The Left – and formerly left – in German politics

Sahra Wagenknecht is one of the strangest characters in German politics.

In this image from her Facebook account, she declares that “Alaska was progress,” referring to the Trump-Putin summit on Friday. To which I find myself asking, progress on what? Giving Putin a chance to highlight Trump’s inability to do anything to bring the war in Ukraine to an end? Since apparently nothing of any diplomatic substance was accomplished – where the progress is, I don’t see.

The rest of the captioning says, “Now [German Chanellor] Merz and Zelenskyy have to deliver: Renunciation of NATO, recognize the front lines – otherwise the dying will not end!”

An article from Deutsche Welle from February gives a summary of Wagenknecht most recent career turn of leaving the Left Party and founding a party named after herself, the Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which failed to win seats in the German Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) in elections earlier this year. (1) She had previously been a major leader of the Left Party, which for some reason I’ve never seen explained is called in English by its German name, Die Linke (The Left).

She was a member of the SED at the time of German unification in 1990. She then headed a group called the Communist Platform, which stressed militant left positions in the post-unification environment within the PDS. Over the years, she started adopting positions that weren’t typical “left” ones. She started having nice things to say about ordoliberalism, a conservative form of economic theory that shaped German economic policies under Konrad Adenauer’s Chancellorship and still holds a lot of influence within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Ordoliberalism is a variant of the free-market, cater-to-billionaires view of “neoliberalism.” She also started supporting a version of anti-immigrant politics. And when the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine happened, she took a kind of antiwar stand that was hard to distinguish form a pro-Russian position.

That combination in her current BSW incarnation starts to look uncomfortably like that of the far-right AfD, the German party that J.D. Vance, the US Vice President who is an also an Opus Dei enthusiast and Peter Thiel disciple, promoted at the Munich Security Conference in February.

But she has hedged her positioning on the Russo-Ukraine War, calling Putin a “criminal” over it in 2024. Although in the image above, she’s also seems to be putting the full responsibility on Zelenskyy and the German Chancellor for what happens. All this is interesting in the context of political positioning. But Russia doesn’t seem to see a lot of advantage in a ceasefire or peace settlement at the moment. And in the context of that war, a stable settlement would have to include agreements with the US President over anti-Russian sanctions, among other things. Despite the “progress” Wagenknecht seems to find in Friday’s Alaska show, anything like a diplomatic approach by Trump 2.0 that would provide hope for such an outcome in the immediate future is still sadly not in evidence.

Who/what is the Left Party (Die Linke)?

Wagenknecht’s BSW seems to be trying to appeal simultaneously to the left and the right, including what still seems to be a somewhat favorable view of Russia among many in the former East German states. But BSW’s ability to pull substantial support from either the AfD or the Left Party constituencies is not clear at this point.

To give a Biblical-style genealogy of The Left Party’a evolution, the former East German Communist Party, which was technically named the Socialist Unity Party (SED) begat the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS), which later paired with discontented supporters of the Social Democratic and Green parties to form the Left Party, which won 12% of the vote in its first national electoral outing in 2009. This year reshuffled the deck on the German left:

In January [2025] Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz had enlisted support from the [far-right] AfD in an attempt to pass a controversial immigration bill. The measure ultimately did not pass, but the effort was seen as a weakening of the post-World War II Brandmauer (“firewall”) that prohibited cooperation with parties deemed to be extremist. Heidi Reichinnek, the Left’s parliamentary coleader, delivered an impassioned speech to the Bundestag that condemned any attempt to convey such power to an extremist group. In the immediate wake of this address, which was viewed millions of times on TikTok, membership in the Left skyrocketed. Reichinnek’s social media fame combined with traditional grassroots electioneering efforts to lift the Left out of the political wasteland; the party captured nearly 9 percent of the vote and 64 seats in the Bundestag. Among voters aged 24 and younger, the Left won an impressive 25 percent, a total that equaled that of the CDU and the SPD combined. With 4.97 percent of the vote, BSW fell just short of the cutoff for representation in the Bundestag. (1)

Ines Schwerdtner was a journalist who ran the left-intellectual journal Das Argument (which is broadly speaking in the “critical theory” sphere of political thought) and in 2020 was a co-founder of the German version of the social-democratic journal Jacobin. In this interview from March, she addresses the German political situation: She became the co-chair of The Left Party in 2024.

