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Month: December 2024

News From Berlin and Germany, 4th December 2024

Weekly news round-up from Berlin and Germany


04/12/2024

NEWS FROM BERLIN

All of Berlin is “#unkürzbar”

There is uproar in Berlin in the face of budget cuts and a policy that largely ignores social interests. Following initial demonstrations against the cuts last week, protests will now increase. On Thursday, December 5, social organisations, teachers and tenants will take to the streets. For the various interest groups and areas affected by cuts, one catchphrase is gaining ground: #uncutable (#unkürzbar). The renters’ movement is also mobilising against the federal government’s housing summit and calling for a nationwide rent cap. But the frustration is also directed at the Senate – here too under the motto #unkürzbar. Source: taz

NEWS FROM GERMANY

AfD’s Bavarian chapter passes mass deportation resolution

At the AfD’s party conference in Greding, its Bavarian chapter adopted the “Bavarian Resolution for Remigration,” which would see German citizens with a migration background and non-Germans living in the federal republic deported from the country. “Groups of people with a weak ability and willingness to integrate should be returned to their home country by means of mandatory return programmes and supported in reintegrating into their society of origin and in (re)building their home country,” the resolution states. Source: iamexpat

Germany to launch bunker location app

The Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and the German Interior Ministry plan to reintroduce public bunkers and a shelter location app amid rising global tensions. BKK’s spokesperson said that key elements of the plan had already been agreed upon in June 2024, but the project would take “some time” before any app would be launched. 579 World War Two and Cold War-era bunkers remain in Germany, and they could provide shelter for 480,000 of Germany’s population. Residents would also be asked to convert their basements and garages into shelters. According to the BKK, Germany’s high building standards mean basements would be adequate to protect residents. Source: iamexpat

Germany’s labour market needs more immigration

The German labour market will be reliant long-term on “substantial” immigration each year. Until 2040, around 288,000 foreign workers will be needed each year to ensure a sufficient supply of available labour, as an analysis commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung shows. Currently, labour migration is significantly lower than it needs to be. Susanne Schultz, a migration expert at Bertelsmann, says that barriers need to be removed and the conditions for immigrants improved. She explained that, without the influx of additional immigrants, the workforce would shrink by around 10% due to demographic shifts. Source: deutschland.de

Major strikes at Volkswagen

IG Metall called on the almost 120,000 employees at Volkswagen plants to participate in warning strikes last Monday. “If necessary, this will be the toughest collective labour dispute that Volkswagen has ever seen,” says Thorsten Gröger, IG Metall negotiator. After the VW Board of Management rejected a compromise proposal from the union last week, the peace obligation ended at the weekend. Strikes are for instance taking place at the main plants in Lower Saxony – with the exception of Osnabrück, because the collective agreement for the metal and electrical industry continues to apply there. The next round of negotiations will take place on December 9. Source: nd

Germany experiences dramatic rise in measles cases

“Measles has returned to Germany,” the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) recently warned. According to its report, the number of cases of the disease, which is particularly common in young children and can be fatal, has risen dramatically in 2024. More than 600 cases have been registered so far, compared to 8 just 3 years earlier. Other vaccine-preventable diseases such as hepatitis B and whooping cough are also on the rise. According to experts, reasons for such increase range from imported viruses to increasing vaccination scepticism and activism by anti-vaccination campaigners on the internet. Source: dw

AfD considers separation from Young Alternative organisation

The Federal Executive Committee of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is in favour of splitting from its youth organisation. The Young Alternative (Junge Alternative, JA) has been relatively independent up to now – and is indisputably right-wing extremist. The AfD has long been considering establishing a new organisation based on the model of the Young Socialists (Jusos, from SPD), and it is no secret that the party is unhappy about JA. The Jusos model can indicate that every AfD member under the age of 36 would automatically be a member of the youth organisation. Source: taz

Interview with a Jewish Staff Member at the Berlin University of the Arts

While reports of “antisemitism” and “threats against Jewish students” at the Berlin University of the Arts circulate, actual Jewish students are ignored


03/12/2024

Editor’s note: the interviewee’s identity has been withheld for their protection.

Could you tell me about your experiences of antisemitism at UdK?

My main experience of antisemitism in my workplace has been that of being ignored because I don’t fit into prescribed ideas of how a Jewish person should feel on the topic of Israel’s genocidal war.  These ideas are projected onto me mostly by non-Jewish Germans, and it has led to my marginalization from conversations that are purported to protect my “safety.” In reality, these conversations shut down freedom of speech and particularly criminalize Palestinian, Middle Eastern, and Arab voices.

I’ve never encountered anti-Jewish hatred at protests against Israel’s genocide. If anything, I’ve felt welcomed on the basis of a shared cause. The violence I’ve seen has come from the police attacking Jewish protesters.

Earlier this year, a group of UdK staff, including the president, issued a statement claiming Jewish, Israeli, and “antisemitism-critical people” are being discriminated against. Have you observed this?

