This is what made me jump. The centre-left parties in our (more or less two-bloc) parliamentary democracies -- the SPD, the French PS, Labour, Dems, etc -- are not going to surrender their institutional situation, their elected seats, their clientele and opportunities for patronage, their offices and salaried aides, their guaranteed media presence, their funding, by going off into the desert for years fighting the good fight. So they drift rightwards to remain in their comfort zone, and they have been doing this for long enough now that it's hardwired (ie their advisors and experts are de facto liberal in economics and socially conservative, and their political personnel a study in devious smarm).

For a political war to be pursued, there needs to be a new movement. When I hear Wagenknecht spouting these Germanic commonplaces, or Mélenchon playing ego-games with the journalists, I can't help but see that these alternative, "real" left parties are not going to cut it. Their analysis is half-baked and their communication, as a result, confused.

I don't mean that I was kinda expecting them to lead the way, but the cluelessness is awesome.