These Young Socialists Have a Plan to Rescue Germany

When 28-year-old Kevin Kühnert took the stage last month at the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) federal congress in Bonn, Germany, he seemed ready to spearhead a left-wing insurrection. Kühnert is the leader of Jusos (an abbreviation for , or young socialists), the youth wing of the left-leaning SPD, Germany’s oldest and second-most-powerful political party. At the gathering in Bonn, he showed little deference to leader Martin Schulz and his call to begin talks on forming yet another “Grand Coalition” government with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union and its sister-party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union. Jusos and its supporters have called this plan , arguing that the SPD will forfeit all credibility with its rapidly shrinking base if it chooses to govern with Merkel’s conservatives for the third time in 12 years. of SPD delegates at the congress voting to enter negotiations to build a new government with Merkel.