Western Futures: 'MAGA' or Bust
Another look at last Sunday's election results in Austria holds several lessons for countries that still hold elections: the Uniparty™ vs. Populism, Re-Nationalise or go quietly into the night
And now this happened: literally a day after the official election results were certified, infamous German ‘politico’ Roderich Kiesewetter of former chancellor Merkel’s CDU, intervened in Austrian politics.
In case you missed my reporting on the federal elections last Sunday:
There is but one additional snippet of information to add: in that above-linked piece, I mentioned reports that held that ‘one out of six voters’ chose the Freedom Party due to their staunch and consistent anti-Covid mandate stance.
In what follows, all non-English content comes to you in my translation, with emphases [and commentary] added.
Covid Mandates Played a Huge Role
It looks that this was quite an understatement, as Vienna’s premier middle-class paper Die Presse wrote yesterday (in an incredibly tone-deaf way):
This time, just as many women voted for the FPÖ as men, and it also came in first among the under-35s [this is the main point here, more about this below]. One reason for this is a paradox: the pandemic [meant are the mandates] was an important issue for a third of voters, more than for voters of other parties. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, an anti-vaxx campaigner and mask denier, was able to score points because the protective measures seemed excessive to many in hindsight [also to many at the time, but, hey, why bother to check up on facts]. And precisely because the measures worked. The prevention paradox is a well-known phenomenon in public health: the better prevention works, the safer people feel [which ‘measure’ worked ‘better’ than advertised? The poison juice that neither prevents transmission nor infection? the face diapers? the entirely evidence-free ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’? 'Whatever ‘public health’ was, it’s over]. If you don’t get the disease, you don’t feel it [this is the true ‘paradoxon’ of the Branch Covidians: it’s a non-falsifiable hypothesis, hence a dogmatic cult belief]. The impression is created that the measures are unnecessary.
The person who wrote that kind of nonsense is one Anna Goldenberg (not to be confused with the Standford-based computer scientist of the same name) who frequently writes op-eds for Die Presse. Judging from their content—from climate activism to Holocaust descendant stories to feminist considerations to esp. Israel-Palestine commentary, she’s not been around that long at Die Presse (her first op-ed dates to 6 March 2024).
The NZZ Explains the FPÖ’s Success
Further evidence, although in a much clearer and level-headed, analytical form comes, once more, from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung whose long-serving foreign correspondent Meret Baumann, together with Nina Belz and Julia Monn, wrote perhaps the best legacy media analysis.
In all, three main reasons are cited: ‘migration, women, and Covid’.
One of the driving forces behind this was the then Secretary General Herbert Kickl...
Kickl became party leader in spring 2021. He could rightly claim that all those involved in the Ibiza affair were no longer part of the FPÖ [this was a kind of sting op/colour revolution that brought down the ÖVP-FPÖ gov’t in 2019]. It was also helpful that the legal investigation into the events also brought to light the unsavoury machinations of the ÖVP. For political reasons, all other parties then focussed on the allegations of corruption against the powerful conservatives. On the one hand, this pushed the Ibiza scandal into the background. On the other hand, the impression was created that all politicians are ‘just like that’ [change my mind].
Kickl is also a very different character than [his predecessor] Strache—suspicious and secretive. As a person, he is less popular within the party and, according to [state broadcaster] ORF’s post-election analysis, he was not a major draw for FPÖ voters. But while he shocks with his radical plans and brutal rhetoric, no private escapades are known—neither now nor in the past. As a result, Kickl has succeeded in focussing attention on the party’s platform and simply shedding its scandalous image.
The second reason given is the wide-spread discontent with politics-as-usual and the competitors’ chit-chat about a rainbow-coloured ‘firewall against the Right™’ well before the election.
In all, due to Mr. Kickl’s strong emphasis on content over agit-prop, the FPÖ managed to mobilise some 260,000 voters who, in the last federal election in 2019, abstained.
More importantly, however, the FPÖ was able to win back a good 440,000 former conservative ÖVP voters. The high figure can be explained by Sebastian Kurz: When he took over the ÖVP in 2017, he adopted a more restrictive course, particularly with regard to migration policy, and thus specifically and successfully courted liberal voters. Over 400,000 voters switched from the FPÖ to the ÖVP in the two elections in which Kurz contested. They have now returned without the former ÖVP bandwagoner. The Conservatives are back to around the same level as before the Kurz era, and the Freedom Party had already achieved 26% in 2017.
