Die Linke doing well in Germany

[Winner]

Obviously, because it contradicts your point

- Summers are hot in Europe.
- But what about Scandinavia?!?!
- That's different.
- Obviously, because it contradicts your point!!!



Scandinavia is an exception in many other things. In most continental European countries, the left wing parties do exactly what I said they do. They mess things up, increase debt for everyone any when things are going so bad they'd have to do unpopular things to correct them, they retreat to the opposition and let the right-wing parties deal with the problems. Once their popularity plummets due to the unpopular (but necessary) reforms they make, the left wins the elections again and the cycle repeats itself.

 

[Riffraff]

Any statistics to back up your sweeping generalizations winner?

I'll take a wild guess...

 

[Gelion]

- Summers are hot in Europe.
- But what about Scandinavia?!?!
- That's different.
- Obviously, because it contradicts your point!!!



Scandinavia is an exception in many other things. In most continental European countries, the left wing parties do exactly what I said they do. They mess things up, increase debt for everyone any when things are going so bad they'd have to do unpopular things to correct them, they retreat to the opposition and let the right-wing parties deal with the problems. Once their popularity plummets due to the unpopular (but necessary) reforms they make, the left wins the elections again and the cycle repeats itself.

Summers are not hot in Europe.

Yes, like in Norway, where the left stands for careful spending, restraint, pragmatic foreign policy and open mindedness.

See? I solved it all for you

 

[kalif]

The main reason for the declining support of the SPD was their reform of the welfare programs and them drifting towards rather neoliberal positions, hand in hand with the Greens.

Not because they messed up the national budget. It was then, when opposition inside the SPD formed, split from the SPD, organized itself as WASG, managed to set foot in the western states and associated itself with the PDS, creating what we now call the Linke.

The increase in public debt happened under every government. And neither the CDU/FDP nor the SPD/FDP/Greens managed to cope with it. A simplistic apportioning of blame doesn't work here, neither the attribution of certain monolithic traits to certain parties.

Incompetence isn't restricted through the affiliation to a certain party. Unfortunately.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

- Summers are hot in Europe.
Scandinavia is an exception in many other things. In most continental European countries, the left wing parties do exactly what I said they do. They mess things up, increase debt for everyone any when things are going so bad they'd have to do unpopular things to correct them, they retreat to the opposition and let the right-wing parties deal with the problems. Once their popularity plummets due to the unpopular (but necessary) reforms they make, the left wins the elections again and the cycle repeats itself.

Speak for the former eastern block.
In Germany the CDU/FDP is as much -if not more- to blame for the deficit as the SPD, and it wa a SPD-government that pushed through unpopular reforms.

 

[kronic]

How much possible? I think that without East Germany as their power base, they'd had a lot of trouble getting into the (federal) parliament. You're of course correct that they're getting stronger elsewhere, but would that be possible without first establishing themselves in East Germany? I am sceptical about that.

The point is that East Germany as a power base alone is not big enough to enable Die Link to become an established party in the Bundestag. East Germans represent only 1/5 or less of the whole electorate and it is hard to see how Die Linke could get more than 30 % of the Eastern vote. The 25-30 % range is what seems to be the maximum. In 2002, SPD and Greens ran a campaign that marginalised Die Linke (then PDS). The result was that the PDS, despite being strong again in the East, failed to enter the Bundestag (with the exeception of two MPs who won their mandates directly). The PDS was in a very critical state at this point because it became evident that the party would not be able to win ever more in the East and in the same time was not able to appeal to Western voters.

Soon after, the golden opportunity emerged when the Schröder government started their reforms and led to the split up of the SPD. Kalif mentioned it: SPD dissidents founded a new party, at first completely independent. PDS and the WASG (the new party) eventually merged. It was and is a big experiment but the key point is that Die Linke now sort of has an all-German platform in the eyes of voters. Quite a number of influential former SPD politicians joined the party, most importantly of course Oskar Lafontaine, the former SPD chairman. And financially, parties get into a comfortable position as soon they manage to get money from the state. That's what the WASG at least a regional level easily could have achieved even without the merger...

The bottom line is that there's currently lots of space for a party left of SPD and Greens in the whole of Germany. You should really check what happened in the Schröder era and later in terms of politics and policies. It's not as simplistic as you make it look like.