no this is a good result, there would be quiet sighs of relief all throughout CDU if AfD took a majority of seats. (also that still might happen, we're very close right now).
Having grown up imprinted with one dimensional American politics, the multidimensional parliamentary system continues to baffle me. I look forward to your analysis!
You find it baffling because it's baffling. How people vote has only a weak link with how decisions are actually made.
Especially with a "firewall" system, because in it parties implicitly assume that anyone who votes for them is motivated above all else by fucking over the voters of the firewalled party. It obviously makes no sense for the leaders of a far left party to enter a coalition with the CDU unless they think that preventing the AfD having any influence at all is the number one most important issue to their voters, which it probably isn't.
But PR does not lead to sane outcomes. This sort of thing happens all the time.
All the news services refer to the AfD as a Far Right party. What a canard. My guess is that the Republican Party in the US would be referred to as a Far Right party in Germany.
I'm sure you are right about the Republican Party, but it's mostly thanks to the "Left" that Conservatives an d Patriots bear the historical burden of the Nazis having been classified as "Far-Right". In reality Hitler was largely on the left, preserving all the social benefits instituted by Bismarck, but adding an aggressive foreign policy that sought to get even with the countries that had imposed Germany's humiliating "peace" conditions after WWI. That "peace", and the Allies' "victory", BTW, had come about thanks to Wilson's stupid intervention. Without it, I'm quite sure, there would have been no WWII, at least not in Europe.
Hitler would have purported to be a Zen Buddhist if he thought it would win votes. The left were rounded up and exterminated as soon as he gained power. A war time command economy dies not = socialiam. The real socialists are the philosemitic far left Israel First AfD and Trump and the Republicans.
I know you've "quit" writing your substack, but I'd like to tell you that reading this comment was encouraging because it told me that someone was thinking. I'm more or less a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, author of "Human Action" and mentor to F. A. Hayek who brought together the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947. Thanks.
The same scenario obtained with PVV in the Netherlands--their agenda was pretty standard European social democrat, but because they weren't for wide open full throttle immigration, Geert Wilders was portrayed as the next reincarnation of Hitler..
No it isn't. The Republicans aren't running on a platform of remigration or even limiting migration beyond illegals. America is to left of Europe in terms of identity and migration.
That's correct but what I'm finding encouraging is that online, the comments are mainly supportive of the AfD describing them as 'right' as in right.....
“Far Right” is an abstraction - as are all the weaponised words and terms subverted by the left.
The Establishment - in UK & European Countries - cannot come to terms with the fact the “Far Right” IS the broad mass of the population who have rejected the entrenched political mobsters - had enough of them. The intent is to link the popular political mood and those who have attracted support with the Fascism and National Socialism and subsequent dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s - aka Far Right. By inventing “Far Right” they hope ordinary people will disassociate themselves from the new emergent popular Parties.
They don’t see themselves linked to the dictatorships of Socialism, and they don’t/won’t see that “Far Right” is a reaction to the division and ruin they have caused, instead they promote it as the cause. Objecting to millions of immigrants pouring in from the cesspits and conflict zones of the Middle East and Africa is “divisive”, them causing it is not.
Couple seats short and a kabuki coalition of all the rest is indeed the best scenario we can hope for. European economies are so utterly fucked we don't really want right wing parties to wear this, better to sit back and watch the rest struggle to stay above water.
Interesting how the German electorate simply refuses to let AfD take power. It apparently prefers a government formed by parties that hate each other only slightly less than they all hate the AfD.
And apparently are unable to apprehend that they tolerate the greens, who by all accounts have their first priority as antisemitism with a fig leaf, but will ceaselessly decry the AfD as “far right” and therefore some kind of revival of the Third Reich. Which seems to demonstrate that the European establishment is afraid of the specific policies of AfD (migration?) and care nothing about fascism per se.
They're lied to all the time by state media, so many of them are convinced it's a life/death struggle against evil. They aren't told that the Nazis were a far left party
This is sure edge-of-the seat time. Will be following along heart-poundingly. We been trained over the past five years to take all this stuff extremely seriously. Life alteringly.
I know, right? This is my weekly croquet afternoon, and if the results aren't final by starting time, I'll have to take my phone along for periodic updates.
I am still, despite living in Germany for 20 years, despite voting AfD out of "least worst option" at the last GE, entirely unsure how any kind of government in ST excluding the AfD (and by extension any government excluding the AfD after the next GE) is going to remotely legitimise itself. I know how the press will try to, but it's just not plausible. Are most of us really so dumb as to buy that?