This is an English-language interview with her from March of this year talking about the Left Party’s results in the national elections: (2)

The portraits on the wall behind her are Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, both icons of the old SED.

She warns against the possibility that Germany could “become like Austria” and “work together with the fascists on a daily basis.” She’s presumably referring here to the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), with whom the conservative Austrian Christian Democrats (ÖVP) formed coalitions twice in the last quarter century, both times with bad results.

The NATO states in Europe, without the United States, spend roughly twice as much on their military as Russia, even accounting for purchasing power. So, at least if you think that the Russian government is composed of rational actors, the story that Vladimir Putin’s about to attack isn’t credible. We have to take people’s anxieties seriously, but not fall into the liberal discourse that says we need more military spending all the time.

The problem with any sort of “peace coalition” with the BSW and AfD is that they’re pretending that if only we had Nord Stream up and running again, then everything would be fine. This is not true. You also can’t attribute Germany’s industrial decline purely to higher energy prices; it’s not that simple. We have a general problem with underinvestment and are falling behind on numerous technologies. So we are caught between two fake news camps who are pretending to solve the whole problem in one fell swoop: by either finally defeating Putin, or by just striking a deal with him. I don’t think that is how geopolitics or industrial policy works. The problems we see now have a lot to do with a wider economic interdependency. But it’s much, much harder to translate that into political communication in a media discourse that is split between those two camps.

As a socialist party, we say: we could get our energy from sources other than gas and oil. But as long as we cannot really translate that alternative to the people — and that’s our job — it’s much easier to imagine that all that’s missing is Nord Stream. That’s easier than saying that we should have €500 billion investment in infrastructure to have clean energy under popular control. So I think we need to work on a left-wing populism that provides that kind of positive alternative, but one that is based on sound policy and not just empty rhetoric for daydreamers. [my emphasis] (3)

I assume that in those comments she’s taking digs at both BSW and the dubious antiwar posture of the AfD. (Everything about the AfD is dubious.)

I’ll be curious to see how Schwerdtner and the Left Party handle the rearmament debates over the coming months. As always, comparing the amounts spent on defense between companies is not in itself a clear measure of their relative strengths in actual combat. But it’s at least more meaningful than comparing the percentages of GDP being spent on defense, which in itself is even a less meaningful comparison.

Notes:

(1) Editors (2025): Left Party. Encyclopedia Britannica 02/24/20252025, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Left-Party-political-party-Germany> (Accessed: 08/16/2025).

(2) How The Left Beat The Odds In Germany’s Elections-Ines Schwerdtner Interview. Novara Media YouTube channel 03/04/2025. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Left-Party-political-party-Germany> (Accessed: 08/16/2025).

(3) Jacobin 11/17/2024. <https://jacobin.com/2024/11/die-linke-schwerdtner-wagenknecht-workers> (Accessed: 08/16/2025).

A couple of European left critics of Biden during this transition period

Here are a couple of European left perspectives on the immediate political situation in the US, a video and an audio interview from former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, and one from Sahra Wagenknecht, who has been a leading figure in the German Left Party for decades. I doubt that anyone would dispute that they are both figures of "the left".

