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Comment by skrause | Hacker News Reader

No it's not. Bavaria's prime minister Söder is a populist and there are state elections this year, he only says that because he knows that the federal government will say no.

In fact check out what he said in 2011:

> In Bavaria, the CSU and FDP cannot agree on a date for the nuclear phase-out. Environment Minister Söder insists on 2022 as the exit year – apparently at any price. The Bavarian Environment Minister Markus Söder (CSU) apparently links the schedule for the nuclear phase-out in Bavaria to his office. At the Council of Ministers meeting on Tuesday, Söder threatened to resign if the Free State decided to phase out nuclear energy at a later date than 2022, reports the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", citing cabinet members.

https://www-welt-de.translate.goog/politik/deutschland/artic...

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> Bavaria's prime minister Söder is a populist

That's why he was for closing the power plant in the first place. In 2011 was the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

2011 is a long time ago, his opinion or view point might've changed.

His opinion follows a simple formula: whatever <insert some other party> says, he'll be against it. No matter if it makes sense or not.

It's a quite popular strategy on the right side of the political spectrum in the West.

One thing I’ve learned about politics in the past few decades is that most successful career politicians are weathervanes - ie, they point the direction the (political) wind blows.

This is by design in a democracy. However due to political parties, the pol may simply attach to the most powerful sub group they can use to parley themselves into re-election. So they often double down on their existing stances to keep/grow their core voting bloc.

> This is by design in a democracy.

I'm not sure I agree. It's one thing to claim that opinions changed, but an entirely different thing to feign support for topics you have no intention or expectation to act upon just because it might help you poll better. This last one is diametrically opposed to "the will of the people".

Till December 2021 Söders party was part of the federal government together with the CDU and the FDP. No attempts were made when it still would have been somewhat possible to revert the shutdown. Only after he is no longer part in the Government he "changed his mind".

I mean the Russian invasion sure changed the entire political and energy landscape.

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