I haven’t heard concrete examples of antisemitic discrimination at the UdK. One example offered in the statement concerns a vigil in November 2023, which my group, the Jewish Solidarity Collective, believes was unjustly labeled as antisemitic. We argue that these inflammatory allegations of antisemitism shut down the possibility of more nuanced discussions about protest methods and political symbols.

I’ve also attended a meeting of Jewish members of the UdK. The most concrete example expressed there was discomfort over seeing students wearing the Keffiyeh as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. Other Jewish people put on their Keffiyeh when they left the meeting — this simple difference already shows there are a range of positions within the Jewish community at UdK.

There’s been an image circulating of graffiti in a UdK bathroom that allegedly reads, “Free Jews from being,” Reportedly, the word “instrumentalised” was removed, and with that additional word the strange formulation would make more sense. The image is now being circulated as “proof” of rampant antisemitism. It’s become quite a neurotic and fear-driven environment with little space for careful and critical thinking, nor for listening to the diverse perspectives of Jewish people, let alone Palestinian and other Middle Eastern voices.

It does seem like the term “antisemitism-critical people” means that any non-Jew who supports Israel can declare themself to be a victim of antisemitism—even if their views are criticized by a Jewish person.

It does indeed seem that many of the loudest voices on antisemitism at UdK are non-Jewish. This interview in Die Zeit features four people discussing the issue, only one of whom is Jewish (and also Israeli), all of whom support the same narrative. There are a small handful of people who talk so aggressively about antisemitism at UdK, like Elias Braun, that it’s surprising to learn they aren’t Jewish.

You are part of a Jewish Solidarity Collective at UdK, which has demanded a meeting with the UdK President. Have you had a chance to speak with him?

The president of UdK took almost a month to respond to our request for a meeting. In the end he refused, suggesting we come individually or in pairs to his regular office hours for students, ignoring the fact that we are a mix of students and staff. He explicitly stated he would not regard those who came to his office as representatives of a collective. Despite our respectful attempts to engage with him, he criticized our anonymity and refused to meet with us as a group, claiming we were creating paranoia and mistrust in the school. As Jewish students and staff members who speak up against war crimes, the breaking of international law and ethno-nationalist ideology, we feel ignored and sidelined. It seems the presidium offers support only to Jewish students with whom they agree, while their experiences and opinions are framed as those of (all) Jewish students at the university.

The media continues to focus on a protest from last year, where some students had their hands painted red. How do you respond to claims that the protest was antisemitic?

I wasn’t at the protest, but other members of the Jewish Solidarity Collective were. The red hands were meant to imply complicity in violence, not an antisemitic gesture. This symbol is used in many international protest movements, including in Israel. From the reports of Jewish students who were there, the vigil was a mournful and emotionally charged shared experience which highlighted the deaths of children in Gaza; their names were read one by one. Jewish people were not targeted in any way — rather, the gathering became more heated when the UdK president was put on the spot by some protesters about the university’s public statement of solidarity with Israel. 

Tania Elstermeyer, who claimed the red hands were antisemitic in the press, had previously been part of organization meetings for the vigil, having had the opportunity to raise concerns there about possible other readings of this symbol if she wanted to. Elstermeyer was thereafter also briefly hired as the interim (non-Jewish) Antisemitism officer at UdK. She collected names and filmed students engaged in pro-Palestinian actions at the Rundgang exhibition, including at least one Jewish student, and was removed from this position after a freedom of information request revealed what she had been up to.

A Jewish person with right-wing views has claimed that Jewish students at UdK have faced antisemitism. In this interview, it sounds like many of the people facing “discrimination” might actually be just non-Jewish, “antideutsch” supporters of Israel.

There is a lack of differentiation between discrimination and being confronted with opinions which might make one uncomfortable. I believe the confusion between these experiences is how non-Jewish Germans can come to feel that they can be a victim of antisemitism. Discomfort may be subjectively felt as a ‘‘threat’’ but that does not mean that the expression of differing political opinions constitutes discrimination or harassment. Ironically, it is exactly this room for dispute and debate that the university is supposed to offer. Even the author of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, Kenneth Sternm emphasizes this distinction, especially on campuses.

I’m frustrated that the full diversity of Jewish students’ voices aren’t heard in these discussions, that anti–zionism is equated with antisemitism, and that non-Jewish Germans so often speak over Jewish people while claiming to speak for us. 

 

The Fabrication of a Scandal: Nan Goldin at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie

One week on: a cool-minded reflection on how the retrospective of one of our greatest living artists was overshadowed by orchestrated controversy


02/12/2024

It has happened again. The monstrous apparatus of the Staatsräson has swung into action to manufacture the latest scandal in Germany’s cultural scene. This time the target is none other than Nan Goldin, one of the world’s most acclaimed living artists, nominated the “Art World’s Most Influential Figure” in 2023 by ArtReview’s Power 100 list.

