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Why does a statement at a Die Linke event become evidence against the whole party, while statements by Israeli ministers are so often treated as individual views?

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Tenants, migrants and younger voters can explain in their own words why Die Linke’s campaign spoke to them. That does not make social media a level playing field. It does mean established media can no longer assume that their account of an election will be the only one people hear.

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For decades, major newspapers and broadcasters had enormous power to decide which political demands sounded reasonable. Social media has weakened that control.

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Germany’s media debate is blurring the line between radical reform and an actual threat to democratic rights. That distortion ultimately benefits the far right.

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Jan Skudlarek @janskudlarek.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

When the topic of redistribution is treated as seriously as right-wing extremism, the political centre reveals what it considers most threatening: not the erosion of equal rights, but the redistribution of power and property.

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Reposted by Sham Jaff

Wer "Ausländer raus!" und "Mieten runter!" gleichsetzt, ist nicht gemacht für das Amt des Bundeskanzlers. #Merz #Hufeisen

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Die Linke has earned its moment of glory. The difficult part comes next: turning first place into a government and turning campaign promises into material improvements for everyone who lives in Berlin, including those whom Berlin’s democracy still excludes.

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And there is symbolism here too. Elif Eralp, the daughter of an immigrant family, led a left-wing party to first place while the AfD tried to turn migration and social problems into threats. Berlin chose a politics centred on rent, inequality and participation instead.

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I cannot assume that people without voting rights would all support Die Linke. I also cannot assume that every non-voter feels represented by it. But Die Linke is more likely than the CDU or AfD to protect renters, low-income residents and people with a migration history.

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Die Linke is also the party explicitly demanding voting rights for everyone, regardless of whether they have a German passport. That makes its victory especially meaningful: the strongest party in Berlin is arguing that more of Berlin should be allowed to shape Berlin.

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Die Linke campaigned on rent controls, affordable housing, stronger public services and a lower cost of living. These policies would help people across Berlin, including many residents who could not vote or who have stopped believing that voting will improve their lives.

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Die Linke deserves its moment. At a time when the far right is growing across Germany, Berlin made a left-wing party its strongest political force. That is a real political achievement.

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So yes, the AfD lost. But no party can honestly claim to represent “Berlin” based only on its share among voters. The winning party received the support of roughly one in eight people living in the city.

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Another 15.9% of Berlin residents were eligible but did not vote. A further 14.2% are minors with German citizenship and therefore too young to vote (they’re the most impacted by many reforms. Sure you might say ‘they’re kids!’). But: Together, these groups make up 50%+ of Berlin’s population.

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The largest group in the graphic is people without a German passport: 22.1% of Berlin’s population. They could not vote in the state election, even if they have lived, worked and paid taxes in Berlin for years.

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Election results usually only show the people who voted. This graphic measures each group against Berlin’s entire population instead. On that scale, 11.9% of Berlin residents voted for the Left. Only 7.6% voted for the AfD. For your reference, here’s the official result (only counting who voted):

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If you are relieved that the AfD did not win Berlin, I understand (me too). The Left came first, while the AfD received around 16% of the votes. But there’s something else that I’d like you to pay attention to. I think it’s equally important: who gets counted in Berlin’s democracy and who does not.

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💯 Interessante Analyse, danke.

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wie kann man das anders / besser machen konkret?

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I haven’t met a Scrum master in a really long time. Are they still around?

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Sham Jaff @shamjaff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Ed Sheeran has the worst PR consultants. This would have been an easy win. The threshold for artists is so low.

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SEO used to determine whether you were discoverable. Now AI systems may increasingly determine whether you exist in the information chain at all. Long live curation.

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“Vote for us or the ‘bad guys’ win” may work 1x. It is hard to build loyalty, imagination or participation around permanent emergency. Give people a vision of a better future. It works.

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So, if the message is “everyone from the center-left to the center-right must unite against the extremists,” you can end up preserving exactly the political order that produced a lot of the anger in the first place.

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Sometimes “democracy” gets treated as if it means rational and fair consensus. But democracy also means very STRONG disagreement over wealth, power, race, migration, gender, labor and ownership. This is an ugly truth but democratic institutions have not been/are not equally accessible to everyone.

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“Save democracy” will not carry an anti-authoritarian alliance for very long if people experience democracy as unaffordable housing, collapsing services, insecure work and no sense of a future.

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They may actually want a much more nationalist, ethnically homogeneous and authoritarian Germany. After 10+ years of the AfD, we should at least investigate the possibility that some of its voters are no longer primarily casting a protest vote. If true, the political problem looks very different.

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When someone votes AfD, we ask: what happened to this person that made them vote AfD? And I do wonder whether, for a significant part of the electorate, the simpler answer is the very scary and uncomfortable one:

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We treat voting AfD as a reaction to politics, and much less often as a political conviction itself. We don’t really do this with other parties. When someone votes Green, we say: they care about climate change. Die Linke, they want more redistribution. CDU, we say they are conservative.

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Economic insecurity, frustration with the government, feeling ignored, anger about failed migration policy, distrust of institutions, the experience of living in eastern Germany. Sure, worth investigating. But there is a strange asymmetry in how we interpret AfD voters compared with others.

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How do you interpret the people voting for these parties once they become large, established political forces? Here in Germany, whenever the AfD does very well, I read attempts to explain the voting behavior like this:

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