Not sure what to make of the surge of the Greens here. The Greens essentially built their campaign on a mixture of wishy washy promises (they're going to bring more humanity into politics, yeah) and downright nastiness (screaming down opponents in debates). A combination that on the surface would seem to cancel one another out, but apparently it didn't.

I guess it's all sympotamatic for the high degree of disorientation that has taken grip of Germany.

Green surge? Clearly due to their extremely generous proposals for refugees

What is the Greens position on refugees?

AfD still got the bigger swing than the Greens.

Look here

All should be welcome to come.

None should be sent back.

Governments need to cooperate with people smugglers to make it easier for refugees to come.

Any country that does not tow that line needs to have its EU funding cut and voting rights suspended. As a second step, military force needs to be applied if necessary to force resettlement.

Any individual in German disagreeing with their point of view should be placed under police observation, and/or have their children taken away. If they work for the government they need to be fired immediately. Dawn raids on people's houses are acceptable if there is reason to think they disagree with Green policy.

These points are not official party policy but have been voiced by individual politicians in positions of authority within the party, without being denounced by the party, or the party taking any measures against those individuals. So you can sort of see what they really think.

On one of my troll accounts on a Green party forum I have also made all these points and harvested dozens of likes.

So they are pro-military and pro-police? Ok, sounds good to me

Just joking Are the Greens more to the Left than the Social Democrats?

Making a point is one thing but isn't that just a wee bit tragic?

Just wow.

This is an eternal debate and I don't think there is a straight answer.

Both SPD and Greens include a range of different viewpoints, and you can probably find examples that tip the verdict either way.

But I think you can say that the SPD is traditionally anchored in the more classical social democratic old-school cloth cap bracket, and are typically supported by Unions, by civil servants, teachers etc.

The greens have their roots more in the activist scene, tracing their origins to the 1960s student unrest and later the anti nuclear movement. As they grew maturer they went through some difficult phases of moving away from their initial points of view and the party came very close to splitting several times in its history.

But there is a considerable overlap and you will find quite a few policians who have swapped parties at some point in ther careers.

So if the SPD goes into terminal decline, I think it would be fair to say the greens will be their natural succesoors as far as speaking for teachers and covil servants goes. The AfD is more likely to lap up the remaining cloth cap working class folks.

Some action in Köln yesterday...an ISIS "asylum seeker" throwing bombs and taking hostages...

https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-...ion/a-45893296

Interesting article here about the Green surge in Europe.
This runs counter to the view that Europeans will voice protest by voting for far right populist groups.

Seems like just another isolated nutter!
Source

Germans mostly want Merkel to stay and Seehofer to go.

https://twitter.com/COdendahl/status...069153792?s=19

Also, life in Germany is good and people are not afraid to go out and enjoy the sunny days of autumn.
Oh, and people are sick of Seehofer threatening to kill the GK.

Having said that, I do want Merkel to finally go home, but turning the conservative parties into a German SVP in order to satisfy a few racist idiots is not the way to achieve this.

By the same logic the SVP trends towards nazi-ism and other brown shyt, otherwise they would have kicked Marcel Toeltl, then local president of the SVP in St. Margrethen, after the federal court ruling that allowed to call him "Nazi-Sympathisant" and "bekennender Rassist" (nazi smpathesizer, confessing racist).

I wouldn't say tragic, but definitely sad... Reminded me of someone who made multiple accounts on a site to give bad rep to a restaurant...I was like "You really did that?"....wow.

So let's see if Merkel will survive Hesse too.
Normally she should, especially if the CDU-Green coalition stays in power.
The alternative (Greens-SPD-Linke) might lead to a new general election.

It's very narrow.

Ah, well. We can sit here and watch, from our somewhat elevated position, how the German politics enters self-destruct mode.

Ignore voters, get punished shocker.

AfD did well but contrary to the populist doomsayers so did the Greens.

Neither got enough votes to force a role in the Parliament majority so will be interesting to see next time around if after some years of impotent sitting on the back benches if they still attract a lot of votes.

Merkel giving up her party role.

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told her CDU party that she will not run for re-election as its chairwoman in December, sources say.

Her decision comes after her party suffered heavy losses in regional elections that threatened the stability of the governing coalition.

Mrs Merkel has been chair of the CDU since 2000, becoming one of its longest-serving chairpersons.

She has led Germany as chancellor since 2005 - and wants to stay in that post.

Mrs Merkel has reportedly told CDU party leaders that she will step aside from the leadership election bid after the centre-right party and the centre-left SPD both took a hit in ballots in Hesse state at the weekend.

However, she said that she would like to remain chancellor, local media report."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46016377