They will "legitimise" themselves by saying that they have no purpose in political life other than stopping the AfD. Even if they achieve nothing or actively make everything worse, they will say it's OK and not even their fault - it's all the AfD's fault.
Personally I think if the AfD do get into majority power their first act should be to file a case with the constitutional protectors office, asserting that the other parties should be banned because they are clearly a threat to democracy.
I believe that the endpoint of democracy is a politics of keeping the bad guys out. For the political class nothing is better, since not only does it mean that by definition they become the good guys, it also asks nothing of them. They don't need to actually solve problems. They don't need to not create new ones. They don't even need to do anything at all. All they need to do is get their seats and hold on to them. Pure power for power's sake, but with the blessing of your own conscience, since losing power means the bad guys win.
Question is, will the other parties create a hogwash-coalition to keep the AfD out, then?
*edit* ignore that, newest poll is showing the AfD at 44.4% which is absolute majority. Well, if this isn't a signal towards Berlin that they are going down the wrong road, I don't know what is.
Well, I had to call a buddy who lives in Saxony-Anhalt. His story is so much worse than I was led to believe. Here it is, condensed:
DOMO Chemicals' German site in Leuna filed for bankruptcy before Christmas last year. Another chemical company is cutting about 500 jobs. A few months before that, DOW Chemicals announced that it would close its sites in Schkopau (a relatively modern olefin plant, 600 jobs) and Böhlen (a nice big cracker) by the end of 2027.
The American management explained the reasons - oversupply of olefin/cracker market in Europe, EXPENSIVE raw material and energy costs, CO2 tax.
Suddenly there were many "pseudo" AfD members in the area - they have no party affiliation, but the same phrases were repeated at the demonstrations:
expensive energy, pointless climate policy, unviable CO2 tax.
From this, the locals concluded that there was not an energy problem here, but an AfD problem. However, they could no longer put this genie back in the bottle. More and more people began to make noise about German industrial policy that had completely failed in the past 10 years, and that the situation had only been catalyzed by the even wiser energy policy.
Then one of the provincial wise men said on TV "every job lost is 3 new votes for the AfD."
In the background, intensive lobbying was started to somehow save DOMO and the two DOW plants. Opinion polls showed a massive increase for AfD last summer, so the narrative changed from saving the German chemical industry to "company closure equals AfD advance".
Meanwhile, DOW stated that the closure of the 2 plants was a given, that maintaining them was massively unprofitable - but if the German state wanted to, it could step in. They said no straight away, which, in light of the well-known foreign (German NGO programs, family allowances paid for children living abroad, support of the Ukraine war, etc), and domestic (Bürgergeld, migration-related expenses, Energiewende, etc) spending was kerosene on the fire.
They somehow scraped together €80 million, so DOMO, which went bankrupt at Christmas, was able to produce until March. Among other things, they made fertilizer. The left-wing newspapers, of course, criticized why they were "wasting" €80 million in tax revenue.
Then at the end of March the news broke: DOMO IS SAVED - InfraLeuna, which operates the Leuna chemical park, and the local Leuna Poliamid GmbH, are teaming up and saving it together.
Suddenly there was a lot of commotion in Leuna. One minister after another came to pay a visit. Usual, empty phrases about the "green transition" and "successful" climate policy, and 10 minutes of ruminating about how the far right was creating panic.
Then a few men in suits decided it was time to kick the Iranian hornet's nest and then block the Strait of Hormuz.
Since purchases from Russian sources were banned by Brussels, the newly launched Domo-Auffanggesellschaft Polyamid GmbH found itself in the middle of an exploding raw material hell.
The production of fertilizer requires raw materials, and for the raw materials, the suppliers asked for a larger advance payment, citing the situation in Iran.
Local newspapers spent considerable time and energy to advertise that the possibility of bankruptcy of DOMO is "fake news" since it was saved by the wise politicians of the current coalition.
Then Domo-Auffanggesellschaft Polyamid GmbH filed for insolvency - so the fake news was not fake news. €80mil out of the window.
This story is a testament to the extent to which the German political elite, in exchange for their own survival, knowingly mishandles problems, without even listening to the people, other ideologies be damned. And now we see the results of it.
I understand the popular vote numbers per party. Don’t mean much due to the averaging out and passing out of seats, but the AFD kicked the stuffing out of the CDU, re;pop support , this much is clear.
