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-social-system-wording because otherwise the people would start to fight them.
In terms of climate change we actually found a great way to make a profit from it. Since we are one of the high tech leaders in the world and climate save technologies are usually high tech, we can use that to gain bigger global market shares in many markets that were locked up previously.
Why is 3000€ considered high income? Is that post-tax? Pretax it's less than what Germans would expect with a college degree or higher.
I consider myself liberal, education, high tech focussed. But I would also agree that Islam is political and not just religious. Just look at its history. That statement alone doesn't mean one should fight Islam. The bad thing about hte AfD is that they want to fight Muslems. Educated people of course frown upon discriminating on such a simple fact.
>It is not true that the Left is more liberal. They are more socialist, which is simply not listed in these article's diagrams.
Ever since I first found the Nolan chart[1], I've always tried to tell people about it, but I think the reason why the distinction doesn't make a ton of sense is because reducing 4 dimensions to 2 will always be lossy, so something is going to get lost.
There may be a lot more ways to slice this pie, but the quadrants seem to me to strike the right balance of pragmatism and descriptiveness.
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.
> I do think that the AfD adds value to the democratic system in Germany.
Agreed. I dislike them and their views just as much as the next leftist, but they represent the opinions of a (small but) significant share of the German populace, and these ought to be represented by parliament proportionally.
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.
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" or "extreme right-wing". (Fortunately, the label "Nazi" is rarely used, it's more American domain these days.)
> 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.
You know, they do sound kinda "racist" and "extreme right-wing" from their own words.
> The party has a platform of climate change denial
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, including but not limited to literal Nazis. Almost all of these groups are right-wing and almost all of them are nationalist or ethno-nationalist. The moderates are actually almost palatable (their main argument always boils down to "but think of the children") but the party tries very hard to pretend there is no diversity of opinion among its members.
FWIW, the aforementioned moderates are often extremely "conservative" (i.e. queers are destroying society and corrupting our children, gay men are pedophiles, sex education should be abstinence only, etc). There's also a disturbing amount of support for fringe conspiracy theories (chemtrails, holocaust denialism, sovereign citizens aka "Reichsbürger", etc).
Saying "but some of the things some of them say are true" is missing the point. You can't take the AfD seriously because it's a hot mess that is heavily influenced by ideologies that are bordering on being anti-constitutional.
It's like attempting to justify bringing Adolf Hitler into a conversation about healthcare because he's a vegetarian. Yes, vegetarianism might have a place in that discussion, but nobody would expect that to be particularly helpful because he'll likely derail the conversation to say something awful about Jews.
The AfD's official position on so many things is so far off the mark you can't cooperate with them on any detail without suffering their taint on everything else. You can have reasoned discussions about immigration (e.g. how we actually handle immigration has resulted in plenty of problems on all sides) but you can not base it on a stance that is inherently anti-constitutional.
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'.
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.
> 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?
You may have heard rumblings about a populist party poised to gain power in Germany’s election on Sept. 24 — or maybe you just heard that there’s an election coming up. The party vote might seem strange — candidates usually belong to parties already, the way they do in the U.S. — but it exists to make sure the Bundestag reflects the party preferences of the overall electorate. To achieve the right proportions, the total number of representatives in the Bundestag can vary with each federal election, but it is always at least 598. Unless a single party wins a simple majority — which is rare — multiple parties will need to join forces to form a governing coalition that, collectively makes up at least 50 percent of the Bundestag.
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.
vs. 535 representatives for ~323 million people in the US
The arbitrary capping of the size of the House of Representatives to 435 members is one of the biggest issues I have with the structure of the US legislature.
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 fairly conservative compared to The Left (which in turn is extremely "pro-worker" to the point of bordering on anti-capitalist but doesn't place as much emphasis on LGBT issues). The Left is also much more strongly anti-war. The Greens also (obviously) place a lot of importance on ecological issues and renewable energy (which in Germany always means anti-nuclear).
The CDU has indeed shifted towards the left under Merkel but the SPD has also previously shifted strongly towards the right under Schröder. In fact the left wing of the SPD split off (that's the WASG mentioned in the footnote) and joined the Left, leaving both major parties left and right of the center. The SPD's campaigning this time is a bit more "left populist" than usual but that seems to be almost entirely strategic (to steer protest voters away from the AfD by offering a "real alternative").
The FDP is generally considered the most "employer-friendly" party and has a history of leaning towards neoliberal ("privatise everything") but has recently marketed itself as more centrist libertarian.
I find it very odd to see both the FDP and CDU described as more conservative than the US Democrats, as well as seeing the FDP described as more conservative than the CDU.
The CDU is probably most tolerant of getting involved in wars and only the Left and Greens take a strong stance against weapons exports but none of them are anywhere near as militarist as the US Democrats (or Republicans). None of the parties could honestly be described as "tough on crime" either. If anything the CDU can be defined as generally being strongly in favour of the status quo.
If Merkel loses (which most likely also means she'll leave CDU politics), the CDU will have an identity crisis. Merkel's "left-leaning" course alienated many right-wing voters, the SPD has become indistinguishable in many aspects thus competing for the centrist voters. The CDU would be expected to snap back to a slightly more conservative, more right wing position but Merkel practically eliminated all possible leadership candidates. Von der Leyen will not be the next Merkel, but all other public figures are either gone already or on their way out.
