The Social Democrats are a reliable centrist force. Still. The membership decision in Berlin about black and red shows that large parts of the party have said goodbye to what the majority of society wants.
The Berlin SPD is divided into three camps: First, there are those who want a coalition with the CDU, second, there are members who would rather have continued the red-green-red alliance, and third, there are those who would rather see their party in the opposition would have to clarify the future course. Depending on one’s point of view and cynicism, one could say that the Social Democrats – at least in the capital – are still a real people’s party because their membership reflects society well and is just as divided as the population. Some want to stay in the middle, others want to move the party significantly further to the left. Some even sound politically right-wing.
“The new fascism will not say: I am fascism. It will say: I am Sinem Taşan-Funke and have a (sic!) migration background,” wrote a Spandau SPD member on Twitter to Sinem Taşan, the Juso state chairman -Funke, who had spoken out against black and red. The statement alienated a quote attributed to the Italian Mussolini opponent and writer Ignazio Silone, who was first a communist and later was close to social democracy: “The new fascism will not say: I am fascism. It will say: I am anti-fascism .” The statement is used in right-wing circles to warn against left-wing intolerance.
“Enemy, mortal enemy, party friend” is handed down as a quote from Franz Josef Strauss and goes well with the divided Berlin SPD, which on Sunday followed its leaders Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh in agreeing to a coalition with the CDU with a lousy 54.3 percent. It is astonishing that among the 45.7 percent who rejected a government of Christian and Social Democrats, there were a considerable number of party members who would have liked to have relaunched the Red-Green-Red, the amateurish alliance that Berliners voted out in February had, even if it has a mathematical majority or rather: would have had.
Boldly torpedoed Giffey – but only shortly before the end of the vote
What interests the SPD, what the population wants. This shows that the state association, which was strongly influenced by Kevin Kühnert, SPD general secretary in the federal government, has slipped even further to the left than it already is. In mid-March, Kühnert announced that the federal party was “basically not commenting on ongoing coalition talks,” which was solely a matter for the federal states. The General Secretary either has no idea what his spokesman is saying publicly, or he interprets it very cleverly, which suits Kühnert more.
After the coalition talks had ended, i.e. were no longer “running”, he explained in interviews with “Spiegel” and “The Pioneer”, published on the last days of the membership decision about black and red, which Kühnert heard from Kai Wegener, the Berlin CDU -Chairman and soon Governing Mayor, holds: little to nothing. “Especially the personalities of Kai Wegner are ones that, as a Berliner, I consider more than something to get used to,” he said. “This man embodies little of my hometown, where I’ve lived for almost 34 years. It hurts me.”
This is typical of Kühnert’s understanding of politics. Of course, his primary concern was not to express his reservations about the Christian Democrats, but to choke on Giffey and Saleh and make their lives even more difficult than they will have anyway in the black-red alliance, that – especially after the meager 54.3 percent – is anything but a “grand coalition”. It is an open secret that the two state chairmen and the general secretary are not the best of friends. Kühnert saws at the chairs of the leadership duo to install someone who is further to the left than Giffey and Saleh, who neither want to expropriate corporations nor trivialize youth and clan crime.
The Berlin Jusos, who are well connected to Kühnert, had taken a clear stance against the Black and Reds because the CDU “could not exist in a social and just city” because they “campaigned with right-wing populist content”. They repeatedly referred to a bad joke by Neukölln youth councilor Falko Liecke and the stupid, pointless, unthought-out and very probably racist request by the Christian Democrats in the state parliament for the first names of the rioters on New Year’s Eve, which the party had asked in the arrogance of the upswing in the election campaign.
In February 2022, Liecke wrote on Twitter under a photo after the election of Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour as the new Green leaders “I wish you a happy ‘Allahu Akbar'”, soon deleted the post and apologized for it. But the SPD, which constantly preaches tolerance, keeps pulling out the “joke” to count the CDU as a party as a whole. The Christian Democrats, who are not free of incompetent people, have not managed to keep secret that Liecke is to become youth state secretary in the new Senate – a treat for the opponents of black and red. However: explaining a superfluous request and a stupid joke to the core of the Berlin CDU is excessively exaggerated.
No more people’s party
What is particularly bad is that the supporters of red-green-red in the SPD had no problem letting Bettina Jarasch, Senator for Transport, take government responsibility again, but letting Giffey fail. It was the Greens politician who betrayed the head of government and played a large part in the fact that the mood in the previous government alliance was no longer the very best. Jarasch had not informed Giffey that she would declare Friedrichstrasse a pedestrian zone – not necessarily a confidence-building act. In short: a part of the SPD base would have accepted the sawing off of their chairperson and the belated triumph of Jarasch.
Given this behavior from their own party, it makes sense why Giffey and Saleh are trying to sell the meager result per black and red as a “clear majority” and – even bigger nonsense – “a directional decision that goes well beyond what the next three years concerned”. Kühnert will strongly oppose that. One is inclined to apologize to Giffey for criticism that she broke her promise to form a center-right coalition after the fall 2021 election. Only now does it become clear how great the pressure must have been from the left wing, which idolizes the Greens and the left.
An example of this is the fierce criticism in the capital’s SPD of the statements by former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse, who two years ago warned against aggression against the majority society. The Berlin SPD member considered “the shift to identity politics to be problematic. For example, I think it’s more important than changing the language that we’re working on the gender pay gap.” And further: “We have already lost part of the workforce. That must concern us as a party!” But it doesn’t. Because the SPD in Berlin, as in East Germany in general, is no longer even remotely a people’s party.