In Germany, the "third way" handed the conservatives the chancellorship for over a decade.

[redgreenandblue]

A short summary:

After 16 years of having the CDU (conservatives) in power, Germany finally swung to the left and gave a majority to a "red-green coalition", a coalition between labor (SPD) and the green party, which resulted in Gerhard Schroeder (from SPD) becoming chancellor. This election was historic in many ways. For one, it was the first time that members of the green party became part of the governing faction. It also ended the "Era Kohl" (the 16 year reign of Helmut Kohl, the longest chancellorship of a single person in German history).

So, everybody expected this to mark a leftward shift in policy. What happened instead was that Schroeder, with ideological backing from Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, pushed for the biggest cuts of social security in German history (the "Hartz" reforms). For good measure, with Kosovo and Afghanistan the red-green government threw the first foreign mission of the German military since 1945 into the mix (highly controversial at the time).

The predictable result was that the left wing of the SPD was pissed off to no end. This ultimately resulted in a large number of people leaving the SPD and forming a new "Left party", together with the "Party of Democratic Socialism" (PDS) which previously had never managed to gain seats outside of the former East German territories.

What was left of the SPD went into full panic mode. They responded by demonizing this "Left party" with a barrage of communist-baiting and made it clear that absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever would there be any form of collaboration with "The Left".

SPD has been on decline ever since (in part because no one understands what they stand for anymore) and red-green lost the majority in 2005. SPD then decided to become the smaller half of a "grand coalition", handing the chancellorship to Angela Merkel (from the conservative CDU) and fully cementing their decline. By now no one expects anything bigger from the SPD than being the enabler of the CDU.

Meanwhile, fueled initially by protest votes, "the Left" spread to West Germany and now holds double digit percentages of many Western state parliaments. Due to the unwillingness of the SPD to collaborate with them, the conservatives hold the chancellorship to this day.

[DetlefK]

1. Your analysis has many mistakes:

1. Politicians of the communist GDR-regime became the PDS. And then the extreme left of the SPD and the PDS formed "The Left". As long as those people are part of "The Left", "The Left" has connections to a communist regime that committed atrocities against its own people.

2. I have yet to see arguments why stopping Serbia from conquering the Kosovo or why fighting against the Taliban is a bad thing.

3. The result of the early election of 2007 was 35% CDU, 35% SPD, 10% Greens, 10% FDP, 10% Left. The choice was either forming a 3-party-government-coalition (a recipe for disaster) or the two biggest parties joining forces.

4. Angela Merkel moved the CDU towards the left, stealing social topics from both the SPD and the Greens. That's why it has become so hard to distinguish the two major parties and Angela Merkel has the election-bonus of getting shit done.





The "Conservatives" of Germany are more like a mix of US-establishment-Democrats and US-establishment-Republicans. Germany does have "Tea Party"-crazy (AfD), but they poll at ~10% today and nobody wants to be associated with them.

Fun Fact:
There is a "Third Way"-party in Germany. They are Neo-Nazis who want to protect the environment. They poll at <1%.

[forjusticethunders]

2. German conservatives are more like Rockefeller repubs

Don't forget even establishment conservatives here are Looney Tunes right by world standards.

[redgreenandblue]

4. Every east German career politician of a certain age, including Angela Merkel, has a SED past.

IMO it is silly to pin it all on the PDS.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Comparisons with proportional representation electoral systems are irrelevant

[LanternWaste]

5. You can call a post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy 'ideological backing'

You can call a post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy 'ideological backing,' but it doesn't make it any less a fallacy.