A Legacy Between Art and Activism

Nan Goldin is not just a photographer, and this is likely the reason why her influence extends far beyond the art world. Her work is intrinsically interconnected with her activism. She began photographing her friends from the underground scene of Boston, Berlin and New York during the 1970s and 1980s with a raw, nearly reportage-like style, capturing the vulnerability and complexity of their lives and relationships. Her subjects are friends and lovers, members of the LGBTQ+ community, whose stories she portrays as an insider, as someone who shares their joys and sorrows. To show her work, which she initially exhibited in bars and nightclubs, she developed a slideshow format using a projector, slides and music. The slideshow evolved into The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, perhaps her most famous work, which was exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in 1985 and published as a book.

Sensitive to the societal changes of her time, Goldin’s focus extended from subcultures to the AIDS crisis, drawing attention to how her subjects were consumed by the disease—a tragedy she largely attributes to government negligence in managing the emergency. In 1989 Goldin organized the group exhibition Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing at prestigious non-profit gallery Artists Space in New York, the first of its kind to focus exclusively on the AIDS epidemic, aiming to combat stigma and give voice to her subjects. In 2017 she founded Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.), a collective fighting against the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical giants responsible for producing and promoting the highly addictive OxyContin, at the epicenter of the opioid crisis. Goldin herself became addicted after being prescribed the drug in 2014. Her activism, recounted in the Oscar-nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, has led several international institutions to renounce and disassociate from Sackler family funding.

Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza, defined as genocidal or potentially so by distinguished historians, international law experts and non-governmental bodies including the International Court of Justice and the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices, Goldin’s activism has focused on the Middle East. As a Jewish artist, she has used her platform advocating for the Jewish movement Not in our name, was among the signatories of an open letter by cultural workers published on Artforum in condemnation of the assault on Gaza, publicly cancelled a project with the New York Times over their “complicity with Israel”, and was recently among the 200 Jewish activists arrested at a protest for Palestine at the New York Stock Exchange.

After stops in Stockholm and Amsterdam, the opening of her life retrospective This Will Not End Well on Friday 22 November at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin – where it will run until 6 April 2025 – was the epicentre of what many in German media and institutions have described as a ‘scandal’, despite the fact that the only ‘scandalous’ thing about it is the precise intention to fabricate a controversy out of it, one that bears the seal of Germany’s Staatsräson.

A Speech as Uncomfortable as Necessary

On the evening of the opening, long queues formed outside the venue, while security checks felt tighter than usual. Fredrik Liew, curator of the exhibition, and museum director Klaus Biesenbach introduced Goldin’s work and the exhibition with a speech. Biesenbach emphasised the importance of an open dialogue despite differences of opinion, immediately making clear the distance between his ideas and Goldin’s. After them, Goldin took the stage and began with four minutes of silence for the victims in Gaza, Lebanon, and Israel. “Were you uncomfortable? I hope so. We need to feel uncomfortable, to feel our bodies under siege, even for a minute.” As expected, in her 14-minute speech, she addressed the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, condemning the complicity of the USA and Germany. “Why am I talking to you? Germany? Because tongues have been tied, gagged by the government, the police, the cultural crackdown.” She referred to the over 180 cases, documented by Archive of Silence, of cultural events and artists which have been cancelled in Germany after October 7th.

“Why am I talking here? I decided to use this exhibition as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. I saw my show as a test case. If an artist in my position is allowed to express their political stance without being canceled, I hope I’m paving a path for other artists to speak out without being censored. I hope that’s the result. Why can’t I speak, Germany? Criticism of Israel has been conflated with antisemitism. Anti Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism. This is a false equivalency used to maintain the occupation of Palestine and to suppress those who speak out. The word antisemitism has been weaponized. It’s lost its meaning.” “The ICC is talking about genocide. The UN is talking about genocide. Even the Pope is talking about genocide. Yet we’re not supposed to call it a genocide.” She said that what she sees in Gaza reminds her of her family’s stories about the pogroms they escaped in Russia, and that she is speaking up “because advocating for human rights cannot be antisemitic. Because I use words people here feel endangered to say. Because Israel and Germany use the Holocaust and memory culture to manufacture innocence”. She concluded by inviting people to take to the streets.

Goldin’s speech was followed by applause and chants from a group of activists. They displayed Palestinian flags, keffiyeh and a banner reading “Staatsräson is genocide”. Photos of police violence from past demonstrations in Berlin were also shown. Biesenbach attempted to respond to Goldin’s intervention, reiterating his earlier statement: “As I mentioned, I disagree with your opinion, Nan.” His words were met with vocal resistance, making his voice completely inaudible. One wonders what prompted Biesenbach to take the stage again, since he had already made clear that his ideas differ from Goldin’s. Or rather, it is clear that what unfolded was just an example of submission to the unquestionable dogma of the Staatsräson, to which one must pledge allegiance in Germany in order not to risk becoming a victim of state oppression. What is not clear is what exactly Biesenbach disagreed with, as Goldin merely listed a series of facts. To question them is to try to deny what is happening in the Occupied Territories. It is also clear that at that moment Biesenbach was not speaking in a personal capacity, but as a representative of a public institution and, by extension, of the state. His behaviour mirrors exactly that of German politics, which skilfully juggles between denying the evidence we see daily on our phones and ignoring it, trying to distort reality to support its own twisted view of the world.

