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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

#51

Post by erikb »

Pica_soO wrote: post #41
erikb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would not compare die Linke with the KPD.

I don't compare them with the KPD. I just say they are Socialist. And they say so themselves.

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

#52

Post by erikb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

What about the Pirate Party? I hoped I'd see Piratenpartei Deutschland in the elections...

I'd hope so too, but honestly they have lost a lot since 2013, and not just votes. Also actual political goals. And while the hopes for political seriousness and organisation quality are increasing, the actual implementation seems to stagnate.

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

#53

Post by pluma »

erikb wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not true that the Left is more liberal. They are more socialist, which is simply not listed in these article's diagrams This is an important point which trying to ram non-US political parties into a US-based single left-right spectrum does not account for. Another important distinction which people miss is "Islam" (the religion) vs "Islamism" (its involvement in politics).

Yes, in Germany left means Socialist, right means Fascist, and the differentiation between conservatism and progressiveness is actually something you can find in each of the corners. I also believe that Germany is not the only country like that. E.g. I have just finished watching season 3 of the tv show Narcos and it seems to me as if in Colombia this distinction also exists and it is enforced even stronger, with the…

Maajid Nawaz would disagree with your assessment of Islam and Islamism.

For Christianity politics and religion used to be as inseparable as they are for Islam today. Not so long ago most heads of state were subject to the Vatican (whether ceremonially or literally) and granted their authority by divine privilege alone.

The separation of church and state in the Christian world is largely a relatively new phenomenon and ultimately dates back to the Peace of Westphalia (the 17th century is much closer to the present day than to the birth of Christianity) which established the counter-intuitive idea that it's okay for other nations to have other religious beliefs than your own.

For many Muslims today, Islam is Islamism, with varying degrees of urgency, but that doesn't mean you can't have Islam without Islamism or that you shouldn't make the distinction. Islam is just lagging behind Christianity when it comes to holy wars and acceptance of other faiths (even other sects of Islam itself). There are plenty of explanations for why that is the case and not few of them at least partially blame the West, but it's an evolution that's still happening in Islam and that needs to happen for Islam to peacefully coexist with other religions and the non-religious.

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

#54

Post by peteretep »

vim_wannabe wrote: post #27
peteretep wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

You didn't read the link, and you've linked to a YouTube video of some guy opining into a camera as some kind of primary source. Awesome.

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

#55

Post by zimpenfish »

pjc50 wrote: post #47
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…

> are there still British people in London This is the stupidest thing I've seen on HN today.

Having done a quick survey (size: 1), I can confirm there is at least one (1) British person in London.

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

#56

Post by zimpenfish »

tajen wrote: post #4
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"…

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…

> everyone categorizes anything that discusses immigration as "extreme-right" or "alt-right"

No, not anything, just those which are clearly racially motivated.

> beyond "They're stupid racist biggots"

That, largely, is why he got 62M votes. The US is a deeply racist country with catastrophic social and economic problems that are imagined to be the fault of "others" and "liberals" - he pandered to that demographic and won.

> Milo Yiannopoulos

Oh dear. As a wise man once said, "when in deep hole of shit, stop digging".

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

#57

Post by pluma »

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'.

It's improbable that the AfD will get enough votes to become a part of the government but I don't find it at all unlikely that they'll perform better than the polls suggest, especially considering the recent failures of polls in other countries.

The AfD is much more socially acceptable than the NPD ever was. It's largely seen as a "protest party" and the general consensus that they have no chance of being part of any government coalition only helps support that.

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

#58

Post by pjc50 »

pluma wrote: post #53
erikb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in Germany left means Socialist, right means Fascist, and the differentiation between conservatism and progressiveness is actually something you can find in each of the corners. I also believe that Germany is not the only country like that. E.g. I have just finished watching season 3 of the tv show Narcos and it seems to me as if in Colombia this distinction also exists and it is enforced even stronger, with the…

Maajid Nawaz would disagree with your assessment of Islam and Islamism. For Christianity politics and religion used to be as inseparable as they are for Islam today. Not so long ago most heads of state were subject to the Vatican (whether ceremonially or literally) and granted their authority by divine privilege alone. The separation of church and state in the Christian world is largely a relatively new phenomenon an…

Indeed. Not to mention that German politics has both a "Christian Democratic Union" and "Christian Social Union". Let's not pretend that the West is a nice cleanly separated secularist utopia.

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

#59

Post by pluma »

fmap wrote: post #33
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 t…

> separation of state and religion

FWIW as I used to be misinformed about this: Germany does not have a meaningful separation of state and religion. We have no state religion so it's not a "Christian nation" strictly speaking but there are a lot of things preventing us from being a secular one:

* the constitution establishes that the German people have a duty to "God"

* recognised (publicly incorporated) churches have special privileges, like enacting taxes on their members, which are collected "for free" by the state

* employees of the Catholic or Protestant churches are subject to church law, which often overrides ordinary labor protections

* Merkel has repeatedly stated that Europe and Germany are defined by Christian values and that her stance on certain topics (e.g. homosexuality) is guided by her Christianity

* we have a blasphemy law that criminalises insults against religious beliefs or deities (rather than individuals or religious groups)

(there are more examples but I think this is sufficient to prove a point)

> I hope that you're wrong and at least according to current polls >10% doesn't seem like a forgone conclusion

So do I, I'm just going by their trajectory in state elections. I don't want them to get a single seat but I know they are still the go-to protest vote and there are a lot of upset voters.

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

#60

Post by vim_wannabe »

peteretep wrote: post #54
vim_wannabe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So not world capital, but the EU capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE

You didn't read the link, and you've linked to a YouTube video of some guy opining into a camera as some kind of primary source. Awesome.

The article you posted has been updated with 2016 info: >The most recent Eurostat data for the 28 EU countries also puts Sweden in the top spot.
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