Germany and New Zealand Redux

10 comments on “Germany and New Zealand Redux ”

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1. Matthew Whitehead 1

   20 December 2017 at 9:53 am

   Um, both Labour and New Zealand first are anti-immigration parties, Ad, who want less people coming here. They’re just neither as extreme as AfD. It’s completely inaccurate to claim we have no political analogue to AfD here: they literally want to copy our immigration policy, because it’s too anti-immigrant for even the US Republicans to manage.

   I should also point out that AfD’s emergence is arguably a result of the tendency towards grand coalitions. There is a feeling among more extreme voters on both sides of the political system that There Is No Alternative, because even when they vote in large numbers for the Left Party or the Free Democrats, it still delivers a grand coalition because the Social Democrats are unwilling to deal with the Left Party even when they have the numbers to. This phenomenon is why Alternativ für Deutschland got its name, in fact.

   SDP’s stance that it didn’t want to go into coalition was actually about addressing this backlash to Grand Coalitions more than taking an opposition-bench rejuvenation. With the FDP unable to compromise with the Greens, and the SDP being dragged into negotiations by the President, it’s not exactly a happy election result for the CDU, either.

   This is the one big advantage to New Zealand’s tribal allegiances to Labour and National: while the two are actually the closest parties to each other ideologically, *ducks fanboys on both sides* they continuously insist they have larger differences than they really do in order to not co-operate. I actually think it’s reasonably healthy for them both to do this when we’re not in some sort of national emergency, but it does lead to funny situations where each party opposes something bitterly in opposition, but then ends up doing something that’s different only in nuance when they’re in the next government. Go figure.

   Working with National would kill off the Labour Party as a party of the left, not that it hasn’t been drifting centre-ward for ages.
   • Ad 1.1

     20 December 2017 at 10:47 am

     What the AfD believe is this:

     – They repudiate Germany’s shame and guilt about the impact of Nazism
     – They are explicitly anti-Islamic
     – They are intensely patriotic
     – They are explicity against the idea of the European Union
     – One of the key leaders, Fauke Petry, wants the Germany border secured by the military from immigrants
     – They want traditional roles for women, and are anti-gay
     – They deny climate change exists or is human-caused

     They also have strong links with the kind of extremist groups that we haven’t seen here since the end of the Land Wars.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideology_and_policies

     Here’s a useful paper on thier origins, aims, and consequences:

     https://www.du.edu/korbel/ceuce/media/documents/abenheim-afd-full-interview-11-2016.pdf

     It is a very long bow to equate any policy of either the Labour Party or the New Zealand First Party with AfG from the policies that any of them have.

     Not sure your point about the rise of AfG. Under multiple governments there have been and continue to be plenty of party alternative parties rise up, and plenty of different kinds of coalition.

     Personally I see this NZ government, within its first 100 days, as the most left-leaning and most redistributionist I have seen in a very long time.
     • Matthew Whitehead 1.1.1

       22 December 2017 at 9:16 pm

       While I’m a New Zealander, I am in fact a German speaker, and am highly familiar with AfD (excuse me for not being able to think of them by the English acronym, it just doesn’t gel for me for whatever reason) and do follow German politics myself to some degree. (It’s relatively far down my list of things to follow- on a day-to-day level I mostly follow kiwi and US politics) and the factors behind its rise.

       It both is and isn’t a difficult comparsion between AfD and parties like NZF and Labour. Specifically on immigration, their policies are shockingly similar, to an extent that should worry even the NZLP. AfD naturally wants to go further than either do, but the fact that they consider some of New Zealand’s ideas, like the points-system model that is now considered in the political mainstream by both Labour and National, as a model for a Nazi immigration system, should be intensely disturbing to all New Zealanders who support either large party, and we as voters should be asking them why they feel we don’t have a Nazi immigration system.

       I do agree, of course, that AfD’s policies in other areas would be completely unfair to compare to even New Zealand First, which is actually quite moderate as far as nationalist parties without any sort of main focus on an indigenous and/or oppressed ethnic or cultural minority go, and as much as I am bitterly opposed to them politically, they’re more like an unpleasantly poisonous thing you’d eat, while militantly racist nationalists like AfD or the Trump cult are essentially full-blown venomous snakes and should be handled as such.
   • Ad 1.2

     20 December 2017 at 10:51 am

     The AfG’s policies are outlined here:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#cite_note-Duke-3

     – Deny climate change exists
     – Traditional roles for women
     – Resists immigrants at all borders by military force
     – Compulsory military service for all
     – Specifically anti-muslim

     And has very deep links to the kind of extremist groups that we haven’t had here since the end of the Land Wars.

     So no, trying to equate either New Zealand First or the New Zealand Labour Party with Alternative for Germany won’t work.

     https://www.du.edu/korbel/ceuce/media/documents/abenheim-afd-full-interview-11-2016.pdf
     • corodale 1.2.1

       21 December 2017 at 11:34 pm

       Open invitation for a cup of tea in Dresden! Sorry, no beer for you boys, better to stick with the cola.
2. Draco T Bastard 2

   20 December 2017 at 11:26 am

   Most of our remaining arguments are about how to redistribute taxes rather than any notable structural reforms, and the basic social compact is well set.

   Which is probably why we’re failing. We seem to have hit our End of History moment.

   Our poverty is structural, our abuse of beneficiaries systemic and the corruption is soaring. We really don’t want those to be strong as it tears our society apart.

   The SPD could seek that surplus get spent on targeted tax cuts for working people.

   There’s no such thing. Tax cuts, even when given to the poor, always go to the rich as they’re in a position to grab the extra cash whereas the poor are going to be in the same position and having to spend everything that they’ve got just to get by.
3. Policy Parrot 3

   20 December 2017 at 1:34 pm

   Option 2 seems the most plausible. Obviously, the SPD would have to indicate which particular policies from the CDU/CSU are a bridge too far and would result in SPD votes against, rather than abstention.

   They also retain the distinction of the official opposition, and become the handbrake on the most extreme tendencies of the Merkel coalition.

   Sounds similar to the Canadian scenario in 2009? when Conservative PM Harper was kept in office by Liberal abstention when a coalition of Liberals, NPD and PQ could have ousted them.

   Weimar Germany is a more sobering analogue. The Conservative Parties and SPD were encouraged to form grand coalitions to the point where there was a “majority of extremes”, where the KPD and Nazi parties together controlled more than half the seats of the Reichstag, and effectively, either one could bring down the government by voting with the opposition.

   These days: die Linke and AfD together hold 27% of the seats in the current Bundestag – although I would dispute that despite some tendencies, either die Linke or AfD are as extreme as their forbears. Just illuminating that this strategy, particular of isolating the KPD/die Linke from government at a federal level may prove counterproductive in the long term to the political landscape.
4. greywarshark 4

   20 December 2017 at 9:54 pm

   A good read Ad. You explained the German situation well enough for me to get the picture.
5. Jackel 5

   21 December 2017 at 4:16 pm

   I tell all too well by your article you’ve made no Faustian bargain yourself.
6. corodale 6

   21 December 2017 at 11:10 pm

   Well written, lieber Faust. But consider this: With German Democracy sweet as cola, we can we not expect them to follow NZ’s trend of more outsoucing to the East? If they can outsource atomic arsenals, why not a govt? Or continue watching foot ball from the Alps of Chicago? Sport or oriental dancing? The mind boggles.

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