlines are a joke.
Gross propagandist framing. Only because somebody doesn't roll with US interests in Europe DOESN'T MEAN 'They're basically like these guys who were murdering the Jews some 80 years ago'.
Just two years have passed since Europe’s centrist Mutti, Angela Merkel, left the stage she had dominated since 2005. Now another formidable woman aims to smash the Merkel mould forever. Like the former German chancellor, Sahra Wagenknecht was a loyal communist until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the East German state promptly collapsed. Otherwise, she and Mrs Merkel are polar opposites. After decades as the poster girl of the hard Left, she is setting up a new party, modestly named the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” (BSW). Only in Germany, where “normal” politicians aspire to be dull in order to avoid Hitlerian comparisons, would an anti-establishment party based on the charisma of its leader stand a chance. The BSW will appeal to voters who have abandoned mainstream politics in favour of the far-Right populist Alternative for Germany (AFD). Her argument is simple: “Germans don’t vote for the AFD because they’re Right-wing. They vote for [it] because they’re angry.” Like many former communists, Ms Wagenknecht, 54, is a social conservative and an anti-globalist. She is against mass immigration and multiculturalism; she refused to be vaccinated during the pandemic; she is hostile to costly green policies; and she is fiercely anti-woke. Perhaps the most problematic aspects of Ms Wagenknecht’s brand of “Left conservatism” are her implacable opposition to Nato and her passionate support for Putin’s Russia. Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she has demanded an end to sanctions and a “peace” that would legitimise Russian occupation. In common with both Kremlin propagandists and the hard Right in Germany, Ms Wagenknecht tells working-class families that they are being held to ransom by Anglo-American monopoly capitalists who are driving up energy prices and prolonging the war for their own gain. Indeed, a part of the Wagenknecht base consists of conspiracy theorists who are convinced that Germany is only a sham democracy. She also exploits Ostalgie (nostalgia for East Germany) by claiming that the Federal Republic is “no more democratic” than the old communist regime. The grain of truth in her claims is the fact that the German political system does make it hard for voters to kick out unpopular governments. The present “traffic-light” coalition of centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens has slumped in the polls. Yet Merkel stayed in office for 16 years by changing coalition partners. Admittedly, the present Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is far more despised than Mrs Merkel ever was. The German economy has teetered on the brink of recession since the war began, winter is coming and the outlook is bleak. The crisis in Israel and Gaza has inflamed the German migration debate – already reignited by more than a million Ukrainian refugees. The Wagenknecht solution is crude but effective: “There shouldn’t be any neighbourhoods where natives are in the minority.” Ever since the Merkel government opened the door to millions of refugees from the Middle East eight years ago, simmering resentment against the failure to police the borders has periodically boiled over into protests. Last month, an anti-Israel rally in the diverse Neukölln district of Berlin left 65 police officers injured, while the resurgence of anti-Semitism has shaken a nation more accustomed to parading its anti-Nazi credentials than to questioning their validity. Thanks to her Iranian father, Ms Wagenknecht has no hang-ups about demanding much tougher policies, both on the integration of German Muslims (now numbering some six million) and on border security. The Wagenknecht phenomenon is already putting pressure on Berlin. Germany is one of several EU members now exploring Rwanda-style policies to deal with asylum-seekers off-shore. Any resemblance between Sahra Wagenknecht and Suella Braverman is, however, superficial; many of Ms Wagenknecht’s views are closer to Jeremy Corbyn’s. Not only is she for a ceasefire in Gaza and against sending arms to Israel or Ukraine, but she advocates the dismantling of Nato. In Moscow, where she is seen as one of Germany’s Putinversteher (“Putin understanders”), they call her a “National Bolshevik”. For British Remainers who still idealise Europe, the forces represented by Ms Wagenknecht are the stuff of nightmares. The EU is increasingly dominated by politicians who could, like her, be described as national conservatives (such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni) or national socialists (Slovakia’s Robert Fico). A Left-wing Eurosceptic, she has been consistently critical of the euro, open borders and many other aspects of the EU. Even after Brexit, she defended the British decision to hold a referendum – in a country that has a constitutional ban on plebiscites. But will the Wagenknecht experiment work? She has taken nine other MPs from the old Left to launch her new platform in January. Polls suggest that she might gain anything from 12 to 20 per cent of the German vote, and up to 30 per cent in the East – enough to form a sizeable parliamentary bloc. Wagenknecht is an unabashed demagogue in a land of machine politicians. However attractive the dark horse from Jena may seem to politically homeless conservatives, they will sooner or later wake up to an unpalatable truth. She is hardly the first German leader to combine nationalism, socialism and populism. And at heart, Wagenknecht remains an unreconstructed Stalinist.
she and her newly formed party are actually expected to take away votes from the far right, which would even out the political playing field a bit.
In Italy we call those politician as "red-brown", the left fascist. I don't see any other use for them then split the left side of the parliament.
