Red-green-red in Berlin | Audacity! Socialize Springer!

The “Bild” regularly campaigns against the left. Photo: dpa/Jens Kalaene The experience of the Greens in the traffic light government should teach the left something, as should the practice of Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The Greens had very good election forecasts before the penultimate federal election and had hope of appointing Robert Habeck as chancellor. They had a reasonably rational ecological conversion program with the heat pump, the expansion of renewable energies and the promotion of e-mobility. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In order to ensure energy security, the federal government entered into willy-nilly contracts for the supply of liquefied petroleum gas, oil and gas, primarily from the USA. Some Greens went crazy and even became experts in artillery and tanks.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 also pushed the Greens to the side of the right-wing extremist Israeli government and caused them to forget important insights from the discussions about the logic of authoritarian rule in Germany and Israel. They took part in the persecution of voices critical of the military campaign in Gaza and the West Bank, which violated international law, and of authoritarian anti-anti-Semitism. The indivisibility of human rights was not defended by the former civil rights party.

Alex Demirović comes from a Yugoslavian-German family; the father was deported by the Nazis as forced laborers. Because of a politically motivated veto by the Hesse Ministry of Science, Demirović was not allowed to become a professor in Frankfurt. Since then he has moved at the interface between theory and politics. Every fourth Monday of the month he argues about reality in the “nd”.

It didn't help them. The right-wing press, especially the Springer group with “Bild” and “Welt” and increasingly “Nius,” attacked the ecological transition and the Greens. There were weaknesses, the heat pump concept was not well thought out, and one of those responsible was suspected of corruption.

It seemed as if people rejected the climate goals, viewed the heat pump as the entry of dictatorship into the boiler room, and wanted to stick to the combustion engine at all costs. The traffic light coalition collapsed under external attacks from the media, especially the Springer press, and the internal conflicts between the coalition and the FDP. After new elections, Robert Habeck (Greens) gave up his Bundestag mandate after a short time. More stamina would have been better for the matter. Since then, people have been buying heat pumps and they have been buying electric cars. Many are supporting the social-ecological restructuring.

Gigantic propaganda was also necessary to weaken the great majority of the German population's willingness to help refugees. Many thousands continue to campaign for them, advocating for climate change and anti-fascism despite the discouraging criminalization efforts of the CSU and CDU; With loud protests they reject the militarization of Germany and demand social security and civil defense of democracy. It would have been better for the country's political culture if Habeck had set an example for his Greens, continued to support social-ecological restructuring and campaigned for a green-red-red coalition instead of giving space to opportunist officials. The left-wing leader Elif Eralp in Berlin and Manuela Schwesig in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have shown that it is possible to evade the mood against the right and the united media front of Lanz, Illner, Maischberger, “Bild” and “Nius”. Now both can form a red-red-green coalition.

As leader of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Friedrich Merz was unable to recognize the rules of parliamentary democracy. He repeatedly called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign because he couldn't do it. Merz himself had no concept and still does not have it to this day to solve the problems of German society. He continues to entangle his party and all of us in disaster. He is not the chancellor of all Germans: he has already expatriated the Muslims, the Jews, the poor and the workers. Surprisingly, he knows that the AfD's ethnopluralism amounts to ethnic cleansing, but he does not redirect his government's policies. Although he resists the Springer Group and does not want to form a coalition with the AfD, he wants to continue his austerity policy course and acts as if the people just want more determination to go down the wrong path: more work, less pension, poorer health care, rising rents, fossilist policies against people and nature.

In many respects, Germany is mediocre or at the bottom. But the economy should grow, Germany should be competitive and other countries should compete. Merz's government will not be able to withstand these tensions if it does not open itself up to other goals and actors and - as the majority of people want - changes the decision-making situation with the left in mind. However, with the risk of tearing the CDU and CSU apart in the event of an opening to the left. The fact that the Union is eroding and no longer represents the state party par excellence is a positive development. Their practices were too reactionary, too corrupt, too racist, too hypocritical and conventional. The right-wing fringe of the middle class now has a new party. With civil society violence and demagoguery, this proves to be able to receive support from the petty bourgeoisie and the working class.

The decisions that the parties face are also decisions about the preservation and further development of democracy. Elif Eralp and the Left have managed to win over a significant part of the electorate for a progressive project that addresses the real problems. A corresponding coalition with the Greens and the SPD is possible in Berlin. This actually refutes the demonizing expectation of the AfD's unstoppable success, which is nurtured by the media and especially the Springer press, which wants to bring this right-wing radical party into play as a coalition partner for a bourgeois government. Who together make every effort to discredit social movements, to weaken and demoralize them through legislation, police violence, financial measures from withdrawal of funding from civil society to debanking. By blocking the possibilities for action of the democratic forces of civil society, the aim is to create space for authoritarian politics.

Boldness is required to break new ground, to counter all the unfair and inflammatory attacks and to stand up for more democracy, more reason. So why not call for Springer to be socialized? Why not restructure public broadcasting, which often serves counter-enlightenment instead of democratic conversation among citizens?

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