Once the protesters peacefully left the building, Biesenbach went on stage to resume the speech he had failed to finish. He reiterated, once again, his disagreement with Goldin, lamenting that he had not been able to speak and emphasising the importance of freedom of expression. Ironically enough, at that very point of his address, the minions of the Staatsräson – gallery employees and security – used their bodies to cover the banner “Staatsräson is genocide” that the protesters had meanwhile unfurled, this time from outside the museum, until the guards removed it. Emblematic of freedom of expression in Germany at the moment.

Critics argue that the contestation to Biesenbach was inappropriate since he himself would have allegedly fought hard to allow the exhibition to go ahead as planned, protecting it from attempts to cancel it. It is also fair to recognise that Biesenbach himself was under great pressure for platforming Goldin. At the same time, it is hard to imagine what the repercussions of cancelling an exhibition by such an important and renowned artist as Nan Goldin would be – the choice of going ahead felt almost a forced one. And even if it had not been so, a sense of gratitude towards the non-cancellation of an exhibition due to the artist’s political position is an argument that should have no place in a country that calls itself ‘democratic’. Both this apologetic mentality and the manipulation of the narrative by institutions are dynamics that must be contested in the strongest terms. Such dynamics cannot and should not risk being normalised.

Reactions from German politicians were exactly what one would have expected. Among the ‘outraged’ were State Minister for Culture Claudia Roth, who condemned the protests: “I am appalled by the way the director of the New National Gallery was shouted down”, said the Minister from the Green party. “Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable and it is an attack on the museum and cultural work, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms”. Joe Chialo, CDU Senator for Culture of the City of Berlin, stated that he doesn’t “share Nan Goldin’s position and find her statements unacceptable. In our city of Berlin, where the Holocaust was planned and which now stands for freedom, such one-sidedness, oblivious to history, is unacceptable.” He continues saying that Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable for Germany and it is the country’s responsibility to protect it. Except that this ‘right’ was never mentioned in Goldin’s speech. The attempt to distort the artist’s words shows a specific desire to divert attention from the real problems: occupation, apartheid, genocide, as she herself pointed out.

Unsurprisingly, the German press moved in the same direction: they reported that ‘Israel haters cause tumult at exhibition opening’, of ‘malicious distortions of reality’ on Goldin’s part, even taking a patronising attitude in scolding the artist for ‘abusing her retrospective’.They went so far as to say that Director Biesenbach “turned the Neue Nationalgalerie into an ‘unsafe space’ for our Jewish fellow citizens by inviting Nan Goldin and her political takeovers”. Goldin is herself Jewish, but this did not seem to interest many in the media, who even described her as one of the “useful idiots of the enemies of the Jews: when Jews ally themselves with Hamas and Hezbollah”. According to their twisted logic, in order to criticise the crimes currently taking place in Palestine, a Jew must self-hate. An anomalous case is an article published in Stern, which is surprisingly factual and neutral.

The Beginning of the Controversy: The Symposium

The controversy surrounding Goldin’s exhibition started before its opening, with the symposium Art and Activism in Times of Polarization: A Discussion Space on the Middle East Conflict, scheduled to happen two days after the opening of the show. Ostensibly conceived to facilitate dialogue on a divisive topic, the event was organised by Anne Frank Education Centre director Meron Mendel and writer Saba-Nur Cheema. It became the focal point of criticism when Strike Germany, a collective of cultural workers advocating for a boycott of German institutions silent on Palestine, issued a critical Instagram post renaming it Ambiguity and Avoidance in Times of Genocide. Here the symposium was described as “largely dominated by genocide-denying Zionists, while pretending to offer multiple ‘nuanced’ positions” and as a “preemptive defense against any critique leveled at the museum’s director Klaus Biesenbach for presenting the work of a vocal anti-Zionist like Nan Goldin.” Their accusation was direct: the event’s true purpose was not open discourse but rather a strategic maneuver to shield the director and the Neue Nationalgalerie from backlash.

