Shockwaves
Recent polls in Austria show a huge surge in support for candidates on the far-right and far-left in the upcoming national election.
The mainstream parties face a shutout for the first time since WWII.
The first round of elections is Sunday, April 24. The top two candidates will face a runoff on May 22 unless a candidate gets an outright majority in round one.
Please consider In a Postwar First, Austria’s Mainstream Parties Face Shutout.
The first round of elections for a new Austrian president this weekend threatens to send tremors through Europe’s political establishment, with the far-right and Greens expected to knock the country’s two main political parties out of the race for the first time in modern history.
Since 1945, occupants of Vienna’s Hofburg palace have been backed by either the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPÖ) or centre-right People’s party (ÖVP), which have dominated the country’s politics.
But in Sunday’s election for the country’s head of state, Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigrant Freedom party (FPÖ) is forecast by pollsters to take either first or second place after a surge in support following Europe’s refugee crisis.
While the Austrian president has a largely ceremonial role with few real powers — the government is run by the chancellor — Sunday’s election will be closely watched in other European capitals. It represents an extreme example of a dynamic in evidence across the continent of mainstream parties eroding as voters increasingly gravitate towards fringe, often populist, parties.
“Over the past decade, Austria has been a harbinger of things to come in the rest of Europe. The FPÖ’s xenophobic stances in Austria were taboo in Germany — but now populist movements are starting there as well,” says Heather Grabbe, European politics expert at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
In France, National Front leader Marine Le Pen is expected to poll strongly in next year’s presidential election, pushing socialist incumbent François Hollande out of the race. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right bloc has lost support to the rightwing Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Opinion polls show the SPÖ and ÖVP candidates trailing in fourth and fifth place in Sunday’s contest.
If the FPÖ’s Mr Hofer secures a place in the second round vote, Austrian voters are likely rally around whomever his opponent is in an attempt to halt the party’s rise. But Vienna’s policy reversal over immigration showed the party’s growing influence over Austria policies.
Isolationists on the Rise
- US – Donald Trump – Republican
- France – Marine le Pen – National Front
- Germany – AfD
- Austria – Norbert Hofer – anti-immigration Freedom party (FPÖ)
- Spain – Pablo Iglesias – Podemos (We Can)
- Spain – Catalonia separatists
In the UK, the Brexit vote looms.
The social contract is broken. People are fed up on the left and right.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Everything seems to be called far-right or isolationism if people just are against people flooding to their country and the big socialistic project AKA EU.
Eu was supposed to be democratic. Now we have politicians accusing voters too stupid to vote or decide themselves. Soon I see EU building a great wall – not to keep people out but to keep them in…
EU is an island where ” you can choose your own way of being killed”… ” ain’t you glad? “.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vGzc02YZe14
Haha! The EU has never been democratic – it more closely resembles the old USSR style politburo. If anything it is anti-democracy. Just ask the Greeks or Portuguese!
Samijr spot on you win the prize.
If you do not agree with what politicians state publically you are labeled. This way they get the sheeple to look at you in a different way even though many are using facts and truth to back up their arguments.
“Far Right” now equals controlling your borders and not having trillions in debt, year after year…
Back in the day, what did we used to call that?
It was called “Common Sense”, which has been out of style for some time now.
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Merkel won’t have a migrant much less 10 of them, in her grandchild’s school, nor in her neighborhood nor in her childrens neighborhood.
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.But she will most certainly invite them into yours. And many of them.
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If your school suffers, the classes are slowed because the migrant children
do not understand the language, or your child is raped, it does not matter
it is for the common good.
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And Merkel is a good person because she sees that and you do not understand it.
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. You see, the Rich benefit, EDUCATION GAP is created, the rich in private school.
will get into better colleges, and get better jobs….
,.
. And at the same The rich get a gardener or house keeper on the cheap, or a nanny to babysit
the children the rich cannot bother to raise on their own.
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.The intent is easy to see.
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. Obama is the same. And is doing the same. It is very easy to see the intent.
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Livestock looks pretty much all the same to our “leaders”. It is interesting in this season of elections how many people actually rule over us that have never been elected to anything. Leagues of professionals, all knowing so much more than your “common” man, happily driving us into extinction to save us…or more likely the planet.
It has become very evident that those of “higher intelligence” are very much into self hate in the form of human hate. Hating every aspect of humanity as it has always existed, desperate to change us into some new thing that fits their template of perfection. As we saw in history, those seeking to destroy the greatest number of humanity will always choose a large and powerful government to do the job, all in pursuit of THEIR vision of perfection.
Hi, Mish – thank you for your blog; I never miss them.
Mr. Trump is not an isolationist; he wants trade that profits the U.S. For example, the US is paying for all the R&D for pharmaceuticals, that is (one) of the reasons drug prices are cheaper in all other countries outside the U.S. (Monopoly cartel & other anti-trust / extortion rackets are a problem as well). The military bases in other countries, like Japan, were arranged on the premise that Japan can sell its goods & services in the U.S., but the U.S. cannot sell in Japan… and, that is just the way it is if we want our military bases there. Isolationist is the wrong adjective for Mr. Trump.
