• Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    No, not really. East Germany was not particularly more conservative than the West, with the exception of the 1990 election. In fact, as the 90s went on it had a higher vote share for left wing parties, especially the successor of the SED.

    It was however, more nationalistic. Leading to the current situation where the far-right is hegemonic there, including the rejection of causes left-liberals hold dear.

      • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        10 months ago

        The annexation of East Germany didn’t really change much in West German politics tbh - and the organizations that were strongly supportive of the GDR (DKP, etc.) were always a marginalized group of troublemakers - by 1990 the neoliberals were growing in popularity in the SPD anyway, and the left wing of the Green Party was realizing that the group had become a lost cause. So not much noticeable change there either.

        • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          10 months ago

          you’re responding to the people talking about the GDR and what it lost in reunification as if they’re talking about the west. no one here gives a shit about the west.

          • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            10 months ago

            Er, no?

            The original comment was about how women’s support for the criteria the chart delineated as progressive/conservative went towards the latter after 1990. Before that, it’s almost certain the data only considered west Germany.

            Thus, if it went down in 1990, it’s to assume that it’s at least partially because an increase of conservative population from the annexed regions of the east - right? Former Warsaw Pact countries do tend to have populations that are to the right of what the law was in the AES era.

            What I’m saying is that the downward turn on the chart is unlikely to have been caused by that, since while the west had worse laws, its population wasn’t that much different from the east’s in supporting socially progressive causes. On the economic side, westerners haven’t changed and the easterners only turned left with the negative effects of the free market economy restoration.

      • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        10 months ago

        Eh. It was a nationalism-fest, with Kohl being promoted as the “Chancellor of Unity”, the chant of the 1989 protests “We are the People” being changed into “We are one people”, prosperity being promised, etc., etc.

        The SPD underperformed expectations, and the SED/PDS (and later just PDS) won in East Berlin, performed in double digits everywhere (within the east. The highest they got in the west is like 1,0% in Bremen), but the CDU got 53% in Saxony. That place is a reactionary hotbed to this day, which is a shame. Leipzig, Dresden and Görlitz are really nice cities.