All of this is perfectly explainable (mostly absent from Austrian and German legacy media, though), and quite reasonably understandable in light of the massive transformation wrought about by ‘the refugee crisis’ since 2015, although, to be fair, mass immigration took off well before that point, as I’ve discussed here:
We note, in passing, that the share of foreigners in Austria is about 20%, i.e., it’s approx. the same as in, say, Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. The difference here is that the Nordic countries—irrespective of centre-left vs. centre-right coalitions in power—all moved to de-politicise the topic. Denmark and Norway, for instance, have severely restricted asylum numbers to next to nothing (to be fair, they label the teeming masses differently, thus ‘hiding’ the true numbers): in Norway, it was the centre-right gov’t of Erna Solberg back in 2017 while in Denmark, this occurred under the centre-left gov’t of Mette Fredriksen from 2019 onwards, thereby effectively quite successfully eliminating ‘immigration’ from becoming such a societal/political poison:
Neither Austria nor German have done the same. Those on the woke/left™ side of the political mental institution still insist that illegal mass immigration is a ‘human right™’ and that ‘refugees are welcome’, the sentiments of the electorate be damned. Those on the right-in-name-only™ side are similarly weaponising the topic to score cheap points (see the above section about Sebastian Kurz), but it seems that Austrian voters have largely seen through that kind of empty rhetoric by now. If anything changes, though, is harder to envision (more on this well below).
The third main item on the NZZ’s bucket list, however, is a zinger: Covid.
‘The Pandemic has Permanently Divided Society’
As in other countries, the coronavirus initially ensured high poll ratings for the governing parties, while the opposition party FPÖ lost the spotlight. However, the restrictive and sometimes erratic pandemic measures with four nationwide lockdowns soon led to resistance among the population, which became increasingly radicalised [well, if you have a cabinet minister, such as Karoline Edtstadler of the ÖVP, declare that those who refuse mandatory vaccination are ‘illegal’ in their own (!) country, what else remains to do but become ‘radicalised’?]
While the FPÖ leadership at the time kept its distance from the anti-mandate movement, Kickl recognised its potential and took the lead [Mr. Kickl became party chair in 2021 ‘only’, thus the FPÖ’s initial pro-lockdown stance of spring 2020, while it is also laid at his feet every now and then, is factually incorrect]. He thus became the hero of the critics of the measures, which not only helped him to become party leader, but also opened up new groups of voters for the party. While all other parties supported the government in its course, Kickl railed against the ‘corona madness’, the government's ‘block-keeper mentality’ [oh, this is shared by a sizeable segment of the population], and the mandatory testing and mask requirement. He also rejected vaccination and recommended treatment with a deworming agent for horses instead [why on God’s green earth the NZZ would still echo this Ivermectin nonsense is unclear but it also betrays the authors’ biases].
Above all, the compulsory vaccination decided by the government but never implemented deeply divided society [here, too, obfuscation and disinformation is the game: that vaxx mandate was passed into law and only failed because of sustained mass protests]. Kickl repeatedly addressed the pandemic policy during the election campaign and it was one of the most important issues for FPÖ voters—unlike for those of the other parties [of course not because the other factions were all: perpetrators]. According to a study by opinion researcher Peter Hajek, coronavirus and compulsory vaccination were even the third most important motive for FPÖ voters, while it played no role at all for other parties.
So, there you have it: the NZZ is still spouting nonsense and disinformation (about Ivermectin) as well as factually incorrect and argumentatively incoherent facts about Covidistan’s mandatory vaccination mandate, which, as I’ve explained at length, is actually an enabling act designed to empower the health minister to decree what ‘science™’ is and how many jabs anyone would have to take:
To be fair, at least Ms. Baumann and her ilk acknowledge the importance of the Branch Covidians’ deeds and actions as a quite good explanation for the FPÖ’s electoral success, although the other two points—esp. the one about content vs. style—are also valid.
In all, a mixed bag, esp. as the NZZ omits the fact that the FPÖ is one contending party whose stance on constitutional liberties and Austrian neutrality in particulars indicates it is still, at least partially, reflecting the Second Republic’s values. No other parliamentary party does that, apparently, if the treasonous importation of masses of migrants, the sustained deference to whatever edicts emanate from Brussels, and the horrible pro-war/Russsophobic stance in ‘polite society’ are any indication.
And there are a few other items (the FPÖ is now, effectively, the one remaining ‘big tent’ party), which we’ll set aside for the time being.
It is to these ‘other’ problems we now turn.
Germany Warns Austria Over Possible FPÖ Gov’t
To get a measure of how bad, objectively speaking, the rainbow-coloured ‘firewall against the Right™’ has become, we now turn to the Handelsblatt which ran the following piece yesterday:
German security politicians believe that cooperation with Austria’s secret service could be jeopardised if the far-right FPÖ party led by party leader Herbert Kickl is part of a future government. ‘If the FPÖ enters government, this would mean that Germany would also have to scrutinise its intelligence cooperation with Austria’, Konstantin Kuhle, deputy leader of the FDP parliamentary group and member of the Bundestag’s intelligence control committee, told Handelsblatt.
