Comment by fmap | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fmap | Hacker News Reader

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> 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...).

> 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.

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