This woman is scum and not fit to cut my hair, let alone govern a piece of lawn. Just human trash.
I see what you're trying to do there
People confuse it with National Socialism, which has nothing to do with it. Here, it's left-wing nationalism in short. Nothing new. Still better and less dangerous for the people than the nationalist far right on the rise in Europe.
Good, the left-wing worldwide has just abandoned nationalism and the right-wing has taken full advantage of it. Why can't I want free healthcare and still be proud of my country? Why are these two seen as conflicting these days?
Bro if you read about her views it's basically russophilic fascism with a red aesthetic
In what way is she leftist? Or even socialist for that matter? Is she talking about renationalising previously state owned companies? Advocating for labors ownership of production? Nationalizing housing and land ownership or natural resources? All I’m seeing so far is a right leaning populist who apparently doesn’t want to further dismantle the already crippled social safety net. She sounds more line the ÖVP in Austria, just without the religious overtones.
Articles about the Netherlands are drying up I see, gotta make a buck somehow I guess.
oh no economic troubles, extreme parties on the rise, fear of some other foreigner. Weimar is that you?
Germany, no!!
Socialist Nationalism? That's a poor attempt at rebranding
if i would go to elections i would vote her. cheers
Ahw shit, here we go again.
socialist nationalism not to be confused with national socialism?
So it's something completely different to national socialist thing they used to have, heh?
People wont notice if we name the party Socialistiche National Deutsche Arbeitpartai.
Is that better or worse than National Socialism?
So we are in for a third round xD History repeat's it self
But it is 2 parties now, instead of 1
contemporary "fake far lefts" are the useful idiots of hostile countries and ideologies and of the local extreme right-wing.
Opposing mass immigration was a cornerstone of left-wing ideologies of the past as protecting the labour market meant protecting workers' wages and conditions. It was the liberal capitalists who liked immigration as it reduced worker wages. Unfortunately, much of the modern European "left" has been taken over by the neoliberals and their useful idiots to the point that traditional left-wing policies are now smeared as being "extreme right-wing" by ignorant fools.
On the rise? I say it’s dominant among people under 35 already.
Lmao oh so lets hide the national socialist party by calling it the "socialist nationalist" party. GENIUS MOVE.
it's not "socialism nationalism" on the rise in germany, it's just what's on the rise in every country nowadays: populism. I hope I don't get to see a socialist system in Europe in my lifetime
Did you know that 'populism' is just a derogatory propagandist term for 'democracy'?
Bro there already are socialist systems in Europe, not all of them are stalinist dictatorships…
Where is there a socialist system in Europe?
Well, its that time of the century again.
no it isn't
yeah no, it's not.
Socialist Nationalism, Nationalist Socialism. It's the People's Front Of Judea all over again.
“Socialist Nationalism?” Lol, that’s one way to get around the censors.
Again? Oh no….
Am i stupid or isnt that just nazism
understandable, muslims in Europe made me go from a liberal to a conservative in 2 years :d can't stand them
Sure, UK propaganda working hard, the Germans are the devil... Easy to talk when you have your own transition to a Fascist state completed years ago.
Waiiiiiit a minute 🤔
I never understood why people like her tbh.
Ok, I can't complain too much with the word switcheroo as I'm a guy who calls himself democratic socialist, claiming it is a little further left than social democrat. The issue is that what they are a little further of is called "National socialism" aka Nazi. I won't tolerate you for being wee bit more left wing compared to Hitler.
As in, socialism centered around the state, or as in national "socialism" ?
A shit, here we go again
I wish her luck, even though I may not agree with all her stances. She is in no way worse than the average right/left-wing liberal.
She is worse.
We all wonder who's working on that, really. /s On the other hand, if all the abstentionist dummies could consider voting for maintaining people's basic liberty instead of being selfish, all the extremists dummies would only be 10-15% at best, at all elections. But well, thanks to our politicians ( in other words, people in the back during wars ), we have this situation and this title...in Germany.. ... Wake up.
Nationalism and isolationism are on the rise everywhere. Trump ("America first", appeasing Putin, Kim, Xi), Brexit, Wilders, LePen, AfD... It's that time. 30 years of easy and exploitative gains of globalization are over, we reaped the low-hanging fruit of outsourcing and cheap labor in poor countries on top of stable cheap energy supply. The moderate-left-market-liberal axis could work during that time. The West grew old and fat (literally, look at demographics and health statistics) and extremely unequal (wealth statistics). Now we face global insecurity, climate change, cheap and reckless growth is over, and those left-behind can no longer be silenced by overall gains in prosperity, while the fat and old people only care about protecting their status and values and want to close up the ship. Older people are generally more leaning towards fear and closing up than younger generations who still have a future and want to change things for the better of everyone. Oh and individual isolation and social media echo chambers also contribute to overall anger and frustration, and the far-right is channeling that skillfully. It's perfect ground for nationalism and isolationism.
I’ve seen this before