Die Linke won the state elections in Berlin on 20 September, leaving it unclear whether lead candidate Elif Eralp can be appointed mayor.
The Bottom Line
- The Election Shock: Die Linke won the state elections in Berlin on September 20, centering their platform on housing reform.
- The Policy Clash: Lead candidate Elif Eralp’s primary proposal aims to socialize the housing stock of the city’s biggest real-estate companies, sparking immediate political warfare.
- The Moderate Retreat: Shaken by AfD gains and intense smear campaigns, potential coalition partners like the Greens and the SPD are questioning potential cooperation.
Unpacking the Berlin Housing Battleground
When election results came in, the political establishment did not simply analyze the shift—it panicked. At the center of the storm is Die Linke’s ambitious push to socialize the housing stock of the city’s biggest real-estate companies. For a capital city, the policy hits a nerve. Yet, the reaction from the broader political spectrum revealed a deep crisis.
Almost immediately following the results, a barrage of hostile narratives flooded the discourse. Critics seized on one leaked chat and one rapper’s performance to paint the left-wing party as a dangerous group. Pundits and opposition voices floated extreme accusations, attempting to tie the victory to external extremist networks or draw comparisons to the German Democratic Republic.
These frantic smear tactics are rarely just about the specific candidates involved. They serve as a protective shield for an economic status quo that views private property as an untouchable article of faith.
Liberalism and the Limits of Possessive Individualism
Our liberal capitalist orders are designed to protect property. Touch one bit of it, and the whole thing is apparently on fire. But why are nerves so raw right now?
Liberalism anchors its legitimacy in individual freedom. It is a specific variety of freedom—individual freedom. People are permitted complete autonomy provided they refrain from infringing upon the liberties of others, or most importantly, their possessions.
Managing financial disparity or ecological breakdown is beyond the capacity of liberalism, unless it chooses to pit the personal liberties of current elites against the freedoms belonging to distant or future populations.
When citizens are asked to give up personal conveniences or hypothetical property ownership for the greater collective good, the trade-off registers as pure loss. Public housing or public transport in turn would not register as compensation.
| Political Force | Core Campaign Focus | Primary Narrative Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Die Linke | Socializing housing stock | Challenging real-estate companies |
| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | Anti-immigration & “phantom possession” | Weaponizing identity, tradition, and exclusionary nationalism |
| The Political Center (SPD / Greens) | Defending institutional stability | Hesitating between coalition pragmatism and property panic |
How the Right Capitalizes on Phantom Possession
While the left attempts to address material inequalities through structural market intervention, the political right deploys a different playbook entirely. Rather than offering tangible economic relief, right-wing populists sell what can best be described as “phantom possession.”
Slogans like “Take back your country” rely on an emotional appeal to ownership where none actually exists. Voters are urged to treat the nation, freedom of speech, the family, and traditional gender roles as personal property. This framework weaves xenophobic myths—such as the “great replacement” myth—into a narrative that convinces insecure voters they are rightful landlords of the nation state.
Much of the self-described moderate camp is also abandoning the equality-based liberal agreement, rattled by the electoral triumphs of the AfD, bewildered by a future that liberalism proves powerless to manage, pressed by various groups demanding emancipation, and struggling to justify Israel’s atrocities.
