Photo: nd/Peter Steiniger
Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW is a chameleon: it changes colors quickly. At times at the BSW party conference you could ask yourself why it actually split off from the Left. Especially when it comes to social policy. In other questions the differences become very clear. Strict limits on migration, strong emphasis on an economic policy for the middle class, sticking to coal-fired power plants and combustion engines, and not a word about Russia’s shared responsibility for the murder in Ukraine during the Ukraine war – these are set pieces that have nothing to do with left-wing politics.
Wagenknecht’s formula for this hodgepodge is reason. But how sensible is it if the BSW top people only express a distance from the hundreds of thousands who have been standing up for weeks against the threat to democracy from the right? Of course, you have to ask about the reasons, including socio-political ones, for the rise of right-wing extremists. But one could also note that it is not just spontaneous anger that drives AfD voters, but that entrenched fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic attitudes are widespread. To dismiss the civil society that is finally speaking out loudly against it as politically immature, to lecture it and not to support it – that is stubborn, elitist and negligent. And unreasonable.
Subscribe to the “nd”
Being left is complicated.
We keep track!
With our digital promotional subscription you can read all issues of »nd« digitally (nd.App or nd.Epaper) for little money at home or on the go.
Subscribe now!