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6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#21

Post by pluma »

VladTheImplier wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideolo... > For example, Petry, who led the moderate wing of the party, said that Germany should reclaim the German word "Volk" from its Nazi connotations, while Höcke, who is an example of the more right-wing views, regularly speaks of the "Fatherland" and "Volk", and has said that Germany should make a "180 degree" turn with regard to its sense of national pride…

I urge you to read the "Wahlprogramm" with Google translate, the legal text that defines what a party stands for in this election, it's ~70 pages for each party, but there is a summary for every topic. http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.htm... It's not much different from what the other parties aim to do. The only real one being, that the AFD wants a hard cap on immigration. If you read media co…

Wait, what?

What gives you the idea that the Wahlprogramm is ever legally binding? It's basically a mission statement that primarily serves as advertising and is usually signed off by the party's federal convention.

I suggest you stop reading the advertisement materials and instead listen to the actual statements of the actual politicians. I'm not a big fan of claims of "dog whistling" but you don't even need to look for coded language to find extremely revolting statements made by actual party officials. And no, these things don't become any more palatable in context.

The AfD is ideologically diverse, yes, but there is a significant influence of quite literal nazis, supremacists and xenophobes. You know what you do if your reputation becomes tarnished by extremists you don't wish to associate your movement with? You form a new movement and strongly disassociate yourself from the extremists.

If your party is the new favorite of Reichsbürger, neo-nazis and xenophobic old men, maybe you should actually distance yourself from them if you don't want to be associated with them.

The Left's reputation is tarnished by antifa. The Greens' reputation is tarnished by pedophiles. Why do you think the AfD deserves a free pass?

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#22

Post by fabian2k »

VladTheImplier wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideolo... > For example, Petry, who led the moderate wing of the party, said that Germany should reclaim the German word "Volk" from its Nazi connotations, while Höcke, who is an example of the more right-wing views, regularly speaks of the "Fatherland" and "Volk", and has said that Germany should make a "180 degree" turn with regard to its sense of national pride…

I urge you to read the "Wahlprogramm" with Google translate, the legal text that defines what a party stands for in this election, it's ~70 pages for each party, but there is a summary for every topic. http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.htm... It's not much different from what the other parties aim to do. The only real one being, that the AFD wants a hard cap on immigration. If you read media co…

The AfD is agitating against refugees and muslims in general. And even the top politicians from the AfD do regularly make rather extreme and controversial statements, not only the even more extreme members like Höcke. The most recent one is probably Gauland, one of the party leaders, who talked about disposing of Aydan Özoguz (responsible for migration in the federal government).

The AfD also has quite a few extreme policy positions that distinguish them from the mainstream German parties. They want to leave the EU and abolish the Euro. They deny that climate change is man-made.

They want to restrict certain freedoms for muslims and they cling to the traditional view of family.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#23

Post by pluma »

thg wrote: post #8
pluma wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Nazis support the AfD, not every AfD supporter is a Nazi. Some people are just idiots. And a not-so-insignificant amount of people are plain "protest voters" who vote for the most unacceptable party the media talks about (before AfD this was the NPD) to "stick it to the man". I watched most of the federal convention of the AfD and the party basically unifies a number of different political interest groups, inclu…

The AfD is a rebranding effort of the NPD to get rid of their direct Nazi / Hitler / WW2 past. The sad thing is that it appears to be working, albeit only marginally for now.

That's not really true.

The NPD is more supportive of the lower class. Its politics (nationalism and xenophobia aside) tend to favor the poor, the unemployed and the wage slaves.

The AfD is much more bourgeois. Despite its populist rhetoric its social promises actually tend to focus on working families and traditional "values". It's the CDU to the NPD's Left.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#24

Post by erispoe »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #2

The language used to describe AfD is strikingly similar to the one used to describe Trump supporters prior to the elections. The truth is, the influx of immigrants is a real problem in Germany, although in some places is felt more than in others. Normal people turn to AfD for help, not because they're aggressive or hateful. It's difficult to even have a civilized discussion about it without being labelled as "racist"…

And what problems are they exactly? Are they making prior residents worse off? Or are we talking "cultural danger"?