After initially liking the post, Goldin distanced herself from the symposium leaving a personal comment: “I want it to be clear that I was not aware of the symposium until an ally sent me the press release, which connected it to my name and my show. I wanted it canceled from the beginning, but I was only able to divorce my name. It is clear to me that the museum organized this symposium as a prophylactic to secure its position in the German discussion – in other words, to prove they do not support my politics. They knew who they were inviting”, she clarified, condemning the museum’s intentions. Goldin also explained that participants like Candice Breitz and Eyal Weizman (the founder of Forensic Architecture) had agreed to join the panel only out of solidarity with her, while acclaimed writer Masha Gessen – they too at the centre of another ‘scandal’ in Germany for comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto in an article in the New Yorker –  was erroneously reported to have withdrawn, while had never even confirmed participation. “Organizers took so long to make the invitation official that I could no longer make it work with my schedule”, Gessen said. Other guests of the event like Berlin-based artist Hito Steyerl, photographer Raphael Malik, and Palestinian artist Muhammad Toukhy also cancelled their participation.

The symposium’s professed aim of encouraging dialogue stood in stark contrast to its execution. Layers of hyper-vigilant control permeated every aspect. Attendees received an email the evening prior to the event, requesting personal information of accompanying persons whose names had not been provided. Requests to transfer the ticket to persons other than the original buyer were rejected. Security measures were stricter than at the airport: at least two ID checks, bans on backpacks, wristbands and stamped hands upon entry. Attendees were required to sign declarations banning photography and recordings—an ironic measure for an event claiming to foster open dialogue.

Also troubling were the reports of arbitrary exclusions. Photojournalist Shirin Abedi, whose name was registered as an accompanying person the previous evening as requested, was denied entry, as was artist Adam Broomberg, barred even before his ticket was requested. Of the Broomberg case, it is worth noting that one of the symposium participants had suggested him as a potential guest representing a Jewish BDS supporter, after Meron Mendel, one of the organisers, lamented the difficulty in finding such a position. The suggestion was ignored. It was also reported that Broomberg was invited by one of the symposium panelists to contribute a comment to the event, but he was still not allowed entry. The result of all these measures was a large auditorium that was more empty than full.

The atmosphere at the entrance was tense and overtly controlled, although no organised protests took place. One guest described an incident where security forced them to remove a scarf in solidarity with Palestine. “I had four security guards jump on me”, they recounted. Another attendee remarked, “I’ve honestly never felt more unsafe”. Otherwise everything unfolded without any surprises, indeed in line with a second post by Strike Germany: “we’ve watched as a series of participants withdrew from the event, leaving an even more laughingly narrow minded cast of speakers than before. Gone are – amongst others – the few non-Zionist positions; what remains is a set of characters fully committed to German Staatsräson and genocide denial.” Highlights – if we want to call them such – include an intervention that tried to spread the widely debunked fake news of the Amsterdam riots between Maccabi hooligans and locals by falsely labelling them as ‘pogroms’, and the usual weaponisation of antisemitism.

The only two positive notes were the curator and editor María Inés Plaza Lazo, who took on the hard task of trying to balance the orientation of the symposium, and the artist Ruth Patir, who represented Israel at the Venice biennale. The latter offered interesting insights to the audience, stating that she doubts that Israel is a democracy, that she herself boycotts products from the illegal settlements, and urged German journalists to focus on reporting real news instead of when “this or that person likes a post on Instagram”, referring to several such articles by the German media against people who like content critical of Israel on social media. One wonders how quick the press would have been to accuse her of antisemitism, if only she had not been Israeli.

The Impossibility of a Real Dialogue

The controversies that accompanied Goldin’s exhibition and the symposium highlight a disheartening reality from several perspectives: the absence of genuine dialogue in Germany when it comes to Palestine, the monopoly of narrative in the current German cultural, institutional and political landscape, and the doggedness towards any voice not aligned with the Staatsräson. And when rare attempts – or supposed ones – to address the discourse are made by the institutional sphere, the result is the symposium, ostensibly focused on ‘polarisation, art and activism’, only to evade its central themes, including institutional silence, freedom of expression and cultural censorship. Discussions were reduced to vague and superficial exchanges, offering little less than a performative act to wash one’s conscience for having tried. Exceptions were rare; the prevailing atmosphere was one of mutual affirmation, faking debate by reinforcing established narratives.

What emerged is emblematic of a broader pattern in Germany: a rigid, state-sanctioned discourse that stifles critical voices. Institutions claim to support freedom of expression, yet perpetuate censorship and marginalize dissenting perspectives. Nan Goldin’s intervention laid bare this contradiction, but the institutional response remained predictable—defensive, aggressive, ultimately ineffective. Useful only to further undermine what remains – if any – of the credibility of mainstream media and institutions.

Many in the press have criticised how those who “complain about the lack of space for their voices are then the first to boycott an occasion for dialogue”. A short-sighted analysis, to say the least, if it comes to a false safe space created by people who deny or downplay the horrors currently taking place. After all, Goldin herself said that if she could, she would have had the symposium cancelled. Those who boycotted it simply respected her will.

Lessons from the Kamala Harris campaign for the coming German election

You can’t fight racism by trying to be more racist


01/12/2024

As we pore over the ruins of post-election USA, various commentators have rushed to conclusions. Some say that Kamala Harris lost because voters were too racist, too sexist, or too Transphobic. Others go further and blame Muslims and Palestine activists for being too concerned about genocide to vote in their own interests. The main conclusions of these analyses is that the USA is irredeemably reactionary, and that the next Democrat candidate must tack even further to the right.