Both touch on the perennial point of dispute within the US Democratic Party, class vs. social identity. It seems that everyone has their own take on how those divisions actually break down and their own preferred descriptions for them. Felix Schilk in a recent essay refers to the terms "economic cleavage" and "cultural cleavage" to refer to those differences, noting that they are common terms in academic research on populism. ("Die soziale Frage als Ordnungsproblem," Das faschistische Jahrhundert, 2020)

The use of "cleavage" to talk about party affiliations is identified in political science with a concept elaborated in 1967 by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan. Without folding in the particular structural analysis they made, these could be useful terms in discussed the "intersectionality" issue involved in understanding the current political distinctions among the center-left, the populist left, and the populist right in European and American politics.

Varoufakis gives a statement on the current US poltiical situation on behalf of the small DiEM25, for which in the serves as a Member of Parliament in Greece for the national party affiliate. Yanis Varoufakis on the 2020 US election DiEM25 11/10/2020:

His interview with Wolfgang Münchau of the Eurointelligence podcast can be found here at Varoufakis' blog, In conversation with Eurointelligence’s Wolfgang Munchau on Trumpism, European fiscal discipline & the US-China Cold War – 10th November 2020

Varoufakis thinks that Democratic progressives in the US are generally on the correct path. He suggests that it's key for Democratic progressives to remember, "It was Obama's failures that gve rise to Trump." And that he uses to stress the need for adequate economic and social policies to give a wider circle of voters and emotional stake in progressive Democratic policies.

Sahra Wagenknecht YouTube talk in her weekly Thursday video podcast is here, Böser Trump, guter Biden? Warum wir uns keine Illusionen machen sollten 11/12/2020:

In the notes to the video, she includes this message, which is not a transcript of the video. I've included it below, with my paragraph breaks added, and my translation into English below.

Joe Biden hat die US-Wahl gewonnen. Aber wird jetzt wirklich alles besser? Dafür lohnt ein Blick in die Biographie des neuen Präsidenten: Wer ist Joe Biden? Wofür steht er? Was hat er in der Vergangenheit gemacht?

Die Antworten sind ernüchternd. Um das tief gespaltene Land zu einen, helfen ein paar schöne Reden und symbolische Akte nicht. Das für viele Medien erneut überraschende Ergebnis von Trump ist Ausdruck davon, wie viele Menschen sich vom politischen »Establishement«, für das Biden steht wie kaum ein anderer, nicht vertreten fühlen.

In den deindustrialisierten Regionen der USA herrschen Armut, Kriminalität, Perspektivlosigkeit – und Politiker, von beiden Parteien, schauen seit Jahrzehnten weg. Die mangelhaften sozialen Sicherungssysteme, in denen Menschen nach 5 Jahren Bezug von Sozialleistung für den Rest ihres Lebens nichts (!) mehr bekommen außer Essensmarken, die schlechte medizinische Versorgung für weite Teile der Bevölkerung, lebenslange Schulden für einen Hochschulabschluss, explodierende Mieten und Immobilienpreise, Obdachlosigkeit, die Drogenkrise, Millionen Menschen in Gefängnissen, steigende Suizidraten, sinkende Lebenserwartung – diese und andere Probleme mögen sich unter Trump weiter verschärft haben, doch die Ursachen für die extreme soziale und kulturelle Spaltung des Landes liegen viel tiefer.

Ich hoffe sehr, dass jetzt besser Zeiten anbrechen. Bidens Bilanz aus fast 50 Jahren politischer Tätigkeit lässt anderes befürchten.

[Joe Biden won the US election. But is everything really getting better now? It's worth a look at the new president's biography: Who is Joe Biden? What does it stand for? What has he done in the past?

The answers are sobering. To unite the deeply divided country, a few fine speeches and symbolic acts do not help. The surprising result of Trump for many in the media is an expression of how many people feel unrepresented by the political "establishment" that Biden stands for like no other.

In the de-industrialized regions of the US, poverty, crime, lack of prospects – and politicians, from both parties, have been looking away for decades. The flawed social security systems in which people get nothing (!) for the rest of their lives after 5 years of receiving benefits except food stamps, poor medical care for large parts of the population, lifetime debt for a college degree, skyrocketing rents and property prices, homelessness, the drug crisis, millions of people in prisons, rising suicide rates, falling life expectancy – these and other problems may have worsened under Trump, but the causes of the extreme social and cultural division of the country lie much deeper.