I don't see anyone with a turnout estimate yet, or a split between mail and in-person ballots, which is essential to judge change in turnout. But if turnout is higher, it's clear the "unsere Demokratie" mobilisation was only as effective as the AfD. The "Wählerwanderung" numbers we might get tomorrow at the earliest also interesting. As in how many FDP voters went to AfD versus cartel parties.
The cartel's big defeat here is the halving of the Union vote. This is an election of one loser - irrespective of which of AfD and the Cartel wins.
I see you recall that official results are not due until 17:00 in Germany, and the next day in the USA, for 17:00 in Germany is 23:00 (11PM) in the Eastern Time Zone, where most people will not be paying attention at that time. :)
I've always found it strange and fascinating how modern elections almost always end up so close to 50/50 draws. Perhaps particularly when some sharply dividing issue is at hand, such as this election with a clear ideological split. Why is there never a commanding victory, like a 75/25? There doesn't seem to be any obvious logical or sociological reason for this. All I've come up with is that people have no real opinion, so it becomes an odd coinflip in the collective mind. Would be interesting to hear if you have any thoughts in this eugyppius.
Nine out of ten voters pick their party based on emotion, force of habit or a similar reason not involving any kind off analysis or thought, or looking at issues and what the party in fact has done/voted for or against.
It is the same with many issues. Nine out of ten or higher get all their knowledge about something from major news media, and so only know what they are told. If news media says that "immigration has been stopped" people believe it and do not look up an official source for hard data or real numbers.
Only people who work in politics or have a vested/special interest in politics bother to actually be informed and keep track of issues and decisions and costs and so on. That's (part of the reason) why we - for thirty odd years now - ger this "muddle in the middle" all over Western EUrope.
I agree that most people are fundamentally uniformed and vote based on emotion and habit. But this doesn't really explain why nearly all elections in western democracies end up evenly split - apart from what I suggested, that the decision is somehow random for each individual, and that the final choice comes down to chance, making the collective result 50/50.
That a large majority of voters get their information from corrupt and biased sources like major news media and therefore vote in accordance with the views expressed there, is somewhat contradicted by elections such as this one in Germany, where almost half the population voted against establishment politics. The equal split here is made up of voters pro or con the elite and msm.
In some sense the presentation of a choice as such - whatever it may be - seems to produce a near certain, precise devision of the electorate into two equal groups. Its an odd consequence of modern democracy, and makes the entire system seem all the more frivolous and arbitrary.
The last thing I ever expected to follow is German politics - but this is good stuff!
eugyppius' has shown us just how entertaining it can be.
There are rather more players in effect than in the States.
Hopefully someone trustworthy is checking for fraud from the parties tried to block the people's will, the Afd.
Likewise. Makes a nice distraction from UK politics and good to know other countries have similar problems.
I know, right!
Please sir go on BAP show debrief.
And by this I do not mean remove undergarments.
Have just read they are on 44.4% with 78% of votes counted.
My thoughts exactly!
Thanks for keeping us updated! Kind of disappointing, but at my age, I'm used to that 😜
no this is a good result, there would be quiet sighs of relief all throughout CDU if AfD took a majority of seats. (also that still might happen, we're very close right now).
Having grown up imprinted with one dimensional American politics, the multidimensional parliamentary system continues to baffle me. I look forward to your analysis!
You find it baffling because it's baffling. How people vote has only a weak link with how decisions are actually made.
Especially with a "firewall" system, because in it parties implicitly assume that anyone who votes for them is motivated above all else by fucking over the voters of the firewalled party. It obviously makes no sense for the leaders of a far left party to enter a coalition with the CDU unless they think that preventing the AfD having any influence at all is the number one most important issue to their voters, which it probably isn't.
But PR does not lead to sane outcomes. This sort of thing happens all the time.
It has the appearance of herding cats.
All the news services refer to the AfD as a Far Right party. What a canard. My guess is that the Republican Party in the US would be referred to as a Far Right party in Germany.
I'm sure you are right about the Republican Party, but it's mostly thanks to the "Left" that Conservatives an d Patriots bear the historical burden of the Nazis having been classified as "Far-Right". In reality Hitler was largely on the left, preserving all the social benefits instituted by Bismarck, but adding an aggressive foreign policy that sought to get even with the countries that had imposed Germany's humiliating "peace" conditions after WWI. That "peace", and the Allies' "victory", BTW, had come about thanks to Wilson's stupid intervention. Without it, I'm quite sure, there would have been no WWII, at least not in Europe.
