The far-right AfD party won the state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia with 30.5% of the vote on Sunday (1 September), according to exit polls, marking the party's first win in a state election.
Plenty would gladly vote socialist, this is the east we’re talking about, you can see that by the stellar rise of the BSW: 15% in both Thuringia and Saxony, in their first elections. That’s actually unprecedented in Germany I think. Why not Die Linke? Less infected by the New Labour bug than the SPD, still awful though barely managing to be SocDems as opposed to DemSocs. 150% fed up with liberals, have a look at the complete collapse of FDP and Greens. Something something making everyone install heat pumps instead of giving municipalities money to invest in district heating which would even have been cheaper overall.
Put bluntly, from a west German perspective, the issue in Thuringia is that people by and large think you can change shit by whining, complaining, and being nasty to politicians. Now that’s a streak in all of Germany but Thuringia? Have a look at where their top politicians are from: Pretty much anywhere but Thuringia. MFs be like “rule better”, never “Ok I’ll do it”. The “rule better” part is definitely amply justified in Thuringia, their whole political system is dysfunctional, the state parties a clown show approaching American conditions. There should’ve been new elections years ago because the government didn’t have a proper working majority for important stuff, some CDU parliamentarians decided to ignore the health of the political system in favour of their own pensions and blocked those. CDU being corrupt is nothing new or specific to Thuringia, but this brazen? Sticking to “it’s technically legal” while the whole fucking state is shouting at you? Goshdamnit.
Plenty would gladly vote socialist, this is the east we’re talking about, you can see that by the stellar rise of the BSW: 15% in both Thuringia and Saxony, in their first elections. That’s actually unprecedented in Germany I think. Why not Die Linke? Less infected by the New Labour bug than the SPD, still awful though barely managing to be SocDems as opposed to DemSocs. 150% fed up with liberals, have a look at the complete collapse of FDP and Greens. Something something making everyone install heat pumps instead of giving municipalities money to invest in district heating which would even have been cheaper overall.
Put bluntly, from a west German perspective, the issue in Thuringia is that people by and large think you can change shit by whining, complaining, and being nasty to politicians. Now that’s a streak in all of Germany but Thuringia? Have a look at where their top politicians are from: Pretty much anywhere but Thuringia. MFs be like “rule better”, never “Ok I’ll do it”. The “rule better” part is definitely amply justified in Thuringia, their whole political system is dysfunctional, the state parties a clown show approaching American conditions. There should’ve been new elections years ago because the government didn’t have a proper working majority for important stuff, some CDU parliamentarians decided to ignore the health of the political system in favour of their own pensions and blocked those. CDU being corrupt is nothing new or specific to Thuringia, but this brazen? Sticking to “it’s technically legal” while the whole fucking state is shouting at you? Goshdamnit.