In Germany, Turkish community in the Ruhr tempted by far-right AfD party
While Turkish immigrants in the Marxloh neighborhood of Duisburg had until now mostly voted for the Social Democratic party (SPD, center-left), they have gradually been drawn to the anti-immigration and conservative rhetoric of the far right.
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Why can't the fucking media stop calling the SPD "center-left"? There is nothing left left in the SPD, they are really just another neoliberal centrist party with right leaning tendencies, always ready to copy any half way successful right winger's rhetoric and ideas.
That the SPD lost support of the lower classes is no surprise and a direct result of everything the SPD has done in the past 3 decades.
Of course, it's monumentally stupid of the lower classes to flock to fascists instead, especially for people with immigrant background, but the AfD's Propaganda is especially aimed at lower income demographics, and thanks to a whole bunch of parrots in the media and copycats in the "democratic" parties, they are gaining popularity instead of losing it.
Left, right and center depend on the country. In the German context the SPD is center left. Not because they would have been so in the past. The party certainly moved to the right, but because they support more left leaning policies then the CDU.
Eh. I'd say it's center right, the c*u is right, there's the fascists/far right and then you have the social democratic parties left of center like the greens and the linke.
Things don't have to be relative in this context either. They're also relative, but you can use more absolute criteria as well. Stuff like "wants no one to be coerced into employment" vs "wants some people coerced mildly" vs "wants to coerce everyone to be employed". Or the converse with regards to social security. Or criteria relating to individual rights. Or regulation in favor of hierarchical power structures vs regulations in favor of non-hierarchical power structures. These would all be meaningful left-right aligned analytical lenses.
I do agree though that relative statements can for certain contexts be more immediately practical. But also, the case of the spd is one where thinking about the space of possible party landscapes is relevant: What if the spd were center-left, in the sense of reformist left-wing/labor movement/syndicalist-ish policies, instead of a seeheimer circle oriented mildly right-wing party? That would present a very different type of discourse in society, i feel.
The SPD was always like that. There is a quote by Tucholsky saying that about the SPD in 1932.
Translation by deepl, original below
"It is unfortunate that the SPD is called the Social Democratic Party of Germany. If, since August 1, 1914, it had been called the Reformist Party or the Party of the Lesser Evil or Here Families Can Make Coffee or something like that, the new name would have opened the eyes of many workers, and they would have gone where they belong: to a workers' party. But as it is, the shop does its bad business under a formerly good name."
"Es ist ein Unglück, daß die SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands heißt. Hieße sie seit dem 1. August 1914 Reformistische Partei oder Partei des kleinern Übels oder Hier können Familien Kaffee kochen oder so etwas –: vielen Arbeitern hätte der neue Name die Augen geöffnet, und sie wären dahingegangen, wohin sie gehören: zu einer Arbeiterpartei. So aber macht der Laden seine schlechten Geschäfte unter einem ehemals guten Namen."
You're right, but the SPD also had a brief interlude where they actually did advocate and advance workers' rights from the end of WW2 until the early 1980s.
It’s not wrong, but was there also a good alternative party at the time? AFAIK, the communists were happy to see Weimar burn, hoping it’s them and not the Nazis who would rise from the ashes.
