tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983372.post112717245431298299..comments2023-11-05T04:04:12.442-05:00Comments on Short Schrift: "Kraftvoll. Mutig. Menschlich."Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026955797817424956noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983372.post-1127176899051229492005-09-19T20:41:00.000-04:002005-09-19T20:41:00.000-04:00Many thanks for your comments, Andy. "Fringe" was ...Many thanks for your comments, Andy. "Fringe" was ill-considered. I originally wrote just "minority parties" -- I don't know why I went back and added "fringe," other than to suggest by contrast that the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats (which are themselves composed <I>de jure</I> if not <I>de facto</I> of multiple parties) There's also a pejorative connotation to "fringe" that I didn't intend at all. Anything else that I could add about the Greens, the Left, and the Free Democrats you've nicely done already.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13026955797817424956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983372.post-1127175451808508692005-09-19T20:17:00.000-04:002005-09-19T20:17:00.000-04:00Good summary and interesting perspective on the el...Good summary and interesting perspective on the election. No, you're not the only person fascinated by this. :)<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure I'd agree with your description of the Greens, Free Democrats and Left Party as "fringe." <A HREF="http://langohio.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">Together, they polled about 12 million votes</A>, i.e., more than one-fourth of the total. Four million voters supported the Left, or 8.7 percent. There hasn't been a single one-party government in Germany since the 1960s; either the SPD or the CDU/CSU have to govern in coalition with one of the smaller parties, and in Germany that's quite normal. <BR/><BR/>The FDP is one of the Federal Republic's oldest parties--founded in 1946 and a direct descendent of older, "liberal" parties that have existed in Germany since the 1850s. The Greens have been in the federal government for seven years, and in the Bundestag since the early 1980s. The Left has been a stable "third party" in the eastern states (where's its share of the vote nearly equals that of the CDU and SPD), is the junior partner in two state governments and the largest party in more than 100 municipalities. It's now gaining ground in the western states for the first time.<BR/><BR/>None of these represent a "fringe." Rather, in Germany they are called "milieu parties" with a particular social milieu as their base. For the FDP, that would be business and middle-class people who support free markets and civil rights. For the Greens, a large part of the formerly-radical (but now quite middle-class) generation of "1968"--especially those for whom the environment is issue number one. For the Left, left-wing socialists (still quite numerous in Germany as almost everywhere else in Europe), those who still believe in the very traditional German "social state" and especially Germany's growing underclass of unemployed and low-income workers. <BR/><BR/>There are indeed "fringe" parties but these three are not among them. You'd have to look at the 40 or so parties that collectively manage to win no more than 3 to 4 percent in a typical election: four extremist parties of the right, a handful of left-wing sects, the small German Communist Party, and a collection of other small groups. That's the "fringe" in Germany and it's quite small.Andy Langhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com