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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

#31

Post by pluma »

yorwba wrote: post #25
VladTheImplier wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 case…

I'm sure the voters of 1998 would love to have seen the Greens be sued for their support of militarism, or the SPD for their neoliberal labour reforms. But alas there were merely a few protests.

If the Wahlprogramm were legally binding, there would have been plenty of opportunities to sue.

For the record: the reason the Verfassungsschutz might tear into a party is usually because the party harbors anti-constitutional ideas or associates itself with criminal organisations, e.g. the NPD with its neo-nazis or the Left with antifa.

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

#32

Post by readittwice »

I will probably get down-voted for that, but personally I do think that the AfD adds value to the democratic system in Germany. In my whole life I haven't experienced a single other topic that's so controversial and influential as the whole immigration/refugee-crisis. Merkel gets criticized a lot for her open-border policy, but actually in Germany her party is still the most-restrictive in this regard except for the AfD. You can see that e.g. in the current discussion where social democrats want to allow all refugees to bring their relatives to Germany (right now this is only possible for a part of them). Merkel first wants to see if the number of people is manageable for Germany and want's to make the decision later (so after the election ;).

To show its importance even in 2017: In the yesterday's tv confrontation between Merkel and the social-democrats front runner, immigration was the first and longest discussed topic. I believe that even in a country with Germany's history, there has to be a party where people who disagree or are concerned with the recent decisions about immigration should be represented. You would do democracy a disfavor if you try to cut out the AfD or their voters from the public discourse.

I know they have some politicians with quite extreme views which they haven't got rid of. And they will pay the price for that by getting a lot less votes. Maybe it's also since I am not a German and therefore don't follow german domestic policy as close as many Germans do.

Personally I try to imagine the two leading parties in Austria having the same stance on immigration as in Germany. This would end in a disaster for them in the next election, which is shortly after the german election.

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

#33

Post by fmap »

pluma wrote: post #18

I'm not sure what the RILE score is but that chart is worthless if you want to understand party alignment. Because Germany doesn't have a two party system, putting the parties on a simple one-dimensional chart doesn't tell you much. For example, the Greens are one of the most "socially progressive" parties (think immigration, LGBT, gender theory, feminism) but their positions on social welfare / workers' rights are f…

> I'm not sure what the RILE score is but that chart is worthless if you want to understand party alignment.

Even if you somehow project every single point of discussion into one dimension, isn't this a weird axis? It seems like there are a lot of issues in the US which no sane party argues about in Germany (e.g., separation of state and religion). If you were to do a factor analysis after presenting the same polls to parties in Germany and the US you will probably end up with an axis which neatly separates everything by country...

> I think we'll also see the AfD reach a two digit number -- I hope for less than that, but less than 5% (which is the minimum for getting any seats) seems unlikely.

I hope that you're wrong and at least according to current polls >10% doesn't seem like a forgone conclusion (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestagswahl_2017/Umfragen_u...).

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

#34

Post by pluma »

peteretep wrote: post #9
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"…

> The truth is, the influx of immigrants > is a real problem in Germany, although > in some places is felt more than in others My belief, from what I've read, is that in most countries anti-immigrant sentiment correlates with area where there are currently few immigrants. I wonder if that's the same case in Germany?

This seems to be the case. Anti-immigrant parties are more popular in sparsely populated areas that are mostly "ethnically German". This happens to also show up as an East/West divide for obvious reasons.

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

#35

Post by chki »

pluma wrote: post #18

I'm not sure what the RILE score is but that chart is worthless if you want to understand party alignment. Because Germany doesn't have a two party system, putting the parties on a simple one-dimensional chart doesn't tell you much. For example, the Greens are one of the most "socially progressive" parties (think immigration, LGBT, gender theory, feminism) but their positions on social welfare / workers' rights are f…

Thanks for the great Analysis which addresses many problems with the article. I want to emphasize the point you made about the CDU/CSU and FDP being more conservative than the Democrats: A strongly left wing Democrat like Berny Sanders would in my opinion probably be somewhere between the CDU and the SPD, a "normal Democrat" would be somewhere between the CDU and the AFD.

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

#36

Post by lithander »

readittwice wrote: post #32

I will probably get down-voted for that, but personally I do think that the AfD adds value to the democratic system in Germany. In my whole life I haven't experienced a single other topic that's so controversial and influential as the whole immigration/refugee-crisis. Merkel gets criticized a lot for her open-border policy, but actually in Germany her party is still the most-restrictive in this regard except for the…

I agree. The CDU became more and more liberal and conservative positions now get represented by a new party. It shows that the democracy is healthy even if I would never vote for them, personally.

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

#37

Post by bildung »

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…

Practically everything in that program is right-wing:

* strengthening the role of the president, weakening the parties (the weak presidential role in Germany is a direct result of the experiences in Nazi Germany)

* reducing the size of the members of parliament

* reducing payments for members of parliament (they currently earn around 10k/month)

* introduction of direct voting (e.g. reducing complex matters to yes/no decisions)

* introduction of a tax wastage crime

* removal of anti-discrimination laws

* higher military budgets

* return to immigration laws where descendence from German bloodlines is needed for naturalization

* higher punishments, especially for the youth

* more surveillance

* anti islam positions

* promoting population growth to counter immigrants

* removing public financial support of daycare

* anti abortion

* lowering tax rates

* forced unpayed labor for long time unemployed

the only left wing positions are:

* pro minimum wage, but no actual numbers given

* guaranteeing more personel in the health care sector

All of this isn't really surprising as the AfD came into life as a right-wing fork of the CDU, the mainstream conservative party in Germany.

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

#39

Post by erikb »

ganomi wrote: post #30
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...

Yes, also hard to express for me. Die Linke of course is not just social, but really socialist, as in pre-communist.

The SPD itself also started out as the socialist-like-communist party in its very early days. Then it became a social-but-not-socialist party, and now it's hard to define any political agenda for them.

Of course your direct political rival is associated with the devil, but for Germany Russia is even a possible political partner, just like the US. So being socialist is not really bad in itself. Many educated people actually have a pro-socialist view on the world here. What probably also need to be considered for non-German readers is this: The word socialist itself has a different meaning. It is more focussed on helping each ohter and helping the poor, than on political agenda. The same way a US citizen wouldn't consider a "Liberal" as a monoply-supporting exploiter, which is a common interpretation of the word "Liberal" here in Germany (which is why the FDP is one of the less strong parties). it's always important to consider that people don't mean the same thing as one would think, when they say such big words.

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

vacri wrote: post #13
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"…

It's a false equivalency, comparing Trump supporters to similar in other countries. The AfD gets 5% of the vote. Trump got nearly 50% of the vote. Every population has its extremist idiots, but for nearly 50% of voters to willingly cast their vote for such an obscenely obvious conman? No, the AfD situation is nothing like Trump - there is no danger of AfD 'running the show'.

[deleted]
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