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What would be a correct and stylistically satisfactory way to frame a sentence of the form

Just as ..., so is ...

where each part is a full simple sentence?

For example:

Just as the public opinion about politics in general moves towards the negative side, so is the trust in John Doe's promises in continuous decline.

"Genau wie ..., so ..." seems to be possible but it sounds too genau to my ear. Such a construction would often be used to portray analogy more than exactness and equality.

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    I do hope that my English is at first correct regarding this form. Both are not my native language, so I'm sorry if it's all utterly wrong. – amirdeq Apr 17 '16 at 16:05
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I’m no native English speaker either, but I believe the idiom is stylistically more restricted, prefering a shared verb:

  • Just as X is doing Y, so is Z
  • Just as X does Y, so ?is Z
  • Just as X does Y, so does Z

It’s then similar in German, but (as in English) there are several similar alternatives:

  • wie X Y tut, so auch Z
  • so wie X Y tut, so auch Z
  • wie X so tut auch Z Y
  • X tut Y und ebenso Z
  • X tut Y und so auch Z
  • X tut Y und Z ebenso
  • X tut Y und Z ebenfalls
  • Z tut genauso wie X Y

Applying in to the original example, we get this:

Just as the public opinion about politics in general is declining,
so is the trust in John Doe’s promises.
Just as the public opinion about politics in general declines,
so does the trust in John Doe’s promises.

  • So wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen sinkt,
    so auch das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechungen.
  • Wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen
    so sinkt auch das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechungen [im Speziellen].
  • Die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen sinkt
    und [so auch / ebenso] das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechungen.
  • Die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen sinkt
    und das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechungen auch / ebenso / ebenfalls.
  • Das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechungen sinkt
    genauso wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen.

To stay closer to the English original without mixing two tenses, one could write:

Just as the public opinion about politics in general moves towards the negative side,
so declines the trust in John Doe’s promises in continuously.

  • So wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen zum Negativen tendiert,
    sinkt auch das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechen beständig.
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    Thank you for the detailed answer. Notice, however, that it doesn't address the case where both parts are full clauses, each with a predicate of its own. Does it imply that you don't accept zoagli's answer and Em1's expansion? – amirdeq Apr 18 '16 at 15:23
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    @amirdeq Yes, I believe mixing sentence structures is inferior style in both languages. I read Em1’s “It doesn't really work in your example” to hint at the same. Especially mixing tenses – tendiert vs. ist … geworden – is bad, i.e. tendiert and sinkt would work better. I’m adding an example. – Crissov Apr 18 '16 at 19:43
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I would use:

So wie ..., ist auch ...

In your example:

So wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik im Allgemeinen zum Negativen tendiert, ist auch das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechen weniger und weniger geworden.

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    I assume this applies to general predicates (in the second clause) and not only to sein-structures, right? – amirdeq Apr 18 '16 at 15:25
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    @amirdeq Yes, I was thinking of that as well. I would use any verb in the second part, e.g. "So wie..., hat auch..." or "So wie..., macht auch..." – zoagli Apr 18 '16 at 19:50
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"Genau wie X so Y" is absolutely fine, but is usually used with a noun phrase. This is the case when both parts have the same verb. It doesn't really work in your example, but it would be like this:

Genau wie die öffentliche Meinung über Politik so ist auch das Vertrauen in John Does Versprechen schwächer geworden.

But it's not restricted to a noun phrase and you can apply a whole clause as well, and as a matter of course you can then apply two different verbs. That means that your suggestion is OK.
However, in that case it's not uncommon to start the sentence with "So wie", as suggested in the other answer. And you can even combine both variations and say "Genau so wie...". In both cases you will often drop the "so" before the second part of the sentence. At least to my ear, a "So..., so (auch)..." structure doesn't really sound well in that case. But I'm almost sure others will disagree with me on this point.

For the sake of completeness, when the verbs of both clauses are contradicting each other (e.g. "more" vs "less"), then the sentence structure would be "So wie ..., so ist ...". (Here "So ..., so ..." is fine.)

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