In Germany this is especially entertaining: Die Linke are literally the only political party with seats in the Bundestag who don't think mass murdering of children is totally acceptable as long as the murderers belong to a good race and the children to a bad race.

Even the German Greens hold that view that the race of a person is more important than their actual actions in determining the moral acceptability of what they do, to such an extreme level that even mass murdering of children becomes acceptable if one is a Jew.

So calling Die Linke far-left is pretty much an admission that, at least for these people, in Germany NOT holding the same views of the value of human life and the importance of race as the NAZIs held, is an "extremist" position.

MLPD

I can never not read this as "My Little Pony Deutschland".

Don't get your hopes up. Now they have to deliver on these promises. And if they completely fuck it up guess who gets into power?

Well that's Berlin - the most liberal city in Germany, reacting to the rightward shift of the country and the most unlikeable centre-right chancellor that the Christian Democrats could find (Merz), but the overall picture isn't that bright.

The AfD has done extremely well in Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, getting more votes than any other single party. In Meck-Pomm, the centre-to-left parties will be able to form a government, but in Saxony, there's a good chance that the AfD will work together with a new populist party that split from the leftists and actually get into power.

All billionaire assets should be nationalized. Though I'm not sure what would be the best way to handle all the media conglomerates the government will end up owning after that.

That's a common tactic from the right: framing absolutely anything even remotely progressive as "far left".
Like "side loading" apps.
Works too.

I'm with you on the shifting baseline (towards the right), but to call Die Linke "centrist" or "centre-left"... Let's say: perhaps it's the overcorrection we need.

As far as I can tell, "Far-left" in Germany means that you don't think that mass murdering of children becomes absolutelly fine when those doing the mass murdering claim to represent the Jewish People and the children are Muslim.

I say this because in Germany Die Linke is the only party with seats in the Bundestag which haven't unwaveringly supported the self-proclaimed "Jewish Nation" whilst they indescriminatelly murdered Palestinians including tens of thousands of children.

Even the German Greens have been overtly pro Genocide as long as the right ethnicity is the one doing the killing, which is probably why their vote in Berlin fell from 18% to 14% all the while the right is in government in Germany and fucking things up (so one would expect that all of the leftwing would gain from it) - "We unwaveringly support a Genocide as long as those doing it represent a specific ethnicity" isn't actually leftwing (in fact, it's closer to the thinking of the AfD or even NAZIsm than to leftwing thinking).

I mean, if when it comes to mass murdering of people you goozestep alongside Politico it's only natural that people who aren't unthinking tribalists will conclude you have the same values.

I've actually lived in a couple of big cities in Europe and my impression of Berlin is that people there are possibly even more cosmopolitan and forwards thinking than in Amsterdam and way ahead of London, so this result (both the rise of Die Linke and the fall of the Greens) isn't at all surprising.

Same thing, but they hate regular left more than far-right does.

Is there a word for “munipalising”?

Not an expert, but:

Germany is a federation of states, this was a state election, not a local municipal election.

There was a referendum about this issue that was broadly popular a couple of years ago.

The most likely coalition is going to be, greens + social democrats + socialists.

The socialists have said this is their red line on joining the coalition, The greens want to do it, but the social democrats are opposed and framed this the socialists simply not wanting to govern (this same coalition has ruled the state of Berlin before, though).

We will see.

The principle is that whatever the national law says has to be followed, but if there isn't a national law, the federal country can do something. Also housing is more of a local issue.

There are laws to "eminent domain" stuff, but it has been mostly used for Autobahn and coal mining in the past and only affected peasants in little villages who couldn't fight back.

Otherwise good question, that's what almost everyone is asking at the moment.

I just watched a video about Vienna housing, in it the presenter said that about 1/3 or Vienna's housing was municipal-owned. So maybe not nationalized but a close by reference for what could be done.

Nationalizing is a bit of overambitious promise to be honest. However, they are hopefully going to pursue winding down the housing bubble by any other means possible. She recently told they will form a dedicated team just to deal with the greedy contrcts with illegal terms, to start with. No subrenting with higher rent, no short term contracts for furnished apartments with double price. They also plan to initiate more housing projects hopefully.

Germanys national law already allows for the local government (be it municipal or state level) to force properties into public ownership. The previous owner has to get paid for that. So its basically a government forced sell of the property to the corresponding public entity (typically the city).

They could have done that all along without any law changes. The discussion is only about if they should do that.

This person is a Russian agent