to hold seats in Parliament. They went from 4% to 13% of the popular vote;
and Angela Merkel's Social Democrats as well as the Socialist Party which had
ruled in a coalition with her in the past have both dropped by a few percentage
points.
Is there anything noteworthy in this development? TheAfG is anti-immigration,
but then they were schooled in the European Parliament. We in America tend
to follow national governments, but the right has found its path in the EU. And
they were funded by Russia and promoted by Russian backed social media.
Ho Hum; nobody is making a fuss about that in Europe.
The result is a less strong Euro, and perhaps a less united Europe; something
in Russia's favor, as it seeks acceptance of its actions in Ukraine. We really are
far away!!
* * *
So the best long term thing about Brexit might be that Great Britain is no
longer sending xenophobia to represent it in Europe, and pick up more bad
habits while there. Making that kind of political expression seem alright.
Not that there may not be an immigration problem. Germany had a massive one,
with millions of refugees at the door. This was perhaps Mr Merkel's
great error. No, she did not have the legal right to refuse them - as she made
clear - but it was rather ridiculous not to treat this situation as problematic.
It was a BIG problem.
Social media bots in an election - specifically funded by Russia - is at bottom
the same kind of issue, about creating a different context of political expression.
Some of the stuff about Hillary Clinton might have been quite ridiculous, but to
have it as a pervasive back noise changes things. It signals the voter about choices
that others might be making. Anyone who has studied Social Psychology knows
we are terribly social animals. If everyone in the room says the shorter line is the
longer one, changes are the subject will agree against the evidence of their own
senses.
But the subject also has to agree that the others in the room are a proper reference
for them. Which acts as a kind of pre-voting. Maybe the media take on Hillary
Clinton was a little much, about time a woman became president, she really earned it...
all kinds of eventually condescending stuff, political correctness hype barely hiding
its true nature. So ridiculous attacks became a corrective, a reassuring thing, even.
As did heaping scorn on that male candidate running against her. A balancing act. That
was a badass election which American scholars have barely begun to phantom.
Mrs Merkel is thus trying for a coalition without her usual partners, the Socialists.
The German Socialist party is the longest extant party in Germany, dating from the
1860s. It split in two as Germany did after World War 2, and merged with communism
during the years of separation in the East, to re-appear after unification in the 1990s.
And it is in Eastern Germany that the opening to the AfG happened. Quite frankly,
who knows what this says. Mrs Merkel is herself an East German and her enduring
popularity is an embrace of reunited Germany. She will now try for a coalition
with the Business party and the Greens, a difficult thing to live with in the long
term. Perhaps a better problem for this very intelligent leader.
* * *
