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Comment by jk2323 | Hacker News Reader

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Your obvious bias is severely clouding your judgment.

Merkel is solidly centre to centre-right. The only reason she seems "left" to you, is because she doesn't support the frothing-at-the-mouth rabid nationalism that AfD espouse.

"Merkel is solidly centre to centre-right. "

Cough, cough. Look, I gave REASONS why I think she is extremely left wing. Pointing out that she is leading the conservative party is not enough to counter my point.

What in her politics is conservative, right, or liberal?

(I would consider "marriage for all" liberal but in the end marriage should be not the business of the government)

What does the AfD stand for? Basically AfD is CDU before Merkel.

End of nuclear energy: decided and tied town by her predecessor governments, stopped by Merkel to be nice to big energy companies, likely against the wishes of the majority of the population, re-introduced by Merkel after public backlash after Fukushima happened a few months later.

Marriage for all: Was forced into parliament by the opposition parties, as common for such decisions way to vote left to individual MPs. Merkel personally voted against it.

Energy revolution isn't really a clearly left-wing policy (especially not after surrounding industries have been created), but also is merely a continuation of a previous path, with Merkels governments weakening some policies.

There's lots of possible criticism of Merkel's policies, but "left wing" really isn't it.

"Der Linke schreit, daß die Freiheit untergeht, wenn seine Opfer es ablehnen, ihre eigene Ermordung zu finanzieren." Gomez DaVila

"Merkel personally voted against it."

Hey man, Hitler may have voted against raiding Russia but it is the outcome the counts. Fact is, that Merkel's politics is a left wing come true. Proven by the support of people like Fisher and Campino, who claimed to have voted "green" his whole life.

https://rp-online.de/kultur/musik/toten-hosen-saenger-campin...

It's funny then that the left-wing parties disagree with so much of Merkels policy then, especially in the core areas of left-wing politics. Reforming Hartz4 and the pension system, that'd be a left-wing dream. A left-wing dream certainly isn't a government with Horst Seehofer responsible for the interior and "Heimat", or Jens Spahn for Health.

Not all they do is clear right-wing (how could it be in a coalition with a center-left party?), but little is clear left-wing. Not the worst from a left-wing perspective, as you can tell by the conflicts in her party and the AfD, and the fact that the SPD got in again after much hand-wringing, but that's about it.

This ongoing coalition is of course a problem, since both parties are forced into compromises, which makes it hard to sell themselves as big successes to their voters.

Partially you seem to apply US standards for whats left- and right-wing policies to a country with a fairly different political landscape, e.g. with the examples you first cited as being clearly left-wing dreams, many of which are fairly mainstream positions in Germany.

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