I'm cautiously curious about Sahra Wagenknecht's new party... personally, I never minded the fact that the Linkspartei kept arguing. I don't mind multiple points of view existing in the same party. To me, it's always been obvious that being a leftist means caring about economic justice as well as culturally oppressed and marginalized groups and we shouldn't prioritize one over the other. That may be difficult to do in practice, and good people can disagree about how this compromise is best made. I never considered not voting for them in nearly every election anymore just because they were arguing. Leftist infighting, what else is new..?
So from that perspective, the party breaking up is uppercase Bad. Having an umbrella for different points of view was a good thing. Losing so many representatives would mean they have to leave the national parliament. But maybe the party reached a breaking point. And the worsening election results might be a cause and result of that. As Volker Pispers famously said, the average German wants their pants, the ranks in their party, and all unresolved questions about their worldview closed.
Many people who vote AfD out of protest, not because they're far-right, or who don't vote at all trust Sahra Wagenknecht and are willing to listen to what she says. They do not trust the rest of the Linkspartei. She says the same "populist" things that the AfD also says - limiting migration, no more self-defeating sanctions against Russia, she was publicly suspicious of the Covid vaccine. But while the AfD only pretends in an extremely shallow way to care about the interests of the poorer 90% of society and actually benefits the rich and authoritarian almost exclusively, she also fights for economic justice.
If (and that's a big IF) she loses 5% voters from the Linkspartei but gains 10% voters from the AfD/non-voters, that would be a win for leftist politics. I don't agree at all with many of the things she says (actually my problem with her is more in what she doesn't say, what she doesn't distance herself from), but I don't think she's an "enemy" and many of the people who put her down don't really seem willing to hear her out first (which probably adds to her appeal to her prospective voter base). Maybe her party and a Linkspartei that has grown stronger again now that they're not constantly arguing could be partners without all the drama that comes with infighting in the same party?
Or maybe each party alone is too weak and we'll be left with zero parties that are worth voting for. That would be bad, but the Linkspartei already seems to have pretty much no influence on anything outside of Berlin, so an experiment might be called for. Maybe leftist populism is what we need? The text-heavy academic election posters don't work so hot outside of the little bubble their authors are in, it seems.