What these commentators downplay, or downright ignore, is that Harris ran a terrible campaign. The voting figures show that Harris lost the campaign rather than Trump winning it. Michael Roberts reports that, “contrary to the usual hype of a ‘massive voter turnout,’ fewer Americans eligible to vote bothered to do so compared to 2020. Then over 158m voted, this time the vote was down to 153m. The voter turnout of those eligible fell to 62.2% from the high of 65.9% in 2020.”

One should be careful with such figures, as voting turnout was generally up on previous elections, but with nearly all votes counted, Associated Press reports that 76,851,910 people voted for Trump and 74,348,719 for Harris. This compares to the 2020 figures of 81,283,501 for Biden and 74,223,975 for Trump. This means that although Trump had a slight gain in voters, the real story is of the 7 million voters, who were no longer prepared to vote Democrat.

Despite her massive failure, Harris saw no problems in her campaign as reported by Piotr Smolar in Le Monde: “Despite the scale of her defeat, there was no trace of regret, only gratitude for the unwavering support of her heartbroken campaign volunteers. ‘I’m so proud of the race we ran. And the way we ran it.’” After she announced that she may run again in 2028, US Americans should be very scared.

This does not just affect the USA. With elections due in Germany this February, it is high time to ask why Harris ran such an unsuccessful campaign. I fear that German liberal and Left parties are about to repeat the same mistakes. Is this inevitable? Can the Left succeed if it merely offers a watered down version of old right wing politics? If not, do we have a convincing vision of something else?

Apeing Trump

For all the claims that Harris’s campaign was too left wing, on many issues, she was barely distinguishable from her right wing opponent. When asked what would distinguish her presidency from Biden’s, she initially said: “not a thing comes to mind,” then, “Listen, I plan on having a Republican in my Cabinet. You ask me what’s the difference between Joe Biden and me, well that will be one of the differences.”

As Gabriel Winant remarked: “the only issues on which Harris hinted of a break with Biden concerned more favorable treatment of the billionaires who surrounded her, and her closest advisers included figures like David Plouffe, former senior vice president of Uber, and Harris’s brother-in-law Tony West, formerly the chief legal officer of Uber, who successfully urged her to drop Biden-era populism and cultivate relations with corporate allies.”

On the campaign trail, Harris surrounded herself with right wingers, including Liz Cheney, accurately described by Elaine Godfrey as “the pro-life, ultraconservative daughter of Dick.” This was not a great move in a campaign for which one of the main issues was abortion rights. Godrey talked to “Brittany Prime, a self-identified moderate Republican and a co-founder of the anti-Trump organization Women4US,” who said that, “they assure voters that backing a Democrat ‘doesn’t mean you aren’t a Republican anymore’.” 

Although Naomi Klein supported Harris as a lesser evil to Trump, she commented: “she’s sending a message to that base that, ‘Sorry, you know, I’m more interested in Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney and getting Republicans than I am interested in listening to Palestinians, to Muslims, to Arabs, to the left generally, to the antiwar forces.’ She’s told us we’re irrelevant.”

The consequences of this strategy were largely ignored by commentators. In order to win a popular vote, you need people to drum up support, and to get their friends and neighbours to vote for and campaign for you. Harris’s campaign created a disillusionment in the party base, which could not be compensated by the $5 billion spent by the Democrats on campaign ads (significantly more than that was spent by the Republicans).

Throwing migrants under the bus

Nowhere was Harris’s flirtation with right wing politics more evident than in her statements on migration. Rather than criticizing Trump for his racist pleas to “Build the Wall” between the USA and Mexico, she complained that Trump “has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk.” At the same time, when asked about Trump’s wall she answered, “I’m not afraid of good ideas where they occur.”

The former cop criticized Trump from the right, saying, “How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw is about 2 percent. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op you know where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built.” Her campaign highlighted the border security bill, which the Democrats cobbled together with the support of the far-right white nationalist National Border Patrol Council.

Adam Johnson summarizes the bill as promising “$8 billion in emergency funding for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], including $3 billion to increase detentions; a mechanism to ‘shut down’ the border if a certain number of people cross; $7 billion in emergency funding for Customs and Border Protection; and a continuation of Trump’s border wall.” Harris complained that the Republicans scuppered the bill and promised to enforce it if she won the election.

Harris could have argued, as Michael Roberts does, that, “if immigration growth slacks off or if a new administration introduces severe curbs or even bans of immigration, US economic growth and living standards will suffer.” She could have made a positive and inspirational plea for unity and solidarity, or simply taken a principled stand. Instead, she pandered to Trump’s racism 

Johnson concludes, “the decision to wildly contradict the party’s previous position on immigration and take a hard-right turn signals to every constituent member of the tenuous Democratic coalition that they — at any point it is deemed convenient — are entirely expendable. A myopic ethos in a party that’s constantly flabbergasted as to why it has such unenthusiastic support and low voter turnout.”

