The vote itself will help CDU/CSU, adopting bits of AfD's program is in fact the only way AfD doesn't rise.

@skibidist Empirically the last two months the CDU has adopted multiple AfD positions and in this time they have lost about 3% in the polls that the AfD has gained. Also I think most political science and the developments in other european countries show that by emphasizing the topics of the far right parties you help them more than you hurt them. So imma have to push the doubt button on that take.

@rayman2000 I bought YES along with my comment, because I think it's probably not enough to overcome the overall trend of AfD's rise. So my view is that CDU lost the few percentage points despite, rather than because of adopting the positions. I tend to think the topics (mostly mass immigration and overregulation incl. via the EU) emphasize themselves regardless. This is just my opinion, but I am actually looking for ways to be proven objectively wrong.

@skibidist Yeah, it's hard to measure causality here. I think at least the immigration topic is actively overemphasized in many places. The rise of immigration is mostly due to Ukrainians (which are not the target of the anti-immigration rhetoric) and violent crime continues to decrease steadily in Germany. So I think claiming that immigration is this huge problem mostly distracts from actual problems 🤷