Austria moves to the right
Angela Merkel’s misguided migration policy ”” which allowed nearly 1 million people from Africa and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015 ”” has claimed another political victim. Her centrist Christian Democratic government lost a great deal of support to the populist Alternative for Germany in last month’s election because of her mishandling of the migration flood. And today, Christian Kern, the left-wing Social Democratic chancellor of Austria, lost his job because of his own party’s involvement in opening Austria to 75,000 new migrants. Germany borders Austria, and many refugees and economic migrants entered Germany through Austria, with 75,000 remaining.
Festering public anger at uncontrolled immigration, crime, wasteful spending, and bureaucratic arrogance has hurt all established political parties. But the damage to left-wing parties has been the most severe. Taken together, the three left-wing parties in Germany ”” the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left party ”” won only 38 percent of the vote in last month’s elections. Twenty years ago, the three combined won 53 percent. Similarly, in Austria, the three left-wing parties together won only 34 percent of the vote today, with the environmentalist Greens shut out of parliament for the first time in more than 30 years.
People don’t like being condescended to and not listened to.
The Austrian political situation also seems to represents a coup by the young against a more staid Old Guard, the latter perhaps somewhat equivalent to our Republican establishment that’s aroused so much ire in the US from former supporters impatient with them. I don’t pretend for a moment to be conversant with Austrian politics, but that’s what the following sounds like to me:
The clear winners are the parties of the populist Right. Take Austria. The center-right People’s Party was floundering early this year, trapped in an unpopular, status-quo coalition with the leftist Social Democrats. Then, in May, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz ”” the leader of the party’s youth wing ”” mounted a coup and ousted the party’s complacent leadership.
Kurz quickly moved his party to the right. He promoted tougher policies in a range of areas: migration, welfare benefits for foreigners, relations with the European Union, and border controls. He called for a ban on the wearing of burqas. He then announced his party could no longer govern with the Social Democrats, forcing this month’s snap election…
Here are the actual results:
In the end, Kurz and his party took first place, with 31.4 percent of the vote. The Freedom Party won 27.4 percent, and the Social Democrats won 26.7 percent. Even Chancellor Kern of the Social Democrats had to admit the nation has seen a “massive slide to the right.”…
The almost certain outcome of the election will be a coalition government of the People’s Party and the Freedom Party. They governed together once before, from 2000 to 2005, and were able to implement what for Austria were radical economic reforms before they split after various scandals.
Kurz himself seems to be some sort of wunderkind. He’s not just young; at 31, he’s nearly fetal. He’s a fairly handsome guy, too, in the mold of the youngish Justin Trudeau, who at 45 seems positively geriatric in comparison.
[NOTE: In the US, by the way, a 31-year-old could not become president; the age requirement is 35.]
One interesting observation I have read written by some random person online is – Interestingly the left only attacks white christians. The left doesn’t attack black churches, the left doesn’t attack hispanic churches, and the left doesn’t attack Islam, basically the conclusion is their main target of hate is the white people, religion is a phony reason they use to justify their hate.
Many people oppose mass immigration for reasons other than racism. upholding law & order by not rewarding criminals is one, national security is other, but the main reason is the rejection of an ideology invasion. If the left academia hates the right so much they they won’t let let them entering their workplaces, why can’t the left understand that people’s rejection of letting in mass immigrants with opposing beliefs? If the left wants more people to accept immigrants with opposing beliefs then maybe they should set an good example by letting more conservatives working in their strongholds.
I wish that Germany, like Austria, could kick out the Greens. Their holier than thou stuff is one reason Merkel took the position she did on refugees. People in general are sick of being told how deplorable they are. Brussels won’t even allow Bavarians to use their traditional pottery beer mugs at Oktoberfest. Now the have to measure the beer into a glass with an etched marking and then pour it into the mugs.
OTOH, a Berlin soccer club took a knee at their last game to show solidarity with American blacks. I’d like to send them all to south Chicago for a month.
Dave,
The Marxist Left does understand the valid, non-racist reasons why many oppose mass migration into their societies. It’s a purposeful ‘misunderstanding’. By propagandizing it as ‘racially motivated’ they keep it to a socially outlawed POV. Two other factors also apply; many on the Left and all of the Western European elite are trans-nationalists, who have embraced the theory that nations are the intrinsic source of wars. Nations form around cultural bonds, so by importing millions of people from radically different cultures they are literally dissolving European cultures.
Then there are the liberal, gullible “useful idiots” who have swallowed the Left’s kool-aid of post modernist nihilism, which utterly rejects the very possibility of objective reality AND rejects religion’s promise of an afterlife. That locks into place a worldview with nowhere for them to turn…
there is only one way to solve this and other homeless related problems. round them up and drive them out to camps in the desert. short of that, you are only going to draw more in with things like “low income” housing.
A conservation of principles is progressive (i.e. monotonic).
Principles matter.
The hard left and their useful idiots desire to rub out those on the right, by any means. Destroying the traditions of the Enlightenment. is necessary to achieve their goal. Thus open borders, BLM, antifa, etc. The backlash has started, the more the left doubles down the larger and more vehment the backlash. It will not be pretty.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
October 16th, 2017 at 7:35 pm
Dave,
The Marxist Left does understand the valid, non-racist reasons why many oppose mass migration into their societies. It’s a purposeful ‘misunderstanding’.
* * *
This observation “works” for most of the policies championed by the Left that are anathema to the Right.
Same-sex marriage and transgender bathrooms come to mind (Leftist: you only object because you are bigots!!)
However, Dave’s observation that “religious” objections are sometimes a cover for the anti-white agenda are also valid. (“the conclusion is their main target of hate is the white people [in Europe and USA], religion is a phony reason they use to justify their hate.”)
Of course, the Left does hate Christianity (as well as White people) in any form, but knows better than to alienate its other Victim Classes (yet) because of the intersectionality.
The Left is breaking down the black and Hispanic churches in other ways — mostly cultural ones that diminish the number of congregants, in hopes that the Old Skul members will all die and the churches just fade away.
Fortunately, Africa is picking up the slack in piety and commitment, especially in the Lutheran and Anglican faiths.
Neo
Once again a new poster (7:55 PM) responds to the wrong article.
The problem I believe is that the horizontal line near the end appears to seperate articles. I would suggest moving it so that it does.
To too many people the Right means Nazis, which in not true. I would bet that soon (if not already) the new Austrian leader will be branded a Nazi. Oh well, he would be in good company – Trump.
Many years ago Daniel Hannan, a British member of the EU parliament said that the number of EU laws limiting a UK citizen’s behavior was much greater than the number of UK laws.
Someone claimed that a prime motivator for Brexit was that the EU was going to take older folks’ electric tea kettles and muffin toasters. Ha! The Greens strike again.
The entire French electric grid is powered on nuclear, and the Germans used to be on that same pathway. At one point in time, the German plants being much newer than most, were the best in the world. Then the Greens, with Merkel’s acquiescence, shut down all the German nukes. Angela later said it was her worst mistake. Now I’ve read that individual companies in Germany have their own coal fired power plants. So very Green. So the gov. WILL throttle the electric grid, but WON’T throttle their companies?
TommyJay,
You have no idea how badly the Greens and eco warriers supported by the media have affected the thinking of the German people. After Fukushima, I personally experience women in a supermarket who were nearly hysterical about whether they could buy broccoli to serve their kids. Merkel could have taken a stand, but she would not have won the battle.
Merkel should resign for aiding Muslim crime in germany