Hitler would have purported to be a Zen Buddhist if he thought it would win votes. The left were rounded up and exterminated as soon as he gained power. A war time command economy dies not = socialiam. The real socialists are the philosemitic far left Israel First AfD and Trump and the Republicans.
I know you've "quit" writing your substack, but I'd like to tell you that reading this comment was encouraging because it told me that someone was thinking. I'm more or less a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, author of "Human Action" and mentor to F. A. Hayek who brought together the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947. Thanks.
Any political party (or person) that doesn't meet the media's political preferences is called "far right".
I have fun trying to explain this to my progressive friends, who would take offense at being labeled “far left“.
The Republican party of the USA is *far* to the right of the AfD.
The same scenario obtained with PVV in the Netherlands--their agenda was pretty standard European social democrat, but because they weren't for wide open full throttle immigration, Geert Wilders was portrayed as the next reincarnation of Hitler..
Maybe I'm just quibbling, Warmek, but you don't have nearly enough emphasis around the word "far" there
No it isn't. The Republicans aren't running on a platform of remigration or even limiting migration beyond illegals. America is to left of Europe in terms of identity and migration.
It’s common now everywhere, same here in canada.
Communists are now the left, everyone to the right of them is ultra hard right
In reality they are center/center right.
That's correct but what I'm finding encouraging is that online, the comments are mainly supportive of the AfD describing them as 'right' as in right.....
“Far Right” is an abstraction - as are all the weaponised words and terms subverted by the left.
The Establishment - in UK & European Countries - cannot come to terms with the fact the “Far Right” IS the broad mass of the population who have rejected the entrenched political mobsters - had enough of them. The intent is to link the popular political mood and those who have attracted support with the Fascism and National Socialism and subsequent dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s - aka Far Right. By inventing “Far Right” they hope ordinary people will disassociate themselves from the new emergent popular Parties.
They don’t see themselves linked to the dictatorships of Socialism, and they don’t/won’t see that “Far Right” is a reaction to the division and ruin they have caused, instead they promote it as the cause. Objecting to millions of immigrants pouring in from the cesspits and conflict zones of the Middle East and Africa is “divisive”, them causing it is not.
They are labelled extreme right here in the Spanish media
Couple seats short and a kabuki coalition of all the rest is indeed the best scenario we can hope for. European economies are so utterly fucked we don't really want right wing parties to wear this, better to sit back and watch the rest struggle to stay above water.
I think I see. If AfD took a majority of seats, the CDU would be relieved because that would avoid footnote #2 from your previous post?
Why is it better that they don't achieve an outright majority?
Eugy explained this here two months ago:
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-cdu-better-hope-they-lose-in
Everyone and their mother are inside the CDU's OODA loop. They're purely reactive at this point.
Yes
Because it forces the CDU to choose publicly.
Only has to occur once and the dam breaks
No, we need BSW above 5%!
AfD and BSW have a lot of common ground:
Foreign Policy: Anti-Atlanticism & Russia Rapprochement
Energy, Climate & Industry (Anti-Green Consensus)
Migration & Border Enforcement
Cultural Conservatism & Anti-Wokeness
But haven't the far left BSW pledged to support AfD and if you don't have a majority and they drop below 5% you can't form government?
And the Greens!
Interesting how the German electorate simply refuses to let AfD take power. It apparently prefers a government formed by parties that hate each other only slightly less than they all hate the AfD.
And apparently are unable to apprehend that they tolerate the greens, who by all accounts have their first priority as antisemitism with a fig leaf, but will ceaselessly decry the AfD as “far right” and therefore some kind of revival of the Third Reich. Which seems to demonstrate that the European establishment is afraid of the specific policies of AfD (migration?) and care nothing about fascism per se.
They're lied to all the time by state media, so many of them are convinced it's a life/death struggle against evil. They aren't told that the Nazis were a far left party
https://penbroke.substack.com/p/the-nazis-were-a-far-left-party
who weren't really nationalist either:
https://penbroke.substack.com/p/the-nazis-were-not-nationalists
(And yes, I know Eugy doesn't agree with me on this)
Thank you for your hard work
Wow ..wonderful
It is great to have a true evaluation and interpretation.
The US mainstream press is useless.
Bloomberg ,as is there mission blames the AFD rise on ….climate change .
Every article co matter the subject is required to use the term “ climate change “ .
Michael Bloomberg is certified insane . Yet with his net worth he swings a big stick
He is crushed that people still eat French fries ( with trans fat no less ..the horror the horror) and drink Large Cokes .