We're almost guaranteed to end up with another coalition government. It will likely be led by Merkel's CDU. 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.
[+] [-] erikb|8 years ago|reply
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-social-system-wording because otherwise the people would start to fight them.
In terms of climate change we actually found a great way to make a profit from it. Since we are one of the high tech leaders in the world and climate save technologies are usually high tech, we can use that to gain bigger global market shares in many markets that were locked up previously.
Why is 3000€ considered high income? Is that post-tax? Pretax it's less than what Germans would expect with a college degree or higher.
I consider myself liberal, education, high tech focussed. But I would also agree that Islam is political and not just religious. Just look at its history. That statement alone doesn't mean one should fight Islam. The bad thing about hte AfD is that they want to fight Muslems. Educated people of course frown upon discriminating on such a simple fact.
[+] [-] pjc50|8 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] ganomi|8 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] natecavanaugh|8 years ago|reply
Ever since I first found the Nolan chart[1], I've always tried to tell people about it, but I think the reason why the distinction doesn't make a ton of sense is because reducing 4 dimensions to 2 will always be lossy, so something is going to get lost. There may be a lot more ways to slice this pie, but the quadrants seem to me to strike the right balance of pragmatism and descriptiveness.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
[+] [-] readittwice|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] majewsky|8 years ago|reply
Agreed. I dislike them and their views just as much as the next leftist, but they represent the opinions of a (small but) significant share of the German populace, and these ought to be represented by parliament proportionally.
[+] [-] lithander|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvfjsdhgfv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zimpenfish|8 years ago|reply
> 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.
You know, they do sound kinda "racist" and "extreme right-wing" from their own words.
> The party has a platform of climate change denial
And also very, very stupid.
[+] [-] pluma|8 years ago|reply
I watched most of the federal convention of the AfD and the party basically unifies a number of different political interest groups, including but not limited to literal Nazis. Almost all of these groups are right-wing and almost all of them are nationalist or ethno-nationalist. The moderates are actually almost palatable (their main argument always boils down to "but think of the children") but the party tries very hard to pretend there is no diversity of opinion among its members.
FWIW, the aforementioned moderates are often extremely "conservative" (i.e. queers are destroying society and corrupting our children, gay men are pedophiles, sex education should be abstinence only, etc). There's also a disturbing amount of support for fringe conspiracy theories (chemtrails, holocaust denialism, sovereign citizens aka "Reichsbürger", etc).
Saying "but some of the things some of them say are true" is missing the point. You can't take the AfD seriously because it's a hot mess that is heavily influenced by ideologies that are bordering on being anti-constitutional.
It's like attempting to justify bringing Adolf Hitler into a conversation about healthcare because he's a vegetarian. Yes, vegetarianism might have a place in that discussion, but nobody would expect that to be particularly helpful because he'll likely derail the conversation to say something awful about Jews.
The AfD's official position on so many things is so far off the mark you can't cooperate with them on any detail without suffering their taint on everything else. You can have reasoned discussions about immigration (e.g. how we actually handle immigration has resulted in plenty of problems on all sides) but you can not base it on a stance that is inherently anti-constitutional.
[+] [-] vacri|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erispoe|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] peteretep|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tajen|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jackblack8989|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ryan001|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pluma|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] UncleSlacky|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emdubs|8 years ago|reply
vs. 535 representatives for ~323 million people in the US
The arbitrary capping of the size of the House of Representatives to 435 members is one of the biggest issues I have with the structure of the US legislature.
[+] [-] pluma|8 years ago|reply
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 fairly conservative compared to The Left (which in turn is extremely "pro-worker" to the point of bordering on anti-capitalist but doesn't place as much emphasis on LGBT issues). The Left is also much more strongly anti-war. The Greens also (obviously) place a lot of importance on ecological issues and renewable energy (which in Germany always means anti-nuclear).
The CDU has indeed shifted towards the left under Merkel but the SPD has also previously shifted strongly towards the right under Schröder. In fact the left wing of the SPD split off (that's the WASG mentioned in the footnote) and joined the Left, leaving both major parties left and right of the center. The SPD's campaigning this time is a bit more "left populist" than usual but that seems to be almost entirely strategic (to steer protest voters away from the AfD by offering a "real alternative").
The FDP is generally considered the most "employer-friendly" party and has a history of leaning towards neoliberal ("privatise everything") but has recently marketed itself as more centrist libertarian.
I find it very odd to see both the FDP and CDU described as more conservative than the US Democrats, as well as seeing the FDP described as more conservative than the CDU.
The CDU is probably most tolerant of getting involved in wars and only the Left and Greens take a strong stance against weapons exports but none of them are anywhere near as militarist as the US Democrats (or Republicans). None of the parties could honestly be described as "tough on crime" either. If anything the CDU can be defined as generally being strongly in favour of the status quo.
If Merkel loses (which most likely also means she'll leave CDU politics), the CDU will have an identity crisis. Merkel's "left-leaning" course alienated many right-wing voters, the SPD has become indistinguishable in many aspects thus competing for the centrist voters. The CDU would be expected to snap back to a slightly more conservative, more right wing position but Merkel practically eliminated all possible leadership candidates. Von der Leyen will not be the next Merkel, but all other public figures are either gone already or on their way out.
We're almost guaranteed to end up with another coalition government. It will likely be led by Merkel's CDU. 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.
[+] [-] suckerburg|8 years ago|reply