Four years ago, the party was the most popular in the country – but old rifts have fractured it again. Now the time is ripe for a reset, says historian and journalist Katja Hoyer
The Greens have never been a centrist party, except for rare outliers like the Greens in Baden-Württemberg who at times are indistinguishable from the CDU with green stripes added.
They didn’t lose the center, they tried to take it over since CDU/CSU and now even SPD are drifting further and further right. Habeck and Baerbock were the spearhead of the “Realos”, the centrist movement of an otherwise left leaning party. Both are now on the way out after failing to capture the elusive “Merkel-Mitte”: Basically conservative middle class people who have been mostly favouring CDU so far and supposedly are not willing to fowollow the proto-fascist course that Merz is plotting. Except either these people people don’t exist or they simply didn’t vote for the Greens. Worse, all Habeck and Baerbock achieved is that they massively lost left leaning voters to Die Linke.
Chem Ödzdemir, possible the next President of the German State of Baden-Württemberg recently said the Greens should avoid leftist ideas and focus on their core ideas. Which are what exactly? The modern Greens formed formed out of an environmental movement from West-Germany and a anti-authoritarian movement from East-Germany after the Reunification. Those are inherently “leftist/woke” ideas.
Also the Greens in the West had much more social security and anti capitalist positions until the late 90s early 00s when the former students started making big money in the German industry.
The Greens have never been a centrist party, except for rare outliers like the Greens in Baden-Württemberg who at times are indistinguishable from the CDU with green stripes added.
They didn’t lose the center, they tried to take it over since CDU/CSU and now even SPD are drifting further and further right. Habeck and Baerbock were the spearhead of the “Realos”, the centrist movement of an otherwise left leaning party. Both are now on the way out after failing to capture the elusive “Merkel-Mitte”: Basically conservative middle class people who have been mostly favouring CDU so far and supposedly are not willing to fowollow the proto-fascist course that Merz is plotting. Except either these people people don’t exist or they simply didn’t vote for the Greens. Worse, all Habeck and Baerbock achieved is that they massively lost left leaning voters to Die Linke.
Chem Ödzdemir, possible the next President of the German State of Baden-Württemberg recently said the Greens should avoid leftist ideas and focus on their core ideas. Which are what exactly? The modern Greens formed formed out of an environmental movement from West-Germany and a anti-authoritarian movement from East-Germany after the Reunification. Those are inherently “leftist/woke” ideas.
Also the Greens in the West had much more social security and anti capitalist positions until the late 90s early 00s when the former students started making big money in the German industry.