Reaction to Your Comments on German Elections
Today, I was going to analyze in depth the debate of free speech in Europe vs the US. It was one of the crucial topics that I didn’t address in the article about Germany’s elections because there is too much to say. But you guys had so many comments to the article on German politics that I thought it made sense to address them. Some I agree with, some were insightful, some I consider wrong. But what I love about them is that we were able to have such an intense, civil debate.
I never claim to always be right. In fact, I pride myself in making mistakes, because otherwise I’m not trying hard enough. It’s by making these mistakes that we can learn faster together, by pointing them out to each other and growing together.
So, first here’s my perspective on your comments, and in the next article we’ll dive into free speech.
1. Quick Election Update
No party has a standalone majority.
The right-wing AfD saw a massive increase in representation and is now the second biggest party in the country.
These are the worst election results for the center-left SPD in all its history.
The liberal FDP is unlikely to meet the threshold of 5% of votes to get into parliament.
The left-wing BSW is on the brink of that threshold, but will likely miss it.
Since the center-right Union CDU/CSU and the right-wing AfD parties have a majority between them, at least one of them is necessary to form a coalition.
Since all parties publicized that they would not partner with the AfD, the CDU/CSU will definitely be a member of the coalition. It’s also customary for the most voted party to lead the government coalition.
The natural partner is the SPD, as the parties have already partnered in the past, they’re pragmatists, and they are reasonably close in their views.
From the latest numbers, the CDU/CSU can’t form a governing coalition just with the Greens. And since the CDU/CSU is much closer to the SPD than The Left, the CDU/CSU would rather partner with the SPD, giving them a majority in parliament, without needing the Greens to govern. I think this is good, as the Greens were irrational with regards to nuclear, which made them bad for energy and hence the economy.
The CDU/CSU could try to go at it alone, but that’s unlikely: The last time it happened at the federal level was in 1920, and it would require the abstention of at least two big parties. This could happen, however, if the CDU/CSU plays the right and left parties against each other.
In other words: The most likely outcome is a coalition between CDU/CSU and SPD, but the CDU/CSU has alternatives (AfD, alone). This gives them negotiation power. The question is how well the CDU/CSU will play these options to get more power in the upcoming government.
2. Speed of the East/West Divide Map
You guys complained it was too fast. So here is a slower version, and I’ve added the current election results map.
3. Who Stopped Nuclear in Germany?
I claimed that the Greens closed Germany’s remaining nuclear reactors. Some commenters challenged that, pointing out that Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU+FDP coalition decided to close the nuclear reactors in 2011, after Fukushima, and that the current coalition just executed this plan. This misses the point.
Yes, it’s true that Merkel pushed for this, and that most of the reactors closed in Germany as a result. But Japan also decided to close its nuclear plants, and later reversed course and is now embracing nuclear. Germany could have done the same, but it didn’t.
There were 6 reactors still in operation when Russia’s invasion started. At that point, the coalition could have decided to stop their closure, but they decided to go ahead.
The argument it used was a paper, written by the Greens, arguing it was simply impossible to stop their closure, citing things like lack of human resources or interest from energy companies.
I explained in these four articles why this was not just incorrect, but a lie:
The document was completely one-sided and didn’t address pros and cons.
Many of the statements were actually false.
What energy operators needed was a long-term commitment to keeping the reactors open. Else, it was not worth their while.
As some of you know, one of the Three Mile Island reactors (which suffered a core meltdown in 1979) is being reopened right now. It is ahead of schedule.
Even now, three German reactors could be restarted by 2028 (Brokdorf, Emsland, Grohnde). Six additional reactors could be restarted by the end of 2032.
This is why Merz, leader of the winning CDU, has said in the past that he would reopen nuclear reactors:
And yesterday, he said the work has started to open them back up:
So yes, Merkel decided to shut down the reactors in 2011, but by 2022 Germany knew much more. It’s ridiculous to say the SPD/Green/FDP coalition had no say in this. Reactors could have stayed open. It was the Greens’ insistence that led to their closure.
Some mention that the public changed their opinion only recently. Yes, that’s what intelligent people do! When they have more information, they adjust their conclusions. It was easy to be consumed by fear of nuclear in the wake of Fukushima. But the Greens should have been consumed by fear of CO2 from the gas and coal plants that replaced nuclear, and by fear of energy dependence on Russian gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They didn’t change course, and that’s on them.
You might mistake my position for anti-environmentalism. This is wrong. I’m greener than spinach. But it angers me that those claiming to defend the environment are actually betraying it.
Much more on the topic of German nuclears here.
4. Energy Costs in Germany
Some commenters claimed that Germany’s dependence on Russian gas was a consequence of Merkel’s policies. That is absolutely true! Merkel turned out to be a terrible geostrategist. She put Germany at the mercy of one of its biggest historical enemies, and that shouldn’t be forgotten. The Traffic Lights Coalition (center-left SPD, liberal FDP, Greens) did a great job at eliminating their dependence on Russian gas.
Other commenters argued that the primary driver of the energy price surge was Russia’s war in Ukraine and Germany’s heavy reliance on imported gas, not the renewables push per se. This misses the point completely. Here is Germany’s electricity production up until last year:
The question is: What would have happened if they had continued the push for renewables, but kept nuclear, trying to eliminate coal instead?
Nuclear electricity would have replaced all coal and some gas. In the tradeoff between energy costs, environment, and Russian dependence, only one energy source was perfect—nuclear:
Remember: All this nuclear energy would have been dirt cheap, because the reactors were already fully amortized! It was the cheapest source of energy.
It emits much less CO2 than either gas or coal, and way less of other types of pollution than coal.
It didn’t depend on Russia at all.
That is the energy source the German Greens decided to close. As a result, Germany is dirtier, more dangerous, and poorer.
The enemy is not renewables.
The enemy is not nuclear.
The primary enemy was Russian gas, but Germany couldn’t know this for sure.
The secondary enemy was coal.
The tertiary enemy was the rest of gas.
By targeting nuclear instead of coal, the Greens destroyed energy, environment, and economy.
Immigration, Russia, and Free Speech
These were the three other contentious parts of the debate. These are complex enough that we can only address them one at a time. This week we’ll do free speech. Eventually, I’ll do immigration, but it’s a thorny enough topic that I won’t do it immediately. On Russia, I was surprised at the polarization of the comments, which makes me think maybe I should address it sooner rather than later.
Gender Imbalance
In the meantime, there’s one more thing I wanted to flag. These are the election results for young men and women (18-29):
Younger people are more radical, that makes sense. But here each gender is radicalizing in a different direction! To give you a sense of how radical this is, here they are compared with the average voter (in black dotted lines):
Young men voted for the right-wing AfD more than the average. But young women voted radically more to The Left! this makes me think of this other graph:
What is your interpretation? My thoughts:
Radicalization in general isn’t good. Radicalization of one gender is even worse. It can’t be good for either men or women.
Politics might become gendered.
The dating market will suffer tremendously: more incels—both men and women—women dropping from the market altogether, later marriages, fewer children, more IVF.
Some people will take advantage of this market imbalance (eg, “tradwives”, men posing as more progressive than they actually are…)
See you later this week on Free Speech!
Greener than spinach. That's a new one on me! 🤣
Very similar political split between M/F young voters is observed in Poland