As mayor of NYC it was his main goal …to stop the idiots from enjoying themselves.
He has no moved on to make sure no one ever has a good day . How can you have a good day when ….” Climate change “
It is actually comical to see the staff writers insert “ climate change “ when discussing the Fed funds rate .
Sorry …no way to get news on election except Eugyppius…thank God for this site ..thank you Eugyppius.
So all the small parties combine to keep the AfD out. What a fiasco that will be!
They would never stay united long.
That would be a good thing in the long term.
All the fence sitters need to see that there aren't 5 parties but two, the AfD and the socialist unity party which has four wings.
But what about "democracy"?! 😉
Uh , democracy killed Socrates
Exactly!
Got off to a poor start!
haha Hi Richard .
Not surprised to find you here .
Wonderful news on AFD . What is your take ? A breakout moment . I am trying to curb my enthusiasm.
Probably a good idea to restrain your celebration.
Thank you! Praying mightily for sanity to prevail! 🙏❤️🙏
Best possible result in terms of driving change, rightm
This is sure edge-of-the seat time. Will be following along heart-poundingly. We been trained over the past five years to take all this stuff extremely seriously. Life alteringly.
I know, right? This is my weekly croquet afternoon, and if the results aren't final by starting time, I'll have to take my phone along for periodic updates.
Only a couple of Substackers now--starkly down from the first heady days of finding them--continue to give me the feeling we're all in this together.
I am still, despite living in Germany for 20 years, despite voting AfD out of "least worst option" at the last GE, entirely unsure how any kind of government in ST excluding the AfD (and by extension any government excluding the AfD after the next GE) is going to remotely legitimise itself. I know how the press will try to, but it's just not plausible. Are most of us really so dumb as to buy that?
Uh, yes?
(I apply that pretty much globally, not just to Germany.
They will "legitimise" themselves by saying that they have no purpose in political life other than stopping the AfD. Even if they achieve nothing or actively make everything worse, they will say it's OK and not even their fault - it's all the AfD's fault.
Personally I think if the AfD do get into majority power their first act should be to file a case with the constitutional protectors office, asserting that the other parties should be banned because they are clearly a threat to democracy.
An 'Enabling Act'
*Are* our governments particularly concerned with legitimating themselves? I must confess, I hadn't noticed.
I believe that the endpoint of democracy is a politics of keeping the bad guys out. For the political class nothing is better, since not only does it mean that by definition they become the good guys, it also asks nothing of them. They don't need to actually solve problems. They don't need to not create new ones. They don't even need to do anything at all. All they need to do is get their seats and hold on to them. Pure power for power's sake, but with the blessing of your own conscience, since losing power means the bad guys win.
Thank you and good night from Japan
Good afternoon from Texas.
Question is, will the other parties create a hogwash-coalition to keep the AfD out, then?
*edit* ignore that, newest poll is showing the AfD at 44.4% which is absolute majority. Well, if this isn't a signal towards Berlin that they are going down the wrong road, I don't know what is.
Well, I had to call a buddy who lives in Saxony-Anhalt. His story is so much worse than I was led to believe. Here it is, condensed:
DOMO Chemicals' German site in Leuna filed for bankruptcy before Christmas last year. Another chemical company is cutting about 500 jobs. A few months before that, DOW Chemicals announced that it would close its sites in Schkopau (a relatively modern olefin plant, 600 jobs) and Böhlen (a nice big cracker) by the end of 2027.
The American management explained the reasons - oversupply of olefin/cracker market in Europe, EXPENSIVE raw material and energy costs, CO2 tax.
Suddenly there were many "pseudo" AfD members in the area - they have no party affiliation, but the same phrases were repeated at the demonstrations:
expensive energy, pointless climate policy, unviable CO2 tax.
From this, the locals concluded that there was not an energy problem here, but an AfD problem. However, they could no longer put this genie back in the bottle. More and more people began to make noise about German industrial policy that had completely failed in the past 10 years, and that the situation had only been catalyzed by the even wiser energy policy.
Then one of the provincial wise men said on TV "every job lost is 3 new votes for the AfD."
In the background, intensive lobbying was started to somehow save DOMO and the two DOW plants. Opinion polls showed a massive increase for AfD last summer, so the narrative changed from saving the German chemical industry to "company closure equals AfD advance".