It’s the economy, stupid

Commentators differ about whether or not the economy improved under Biden. But most agree that public perception was that it had gotten worse. Many articles cite a poll in Fortune magazine, which found that, “some two-thirds (67%) of voters said the condition of the economy was ‘not good/poor,’ and that ‘any macroeconomic gains were entirely overshadowed by voters’ feelings about the dollars and cents in their own personal budgets.”

Another poll, by AP News reported that, “about 9 in 10 voters were very or somewhat concerned about the cost of groceries, and about 8 in 10 were concerned about their health care costs, their housing costs or the cost of gas.” And one from CNN said that, “in 2020, just about one-fifth of voters said they were doing worse than four years before. This year, it’s nearly half of voters who say they are doing worse than four years ago. Trump won them overwhelmingly.”

Such fears are based on real facts. According to Gabriel Winant: “By the middle of his term, Biden had become a de facto austerity president, overseeing the lapse of welfare state expansions, including not just the loss of the child tax credit and temporary cash relief but the retrenchment of SNAP and the booting of millions off Medicaid, all during a period of unified Democratic control.”

A March 2024 poll by KFF found that about half of U.S. adults said it is difficult to afford health care costs. One in four adults said that in the past 12 months they have skipped or postponed getting the healthcare they needed because of the cost. 21% said they had not filled a prescription because of the cost. 41% reported having debt due to medical or dental bills.

Even if the fears were baseless and Biden had presided over a flourishing US economy, the candidates were faced with many voters who felt that things were getting worse. How did they react? Harris arrogantly told voters that they were mistaken, whereas Trump said that he felt their pain and offered solutions. It does not matter that Trump’s “solutions” were racist and impractical. Many voters were desperate for change and saw that Harris was promising more of the same.

Harris patronised voters, confirming their belief that she was an establishment figure, who could not understand their lives. This was deeply reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s campaign of 2016, which was equally unable to stop Trump. As Naomi Klein said, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s wealthier, you know, well-educated people who are still resonating with Harris, and it’s people who are closest to the pain going, ‘What are you talking about? You know, this is not a joyful moment. You’ve got to earn our joy.’”

Even if the economy is doing better, this does not mean that the wealth will trickle down to the majority of people. Economist Michael Roberts wrote, “between 2020-2023, real pretax income growth for the bottom 50% of income earners in the US was basically zero. Prices of goods and services are up over 20% since the end of the pandemic and for basic foodstuffs and services it is even higher. Moreover, the huge hike in interest rates by the Federal Reserve to ‘control’ inflation drove up mortgage rates, insurance premiums, car lease payment and credit card bills.”

How important was Palestine?

In an ABC poll after the election, voters were asked which one of five issues most affected their vote. Just 4% said foreign policy, compared to 14% who said abortion, 32% for the economy, 12% immigration and 34% the state of democracy. At first sight, Palestine (which, after all, is only part of US foreign policy) did not significantly affect the election results.

While it might be true that Palestine had little effect on primary voting intentions, it became symbolic of a government which had become arrogant and out of touch. Gallup reported that a clear majority of US Americans opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza, but the Biden government, with Harris as proud Vice President, never wavered from its moral, financial, and military support for Israel.

Mitchell Plitnick argues in Mondoweiss, “Gaza became a symbol for the lack of substance among the Democrats and their manifest policy failures. The Democrats’ response to the horror their own constituents have expressed at what we are doing in Gaza produced a revulsion that alienated many voters.”

People saw the links between huge financial support for Israel and insecurity and repression at home. A Tweet by Nina Turner put it succinctly, “It’s not much deeper than the Democratic Party telling Americans that the economy was booming and calling it ‘Bidenomics’ while people struggled to afford rent and groceries. Then they funded a genocide and came after those who spoke out.”

Early in her campaign, Harris did recognise the need to offer lip service to Palestinian pain, saying, for example, “This year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, it is devastating. And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza.” 

Even in this speech, she promised to guarantee the security of Israel and was low on detail on how she would get any of this done. At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Democratic establishment denied speaking rights to any Palestinian. Meanwhile pro-Israel hawks like Ritchie Torres were sent to campaign in Michigan.

Gabriel Winant reported on the response of people attending the Democratic National to demonstrators outside who were chanting the names and ages of dead Palestinian children: “The attendees did not simply ignore the demonstration, as one might have expected; rather, they exaggeratedly plugged their ears, made mocking faces, and, in one notable case, sarcastically mimicked the chant: ‘Eighteen years old!’”

There were two key moments in Michigan, home to the largest US-Arab community, where the Harris campaign showed its utter contempt for people campaigning against genocide. The first was Harris’s now infamous speech, where she told protestors to shut up because “I’m speaking.” The second was just 5 days before the election when she sent Bill Clinton to tell a rally that Hamas “forced” Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.

