Sullivans first law — if you’re not explicitly of the right, you’re of the left. How long has it been since the CDU — or any so-called “conservative” party in Europe — has been explicitly of the right?
Shame we can’t start off with an actual conversation about, you know, German politics, rather than this culture war meme, which has been repeated rather often on Unherd forums!
Right and Left aren’t fixed points on a never-changing political scale. Originally defined in the French Revolution the original Right wing positions included opposition to power being shared with the middle classes, opposition to democracy, opposition to women’s suffrage, later opposition to any form of social support or welfarism, and much later still continued support for the criminalisation of homosexuality. None of these positions are now held by any conservative party in the West, including Trump’s Republicans (they support Medicare, a state programme!). And of course the Right has free market and nationalist varieties, which to a significant extent are in conflict. Especially with the modern rise of identity politics, the Left also has a far less coherent political and philosophical unity than perhaps it once did.
So we are talking about different emphases between private and public provision, some differences on social policy etc. That is because the political centre of gravity, the entire nature of our society and economy, and therefore public opinion has changed.
Of course if you want a further right party, they exist, and you can vote for them. I’m never quite sure why so many right wingers are so hostile to Islam, whose beliefs seem in so many ways rather close to theirs, at least on social issues.
Sullivans first law — if you’re not explicitly of the right, you’re of the left. How long has it been since the CDU — or any so-called “conservative” party in Europe — has been explicitly of the right?
Shame we can’t start off with an actual conversation about, you know, German politics, rather than this culture war meme, which has been repeated rather often on Unherd forums!
Right and Left aren’t fixed points on a never-changing political scale. Originally defined in the French Revolution the original Right wing positions included opposition to power being shared with the middle classes, opposition to democracy, opposition to women’s suffrage, later opposition to any form of social support or welfarism, and much later still continued support for the criminalisation of homosexuality. None of these positions are now held by any conservative party in the West, including Trump’s Republicans (they support Medicare, a state programme!). And of course the Right has free market and nationalist varieties, which to a significant extent are in conflict. Especially with the modern rise of identity politics, the Left also has a far less coherent political and philosophical unity than perhaps it once did.
So we are talking about different emphases between private and public provision, some differences on social policy etc. That is because the political centre of gravity, the entire nature of our society and economy, and therefore public opinion has changed.
Of course if you want a further right party, they exist, and you can vote for them. I’m never quite sure why so many right wingers are so hostile to Islam, whose beliefs seem in so many ways rather close to theirs, at least on social issues.