Bundestag election ǀ Cheer up and offer – Friday

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Allegedly, there is great perplexity in the Left Party, which is why they failed to meet the five percent hurdle and so appear to have been damaged. Should that be the case – and one can only hope it is not true – it would be the continuation of a barely excusable tragedy. So much realpolitik should be possible in order to know where you are going, if you are doing how.

What is so hard to understand about the fact that wooing and selling is a risky endeavor? Even with a better result for the Left Party – seven or eight percent or more – the chance was extremely slim that Olaf Scholz and the Greens leadership would seriously get involved in a center-left coalition. In 2017, the SPD gave in to the state-sustaining moment of inertia and, despite all the previous assurances that sounded like oaths to Martin Schulz, allowed itself to be maneuvered into a grand coalition again. Even after the federal election in 2021, she would have shown the cold shoulder to an undamaged left-wing party. Reason: The political stability of the country, the reputation as an economic and financial location, the international reliability as an alliance partner, etc. must not be endangered. And then you have alternatives with the Greens and the FPD.

Present, but ineffective

Anyone who lacks the judgment to analyze this matter-of-factly and to draw the conclusion that the election campaign is an illusion is damaging the Left Party and the Left. There is no question that there is not much to be gained for the Left in Germany with a weakened Left Party. One thing can be expected from the party above all: that it exhausts its possibilities instead of wasting itself on the impossible and forfeiting Oskar Lafontaine’s legacy. It was only when he intervened in 2005 that the relevant milieus of West German social democracy and the trade union scene opened up to an all-German left-wing project. When it came to this after its election defeat in 2002 (4.0 percent, only two direct mandates), the PDS was in a similar situation to the Left Party at the moment – still there, but ineffective.

Spongy instead of clear

In this respect, there could only be one leitmotif for the past election campaign: We are a self-confident and independent party that goes against the honor of being the SPD and the Greens majority procurer or stirrup holder. We will not deny ourselves if coalitions are proposed to us, but only enter if we do not deny ourselves.

So why not run an election campaign that clearly identifies rivalries and opposition to the Social Democrats and Greens? Only those who stand by themselves can convince. Recalling Lenin’s paradigms here, when the RSDRP made progress through hopeless inferiority through clarity and consistency, cannot do any harm. Study first, then give up.

But where there is a lack of clarity, something spongy is there. Why constantly relativize or even apologize for the fact that the left considers NATO to be anachronistic and an international security risk, cultivates bloc behavior and wastes immense economic and human resources? Why assert that the NATO question will not prevent a center-left government? Didn’t it have to be audibly asked about the political sanity of those who, after Afghanistan, unconditionally hold on to this alliance and to vassal loyalty to the USA? Recent events (AUKUS) show how this pays off. The defensive stance of the left leadership towards NATO and foreign policy in general could allow possible voters to assume: Once and finally in the government, they will renounce. And what else do you give up to stay in government?

Own exclusivity

What does it help to assert to be a party of social justice and the opponent of Hartz IV, if the voters who could be won with it know exactly that there is a lack of creative power to be able to change? Isn’t that another argument against an election campaign for the truce, instead for one of declaring war on parties that initiated Hartz IV? Why not think about campaigning across party lines?

The Berlin initiative for the expropriation of large real estate groups has shown that social movements for social goals are not an obsolete model. How the state party of the left exposed itself here is probably one reason why it did not crash like the federal party.

It should also be an impetus to realize what was being gambled away when the left-wing leadership at the time considered it appropriate to adopt a reserved or ambivalent attitude to the movement “getting up”, which was largely inspired by Sahra Wagenknecht.

What excessiveness, of all things, to dismantle the politician, who is noticed nationwide, is a brilliant speaker and argues convincing because she does not pray for political dancers. How dogmatic and complacent do you have to be to largely congregate Wagenknecht from the election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia, even to consider expulsion from the party? Did it need confirmation that leftists are always themselves the best enemies?

Dealing with Wagenknecht is unfortunately an exemplary case in which left social criticism is also of little use because the ability to left self-criticism remains rudimentary. The belief in their own exclusivity makes some leftists prefer to rely on denunciation instead of communication in order to conjure up the realpolitical pallor from their faces.

Be radical, not brutal

Sahra Wagenknecht is also right when she criticizes an urban, partly academic elite in the party for overlooking a language of unconditional political correctness that it is not only an identity document, but also a means of rule. How to win back the workers, socially disadvantaged or ordinary employees lost as voters, who rightly see these codes as a cultural attack and as a downgrading? How can trust that has been destroyed by this be restored?

Asserting that mistakes have been made is not enough. Just naming them is not enough. The left should be radical in dealing with social conditions, not in the need to cultivate friend-foe relationships within its own ranks and thus to question itself.

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