Palestine may not have been the key issue for most voters, but for many, particularly those with murdered relatives in the area, it was very important. Once more, the Democrats’ arrogance and indifference to their audience lost them not just potential voters and campaigners, but also the moral high ground, even though they were campaigning against a racist, sexist convicted felon. 

What does this mean for the upcoming German elections?

On the same day that US-Americans learned that Trump would be president, the German government fell after the governing parties were unable to agree on a budget. There will be new elections in February, and the prospects do not look good for Leftists and liberals of any denomination.

Just as in the USA, many votes will be made in response to Germany’s stumbling economy, which, according to Professor Timo Wollmershäuser, “is stuck and languishing in the doldrums, while other countries are feeling the upswing.” 

Volkswagen recently announced a 60% drop in profits and the closure of 3 factories, with consequent job losses. If Trump imposes tariffs, as he has threatened, the German car industry will be further hit. The US is Volkswagen’s second largest export market after China, with 400,000 cars exported in 2023. 

Volkswagen also announced dividends of 6.5% for their shareholders, which shows just who is benefitting from the crisis. The CDU, likely winners of the next election, are promising an Agenda 2035, a follow-up to Gerhard Schröders Agenda 2020 which was a massive attack on the unemployed. This will result in further attacks on social services, and an even larger gap between rich and poor.

And in the wings, the increasingly fascist AfD is waiting. Having already achieved massive success in local elections in East Germany, the AfD is currently polling as Germany’s second most popular party, and expecting significant gains at the coming snap election.

The response of Germany’s Left-liberal parties 

How have parties like the SPD and the Greens responded to the rising fascist threat? In January this year, it was reported that prominent members of the AfD had attended a meeting with “the head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement and neo-Nazi activists to discuss a masterplan for the mass deportation of migrants and ‘non-assimilated’ German citizens or what both sides call ‘remigration’.” 

It was difficult for left-liberal parties to take the moral high ground. The previous October, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz had appeared on the front cover of Spiegel magazine with the headline, “We have to deport people more often and faster.” One month earlier and in the same magazine, Green Foreign Secretary Annalena Baerbock had called for increased deportations. 

The Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), a supposedly left wing break from Die Linke, has consistently taken a hard line on refugees. After a knife attack in Solingen by a Syrian refugee, Wagenknecht called on Scholz to “send a stop signal to the world. The welcome culture is over.” Wagenknecht called for a “turning point in refugee policies,” and issued a racist 6-point policy plan.

Worried about the threat from the AfD, the mainstream parties seem to think that they can fight racism with more racism. I hate to quote the old fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, but as he said back in 1991, people prefer the original to the copy. 

When French parties tried a similar strategy in the 1980s, this legitimized the French fascist party the Front National (now Rassemblement National). The whole discussion in French society moved to the right, and FN ideas — which had previously belonged to the racist fringe — became respectable.

Die Linke: the abstention party

On the same day the US election results were announced and the German government fell, that same government passed an antisemitism resolution, which could lead to widescale deportations of Palestinians and their supporters. How did Die Linke, the party of the Left, respond? It abstained. And when the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) brought in an amendment which slightly improved the motion, Die Linke abstained again. Rather than being a leader of social movements, or a consistent fighter against racism, Die Linke has become the abstention party.

It is not just Gaza. On Ukraine, on fighting fascism, on the environment, Die Linke has failed to take a lead. It has abstained — sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. Is it any wonder that it is haemorraging voters to the nationalist, racist BSW?

We are facing an election campaign in which migration will play a large role, and most parties are competing with each other for who can attack refugees the most. Even Die Linke abstained on the antisemitism resolution — something that has become increasingly common in a party which is petrified of taking a position that might be controversial.

Die Linke is planning a “Haustürwahlkampf” — a house door election campaign, consisting of knocking on people’s doors and asking them what they think. It sounds great, an exercise in democracy. But what do you say to people who say they’re for genocide, or that they’re a racist? Will the election campaign just be an extension of the current policy of abstaining on anything which might be unpopular?

Conclusion

This is not just about elections, which are only a small part of the political process. Basing your politics on saying what you think people want to hear does not just risk them dismissing you as an insincere opportunist. It also means abdicating any principles, and giving up on trying to change people’s minds. There are some subjects which will lose you votes in an election. This does not mean that we should stop talking about them and fighting for them.

In the USA and in Germany, it is increasingly clear that we cannot rely on parliamentarians to fight our battles for us. We need to build a principled extra-parliamentary opposition based on solidarity, anti-racism and unconditional support for Palestinians.

The best way of getting the politicians we deserve is to build a mass movement that they cannot ignore. If this or that politician takes a principled stance, I welcome them for it. But I will leave the last word to the Clyde Workers Committee of 1915. This statement applies to trade union leaders, but it is just as suitable for any career politician, “We will support the officials just ‘so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them.”