The 2nd Populism Accusation

If you've watched German public TV news over the past three years, there's a fair amount of accusations by various political parties and journalists.....saying that populism is going on, and blaming the AfD Party for using migration and immigration as an assault-vehicle for populism.

I would likely go along with one or two of the elements.....agreeing that the AfD saw a public frustration and exploited it.  I might even agree that the massiveness of the issues that the AfD portrayed....probably weren't that massive.  On the other side of the coin....the government (the coalition led by Chancellor Merkel)....screwed-up on a massive scale and either accidentally or intentionally lost trust among among a quarter of the population.

Today, the second accusation of populism was laid out, but this time....NOT against the AfD.  Instead, one of the three temp-agents who lead the SPD Party stood up and suggested that the 2nd populism angle is now the Green Party effort to exploit climate change.  Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel made the accusation and suggests that the Greens are just exploiting climate change for party gains.

A lot of this recent gain business for the German Green Party comes with the youth vote and this Friday 'save-the-world' school strikes going on.

I might go and agee with Schafer-Gumbel...exploitation is going on and will carve off around a quarter of the SPD vote pattern, unless they stand up and challenge the Greens.

How this exploitation is working?  Mostly via social media, bloggers, and limited challenges by the major parties.  In some ways, I think both the SPD and CDU folks are worried that if they challenge the Greens....they will be called 'deniers' and end up losing even more votes and support. 

Could we end with two German front groups (the Greens and the AfD).....based mostly on populism divisions, and staging various crises to get voters over to their platform?  Yes, in the end.....both the CDU and SPD may become minor players in German politics because this populism angle drives so much of society.