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Notes -
New week, so new cultural war post- this time for Germany. As you may have seen in your morning news feeds, the German far right wins first major election since WW2 on last Sunday.
Or rather, the German AfD won a plurality of votes in the German state of Thuringia, came very close to doing so in Saxony, and did very well in the formerly communist East Germany. While they did not win a majority in any state, this wouldn't be expected in a more parliamentary-style system either, and by coming up to nearly 1/3rd of the votes it represents the further normalization of the German- and by extension European- far right. While I'll be the first to say I find the labeling of the European right as 'far right' more indicative of European peculiarities and attempts to stigmatize political opponents than objective, it certainly is an increase in anti-Establishment sentiment expressed by parties with views counter to the European political elite consensus. Notably, and in a change from 2019 elections, the 2024 election also saw the rise of the far(ther)-left BSW party, whose rise took votes from established-left parties. While BSW is of the 'refuse to cooperate with AfD' direction, they are also notable for stated opposition to supporting Ukraine with more military aid, though how hard they hold that view / what they might trade it away for in coalition-negotiation remains to be seen.
Politically, this complicates the coalition-formation capacity of the remaining German parties, which have seen efforts at maintaining a non-cooperation cordon of 'any coalition but one with AfD' crack over time. It also raises the typical post-election question of 'what topic of discontent matters most'- as there are your typical breadbasket issues of economics and cost of living, and especially immigration. AfD/BSW appear to be where the anti-Ukraine support politics go as well, though how central that is to the party voters will be subject to the normal democratic post-election shift analysis, which everyone will try to boost their favored topic and diminish others. These are all the more relevant as this leads to the German federal elections next year, which matters due to the fragility of the current government coalition, whose coalition has kept the AfD out of what would be a normal government involvement for cycles now.
Culture implications here are many, from the continued normalization of the European right, to the rise of East Germany as a political spoiler in politics that have been dominated by the western-German political center since unification, to the role of immigration as a 'we're willing to ignore the party stigma for the sake of this issue' issue.
There are also the geopolitical implications, such as how the German election results may shape the Ukraine War. The early take might be that the election foreshadows the decreased chance of future German military aid to Ukraine, but that in turn could drive the current government to 'lock in' support mechanisms in a way a government with less flexibility couldn't pass/reverse, as well as the incentives this public potential struggle could have on actors in peace negotiations to consider whether they are more likely to get a better position after the next Federal election (and thus less reason to make/signal concessions before then).
Overall, interesting if not surprising times.
I don't really agree with that. For the existence of the BRD, the disavowal of the Nazis has been universal in every party. "What Germans did then was uniquely bad, and we should be ashamed about that" was consensus outside of a few fringe parties like the NPD. Granted, in the beginning, the consensus was mostly "let us not talk about it", while after 1968, it shifted to a culture of remembrance. Feeling bad about German atrocities has been a core part of German identity since then, and I think we are better for it.
The AfD, especially in the person of Bjoern Hoecke, breaks this consensus. If I was a smaller country bordering Germany, I would get a bit concerned about a German leader waxing about the 'thousand years of glorious history' of Germany, given historic precedent in that period. I mean, nobody would expect a chancellor Hoecke to try to restore the borders of the Reich in 1914, but then few people suspected that Putin would be willing to start a war of annexation in Europe to restore Russia to the Tsarist glory days.
Hoecke is trying to walk as close to the line drawn by StGB § 86a (which outlaws "Sieg Heil" and the like) without crossing it (and then gets convicted for using the more obscure SA slogan "Alles fuer Deutschland). And where the other parties treat the swastika-tattooed mobs as toxic, the AfD is willing to tolerate them in their voelkisch wing.
Then there is that whole Remigrationskonferenz thing (called Wannsee 2.0 by some). What was said and by whom is contested, but there are credible claims that some called for deporting German citizens if they had the wrong ethnicity, which would be completely beyond the pale. I mean, restricting political asylum is one thing (and unless you have a 2/3 majority, expect the German supreme court to have an opinion on that, because that right is in the constitution), but this is something different. Sending people with US passports back to the birth country of their ancestors is way out the overton window for US politics, and it is similar for Germany.
So no, I don't think that calling the AfD (especially in Thuringia, where Hoecke is the leader) extreme right is wrong.
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Regarding the outcome of the elections, I think this puts the parties in the middle of the spectrum in a bit of a bind. I mean, they can form very large coalitions. Looking at the distribution of seats in Thuringia, if you want a majority without the AfD, you would require some delegates from every other party (except for the SPD) to at least tolerate your government. Given that BSW was formed in a messy breakway from the Linke ('the left'), this seems like a tall order. For Saxony, the situation looks a bit less dire because the conservative CDU did very well. Still, you are stuck with either CDU+Linke+SPD+Greens, or three-partner coalition with CDU+BSW+any, neither of which sound very stable. And four years from now, whoever was formed that coalition is likely going to get punished for it, unless the East Germans are actually satisfied with both state level and federal administrations (fat chance, that).
On the other hand, anyone who had campaigned on not forming a coalition with the AfD (which I gather are basically all of the parties) actually forming a government with them would be a blatant betrayal of the voters trust. In Germany, we have the concept of "Steigbuegelhalter" (literally stirrup holder), which generally refers to the parties which formed a coalition with the NSDAP in 1933 (and were eventually assimilated into it for their troubles). Nobody wants to be that guy.
As an opponent to the AfD, I thus would have liked it better if Hoecke had won 51% in Thuringia, because then he would have to deliver, and show how pushing asylum seekers to other German states would solve the manifold social, demographic and economic problems of East Germany.
I don’t think Putin would agree with this characterization.
He’s spoken of the historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine and used this as partial justification: these borders were made up by the Soviets and didn’t matter at the time since Ukraine wasn’t independent in any real sense.
As far as I know he’s never said that he’s seeking to restore the borders of the Empire or of the USSR. Most charitably, people seem to infer this based on his starting a war and speaking of history. Less charitably it’s a deliberate distortion to make the bad man appear even more bad.
Many borders are accidents of history. If things had gone different, the Texas might still be Mexican, or some other Mexian state might also have joined the US. In feudal societies, it might be down to the order in which some nobles croaked and inheritance was passed along. Sometimes it was just some guy with a straight ruler who could just as well have drawn his line a few arc-minutes further north or south. Sometimes, little details end up being crucial. Hong Kong might have been leased for 50 or 150 years instead of 99. Sure, if the Soviets had organized Ukraine differently, then it might have stayed with Russia when the USSR collapsed. "But I have a reasonable historical claim to these lands" might have flown in 1200 CE, but it does not fly in 2020 any more.
I think Putin wants Russia to become a hegemonic power, as it was during both the Empire and the USSR. Unlike the USSR, he is not motivated by a communist political ideology, but by a blend of nationalism and conservative Christianity, which is why I compared him to the Tsars.
I have not claimed that he precisely wants the territories Russia or the USSR held at any point, but I think the claim that he strives for Russia to be a dominant local power, as it was in the Empire (or during much of the USSR) can be rather well supported. To phrase that as "to restore Russia to the Tsarist glory days" is putting it a bit polemically, perhaps like claiming of an aspiring bodybuilder "he wants to become the next Schwarzenegger".
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