Meanwhile, DOW stated that the closure of the 2 plants was a given, that maintaining them was massively unprofitable - but if the German state wanted to, it could step in. They said no straight away, which, in light of the well-known foreign (German NGO programs, family allowances paid for children living abroad, support of the Ukraine war, etc), and domestic (Bürgergeld, migration-related expenses, Energiewende, etc) spending was kerosene on the fire.
They somehow scraped together €80 million, so DOMO, which went bankrupt at Christmas, was able to produce until March. Among other things, they made fertilizer. The left-wing newspapers, of course, criticized why they were "wasting" €80 million in tax revenue.
Then at the end of March the news broke: DOMO IS SAVED - InfraLeuna, which operates the Leuna chemical park, and the local Leuna Poliamid GmbH, are teaming up and saving it together.
Suddenly there was a lot of commotion in Leuna. One minister after another came to pay a visit. Usual, empty phrases about the "green transition" and "successful" climate policy, and 10 minutes of ruminating about how the far right was creating panic.
Then a few men in suits decided it was time to kick the Iranian hornet's nest and then block the Strait of Hormuz.
Since purchases from Russian sources were banned by Brussels, the newly launched Domo-Auffanggesellschaft Polyamid GmbH found itself in the middle of an exploding raw material hell.
The production of fertilizer requires raw materials, and for the raw materials, the suppliers asked for a larger advance payment, citing the situation in Iran.
Local newspapers spent considerable time and energy to advertise that the possibility of bankruptcy of DOMO is "fake news" since it was saved by the wise politicians of the current coalition.
Then Domo-Auffanggesellschaft Polyamid GmbH filed for insolvency - so the fake news was not fake news. €80mil out of the window.
This story is a testament to the extent to which the German political elite, in exchange for their own survival, knowingly mishandles problems, without even listening to the people, other ideologies be damned. And now we see the results of it.
Oh wow, and now the parties that built a firewall against the AfD are suddenly “not against” a cooperation. Imagine that.
I understand the popular vote numbers per party. Don’t mean much due to the averaging out and passing out of seats, but the AFD kicked the stuffing out of the CDU, re;pop support , this much is clear.
It can be safely stated that the CDU got absolutely shellacked.
I don't see anyone with a turnout estimate yet, or a split between mail and in-person ballots, which is essential to judge change in turnout. But if turnout is higher, it's clear the "unsere Demokratie" mobilisation was only as effective as the AfD. The "Wählerwanderung" numbers we might get tomorrow at the earliest also interesting. As in how many FDP voters went to AfD versus cartel parties.
The cartel's big defeat here is the halving of the Union vote. This is an election of one loser - irrespective of which of AfD and the Cartel wins.
I see you recall that official results are not due until 17:00 in Germany, and the next day in the USA, for 17:00 in Germany is 23:00 (11PM) in the Eastern Time Zone, where most people will not be paying attention at that time. :)
I've always found it strange and fascinating how modern elections almost always end up so close to 50/50 draws. Perhaps particularly when some sharply dividing issue is at hand, such as this election with a clear ideological split. Why is there never a commanding victory, like a 75/25? There doesn't seem to be any obvious logical or sociological reason for this. All I've come up with is that people have no real opinion, so it becomes an odd coinflip in the collective mind. Would be interesting to hear if you have any thoughts in this eugyppius.
Nine out of ten voters pick their party based on emotion, force of habit or a similar reason not involving any kind off analysis or thought, or looking at issues and what the party in fact has done/voted for or against.
It is the same with many issues. Nine out of ten or higher get all their knowledge about something from major news media, and so only know what they are told. If news media says that "immigration has been stopped" people believe it and do not look up an official source for hard data or real numbers.
Only people who work in politics or have a vested/special interest in politics bother to actually be informed and keep track of issues and decisions and costs and so on. That's (part of the reason) why we - for thirty odd years now - ger this "muddle in the middle" all over Western EUrope.
I agree that most people are fundamentally uniformed and vote based on emotion and habit. But this doesn't really explain why nearly all elections in western democracies end up evenly split - apart from what I suggested, that the decision is somehow random for each individual, and that the final choice comes down to chance, making the collective result 50/50.
That a large majority of voters get their information from corrupt and biased sources like major news media and therefore vote in accordance with the views expressed there, is somewhat contradicted by elections such as this one in Germany, where almost half the population voted against establishment politics. The equal split here is made up of voters pro or con the elite and msm.
In some sense the presentation of a choice as such - whatever it may be - seems to produce a near certain, precise devision of the electorate into two equal groups. Its an odd consequence of modern democracy, and makes the entire system seem all the more frivolous and arbitrary.