Agreed Cathy.
Donald J. Trump is not for isolationism.
(Isolationism – That old economic boogie-man that is trotted out every time the corrupt Uni-Party, Dems and GOP, pols fall out of favor with the voters.)
What Trump is for economically is the same as a parent would want for a child of theirs who has multiple videos and witnesses of say child being beaten up by over-sized bullies at school every day.
Large numbers of voters in Europe know that their governments have failed them and thus will vote those who have had power out.
Who they elect (right or left) will then be blamed for failing to fix things and another “vote the bums out” cycle will be required.
Crash, burn, rinse, repeat….
Unless the Euros start having kids and teaching them how to shoot, whatever peccadillos they choose to pass their time with before being assimilated into the Caliphate, is at best an entertaining sideshow.
I guess Europe has a lot of Trumps.
Those darn racist Austrians. How dare they want to maintain a sovereign and solvent Christian nation free from Muslim intrusion. Obama should order economic sanctions / sarc.
Obama levels threat against Cameron and the UK not to leave the EU. Proof that he is a Goldman Sachs controlled President. Maybe Cameron can arrange an “ISIS moment” for Barry on the way back to Air Force One. We would be grateful.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/22/politics/barack-obama-david-cameron-press-conference/
FYI
UK Reporter to President Obama: Why is UK Exit “Any of Your Business”?…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/04/22/uk-reporter-to-president-obama-why-is-uk-exit-any-of-your-business/
Things are gonna get uglier for Obama…..
over there…..
FYI
Boris Johnson suggests ‘part-Kenyan’ Obama may have ‘ancestral dislike’ of UK
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-suggests-part-kenyan-obama-may-have-an-ancestral-dislike-of-britain-a6995826.html
Poland has recently voted in the same direction.
The possibility of civil war in Europe increases.
George Washington, “…no foreign entanglements”. Just thought I would plant that seed, so when they want our kids and grand kids to go rescue Europe again, they have the ammunition to tell them to go f**k themselves.
Political leaders are “distortionists” attempting to confuse their people as to what really is in their best interest. They paint everything as a threat and thus create the illusion that we are NOT being interventionist no matter what we do as EVERYTHING is in our best interest. I should come as no surprise that those who so desperately seek to to control us also want to control the world, and as such are not interventionists, they are control freaks under the illusion of pubic mandate to save us.
In Washington’s Farewell Address he actually said “do not make any permanent military alliances with other nations”. This advice was followed until the formation of NATO in 1949.
He also said:
He hoped all future presidents would follow his example and not serve more than 2 terms. That worked until 1940.
“preserve the national credit by avoiding war, avoiding unnecessary borrowing, and paying off any national debt accumulated in times of war as quickly as possible in times of peace so that future generations do not have to take on the financial burdens that others have taken on themselves.” That never worked very well at all except during Jackson’s administration.
Another:
He makes a point to say that he believes both nations who may be considered friendly as well as nations considered enemies will try to influence the government to do their will and it will only be “real patriots” who ignore popular opinion and resist the influence of friendly nations to seek what is best for their own country.
Smart guy that George. More details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address
When did the “social contract” include forcing dangerous, low IQ immigrants down the population’s throat? Whatever it takes to end that, that’s what will happen…..
These are perilous times when no one has control. At such times in history bad things happen. Don’t expect now to be any different.
“These are perilous times when no one has control. At such times in history bad things happen. Don’t expect now to be any different.”
The times are far more perilous when the political filth are “in control”
Both – when it seems no one is in control you can be sure some are planning how to be further so.
Remaining in the eye of the storm is rarely an option.
“ISOLATIONISTS ON THE RISE”
Why the “Isolationist” lie?
Good question.
I guess Mish meant it rhetorically… are they isolating themselves from others or others from themselves?
I suppose the mainstream title is aimed at marginalizing them, as in ‘they will end up isolated’… wishful thinking and designed to let the herd know that any who stray will end up in solitary.
People don’t seem to know that fascism never really left Europe after WW2. It’s been bubbling under ever since – the Austrian and Hungarian National Assemblies have 20% far-right members already; many rural areas of Germany and France are no-go if you’re black, Muslim, gay or Jewish. It’s in their make-up, they like dictatorships – which is why we in the UK want the hell out!
The UK should take immense pride in being a haven for “gays, blacks, Muslims, and Jews.”
Let those European countries suffer under the tyranny of their racial purity. No need to firebomb them. They’ll come around. Just lead the way UK.
“Isolationists” in the headline is the wrong word. Those Austrians just want to keep the immigrants out and preserve their own culture. They are not saying they don’t want any relations with other countries or not be part of the world community.
I want the U S to be “Isolationist” in that we need to stop sticking our nose into other people’s business and have all these foreign entanglements . Does not mean I don’t want us to be a responsible world citizen and have peaceful interactions with other countries.