Biden won the US election. But is everything really getting better now? It's worth a look at the new president's biography: Who is Joe Biden? What does it stand for? What did he do in the past?] (my emphasis)

Both Varoufaks and Wagenknecht articulate the idea that working-class voters were attracted to Trump in signficant part because they felt that politicians were not listening to them. This is okay as a throwaway campaign line. But in American politics, "I don't feel listened to" has become a stock complaint, essentially meaningless without more specific context. Especially for voters whose "cultural cleavage" includes a particular disdain for black people and Latinos, for instance, "I don't feel listened to" is a socially safe of saying they support extremely conservative Republicans without copping to more explicit prejudices.

And of course, here's where the "cultural cleavage" overlaps with the "economic cleavage." On the one hand, for many people the cultural cleavage actually is subjectively more important than any feelings of the now-proverbial "economic anxiety" in their voting decisions. Race and gender and nationalist sentiments count. But at the same time, the material conditions produced by extreme economic inequality, declining incomes, and increased economic security have a huge though not entirely predictable effects on how people experience the cultural cleavage. As Varoufakis notes, extreme economic problems have fueled left as well as rightwing movements in the past.

Varoufakis and Wagenknecht both also stress that Trump didn't start any new wars. This is true. Trump didn't go try to occupy any additional countries with US troops. Obviously, you can't say much about four years of US foreign policy in a sentence or two. But as a polemical point to argue against future unnecessary wars under the Biden-Harris Administration, it makes sense. E.g.: Even Donald Trump didn't do anything as drastic as invading Country X!

But it's important to remember that Trump's "America First" foreign policy was never a peace policy, any more than the Republican isolationism of the pre-World War II America First movement or its immediate postwar "isolationist" successors were. It is a narrowly nationalistic, militaristic view of foreign policy.

I am confident that the level of incompetence that has always characterized the Trump-Pence Administration has been a significant reason that his foreign policy hasn't been even worse. Speaking of invasion, the Administration's exceptionally clownish regime-change operation against Venezuela also included an even more fumbling attempt at an invasion of "freedom fighters" than the Pay of Pigs invasion of 1961 against Cuba. And Trump almost blundered into war with Iran early this year with his targeted assassination strike on a senior Iranian general. (Qasem Soleimani: US kills top Iranian general in Baghdad air strike BBC News 01/03/2020)

The Trump-Pence Administration also fueled the war in Yemen, an ongoing horror show. (War in Yemen Council on Foreign Relations Global Conflict Tracker; accessed 11/11/2020).

The last four years have been yet another serious setback for nuclear nonproliferation, with Trump's sad farce of negotiations with North Korea and his pulling out of the nuclear agreement with Iran. Trump was operating on a genuinely primitive view of foreign policy and international trade and self-enrichment for the Trump family business. A constructive peace policy is something very different.

In terms of EU-European relations, Biden won't be as obnoxious as Trump. But Varoufakis discusses how the expectation of a much better relationship with the US the next four years may remove some of the subjective urgency of strengthening the European Union. Britain has left the EU, weakening both Britain and the EU as actors capable of influencing international events. Trump is openly hostile to the EU. But the US policy under Clinton, Bush II and Obama was to favor a broad expansion of the EU but keep the EU as a relative loose organization with limited ability to challenge US foreign policy. The Cheney-Bush national security policy was very explicit about preventing the emergence of any "peer competitor" in global power. They wanted a weaker rather than stronger EU.

But I don't think anyone on the left or center-left should be complacent about a Biden Presidency. He's facing giant public health and economic crises and a very recalcitrant QAnon-ified Republican Party that will bitterly oppose him on every front.