Short report on the ugly political situation in Austria
This is a good, ten-minute Deutsche Welle report inn English on the current political situation (crisis) in Austria.1
It features a short but worthwhile interview with Austrian political scientist and independent political analyst Natascha Strobl.
As she says in the clip, “The strength of the far right is the weakness of all the other democratic parties.”
And that’s true in varying degrees in various other countries, including the United States, as well.
1
What makes far-right parties so appealing to voters? DW News 01/05/2025. (Accessed: 2024-06-01).
It's the same old, same old, all around the world. The rise of alt-right populism plays upon the legitimate grievances and fears of the populace, especially the working classes, only to then appeal to their base instincts. Nothing new about that.
Meanwhile liberal elites continue to "not get it." Despite what they say, either they don't care about the people they say they care about, or they exist in such a bubble of unreality that whatever they say, it's largely performative. Because if they did care, or knew what they were doing, they wouldn't run the type of lame campaigns they've been running lately - and losing - or at least conceding much of the working class constituency. I'm generalizing, I realize, but I see the same mistakes being made by liberals and progressives all around the Western trail. Clueless and insulated.