There is no evidence of the former. In fact, a large part of why Germany has taken so many immigrants compared to other european countries is that the german workforce is stretched thin and needed an influx of young workers. Plus Germany has more infrastructure in place to integrate foreign population.

If we're talking the latter, then that's irrational fear.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#25

Post by yorwba »

VladTheImplier wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideolo... > For example, Petry, who led the moderate wing of the party, said that Germany should reclaim the German word "Volk" from its Nazi connotations, while Höcke, who is an example of the more right-wing views, regularly speaks of the "Fatherland" and "Volk", and has said that Germany should make a "180 degree" turn with regard to its sense of national pride…

I urge you to read the "Wahlprogramm" with Google translate, the legal text that defines what a party stands for in this election, it's ~70 pages for each party, but there is a summary for every topic. http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.htm... It's not much different from what the other parties aim to do. The only real one being, that the AFD wants a hard cap on immigration. If you read media co…

Could you give me a source for the claim that the Wahlprogramm is legally binding?

I was always under the impression that it was more a declaration of intention, to be fulfilled on a best-effort basis. Otherwise, how would coalitions between parties work, if they can't deviate from their program?

Even if it were legally binding, that doesn't preclude making decisions on topics that weren't even covered. In those cases, you can only trust that the party has a consistent ideology they will follow. The AfD seems to be judged more for their ideological tendencies than for any demands they have formally elevated to the party line.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#27

Post by vim_wannabe »

peteretep wrote: post #15
tajen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. No party proposes a reduction of massive Muslim immigration, except this one. The fact that everyone categorizes anything that discusses immigration as "extreme-right" or "alt-right" doesn't help. Worse, it doesn't help diagnosing: I'm yet to see a good explanation by Democrats of why Trump got 62m votes (whether that's the majority or not isn't relevant, it's still 62m votes for a spoiled child), beyond "They'r…

> like Sweden became This appears to be an alternative fact, please don't post it again. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786

So not world capital, but the EU capital.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#28

Post by erispoe »

vim_wannabe wrote: post #16
lyschoening wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalist movements regularly combine widely accepted populist left-wing positions with xenophobic ideas (and proceed to disregard the left-wing ones once in power). I live in Denmark; the Danish People's Party here is also very left-wing on niche social issues and uses that to trick people into voting for them. Trump used this strategy so well that you had followers of Bernie Sanders switching allegiances to vote…

Out of interest, how is a cap on immigration xenophobic? Is the mere introduction of a cap xenophobic? Or is there some set limit on the cap you could have, below which you are xenophobic? I know the answer is probably 'X type of people want this cap on immigration, therefore the cap on immigration is X-ist!', but just wanted to make sure.

Because it's proposed out of prejudice towards these immigrants, and not out of a rational argument. Germany has a demographic problem and needs these people.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#29

Post by pluma »

vacri wrote: post #14

Curious that in the geographical support charts, The Left is on the right :)

The Left was the result of a merger with the PDS, which was the successor to the socialist party of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic).

Fun fact: There's a commonly held misbelief that the AfD is popular in the East because it's the East but it seems to actually correlate more strongly with lack of ethnic/cultural diversity and low population density.

Re: 6 charts to help Americans understand the upcoming German elections

#30

Post by ganomi »

erikb wrote: post #19

A few points from a German: It is not true that the Left is more liberal. They are more socialist, which is simply not listed in these article's diagrams. A strong socialist pariticipation in Germany results from a huge part of it being under Soviet control for a few decades. It is also not true that neither top party has aimed at the social system. Both actually do try to minimize it. But they frame it into pro-soci…

One thing that irritates me about the political terminology in the US is the use of the word 'socialist' which often comes across as an insult.

In my opinion there are big differences between beeing 'social' and beeing "socialistic". [0]

The big german party SPD and even Die Linke rather fall into the category social than socialist.

[0] https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/socialism-vs-social...

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