Kuhle pointed out that the FPÖ is part of a Europe-wide network of pro-Russia parties that are closer to the Kremlin than to the interests of the EU and its member states: ‘In view of the massive threat from Russia to peace and stability in Europe, we cannot allow relevant information to be passed on directly to Russia.’
Despite the war in Ukraine, the FPÖ is taking a rather favourable stance towards Russia. Kickl has nothing against gas from Russia. The FPÖ leader would also withdraw from the European missile defence project (‘Sky Shield’)…
With the FPÖ in power, co-operation would possibly be called into question. The lack of reliability in intelligence matters would probably be far more problematic.
The chairman of the intelligence committee, Konstantin von Notz (Green Party), told Handelsblatt: ‘In times of a war of aggression in Europe in violation of international law and massive campaigns of influence and disinformation, including and above all from Russia [I’m so glad the US and Western gov’ts never lie /sarcasm], the FPÖ in government would certainly be a considerable security problem for Austrian authorities, but also for their partners,’ von Notz told Handelsblatt, especially as the FPÖ’s proximity to Moscow had already caused ‘great irritation’ in the past.
This is all bad enough, esp. as the Handelsblatt confirms that there is a precedent for this stance:
Under Kickl as Interior Minister [2017-19], Austria’s intelligence services were partially isolated internationally
You read this correctly: because the ÖVP-FPÖ gov’t was disliked by Angela Merkel and her ilk, the of course politicised ‘intelligence community’ discontinued cooperation with their ‘partners™’.
Nice friends you’ve got there. I’m also not naive enough to think that this is something countries don’t do; in fact, they do that all the time, yet it’s particularly appalling, both intellectually as well as in terms of its implications, if that happens time and again—to Austria and all other countries whose leaders stray just a tad too far from the Blob’s line: just imagine Hungary’s Viktor Orbán who’s similarly shunned by his ‘friends and allies’.
Is it any wonder that, given political and economic realities, that politicians who seemingly still care (enough) about their voters seek to try to adhere to policies that benefit their voters?
The most appalling and offensive crap, however, came at the end of the piece:
CDU security politician Roderich Kiesewetter recalled that during Kickl’s time as Austrian Interior Minister, the country’s Federal Office for State Protection and Counterterrorism (BVT)—renamed the Directorate for State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN) in December 2021—was met with considerable mistrust.
Roderich Kiesewetter—whose Twitter/X profile sports the EU, Israeli, and Ukrainian flags—is the CDU’s leading foreign security policy point man, and he’s been the staunchest advocate for Ukraine being permitted to join NATO. He called Russia a ‘terror state’ as frequently as others go to the bathroom, yet he, too, finds it appropriate to now intervene in the domestic politicking of a neighbouring country.
That’s not even ‘double-standards’. This is pure contempt (which is mutual).
Bottom Lines
It is hard to read these gaslighting pieces (of crap) and not come to the inevitable conclusion that the powers-that-be are working overtime to ensure that the Freedom Party is going to be excluded from power.
Certain people in Austria have told us so for months, and with the globalists’ useful idiots in positions of possible power—from just enough seats in parliament to exclude the FPÖ to the Green octogenarian woke-revolutionary president (who, let’s not forget, on the occasion of his 80th birthday kinda spilled the beans telling state broadcaster ORF that his parents—who belonged to the ethnic Germans living in East-Central Europe—‘fled to the Third Reich before the advancing Red Army’) who will do everything in his power to prevent the even mildly anti-globalist forces of the FPÖ to get anywhere close to power.
And thus emerges the Austro-Covidian Uniparty™—which I’ve likened to the ‘rainbow-coloured firewall™’ (because of the party colours: turquoise for the ÖVP, red for the SPÖ, then there are the Greens, and the pink-clad NEOS)—whose protagonists have been calling out the FPÖ’s ‘sloganeering’ against that the latter call ‘systemic parties’ (Systemparteien), which isn’t entirely wrong and, to a certain extent, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The immediate future will, in my opinion, bring a losers’ coalition gov’t consisting of the ÖVP, the SPÖ, and one of the smaller factions (Greens or NEOS), depending on who will offer themselves for less; my money is on the Greens, but since they are so unpopular with voters (not that they cared about them) that I suppose the NEOS are also a viable option. In the end, it won’t matter.
This ‘unity™ gov’t’ will essentially continue the path of the past five years, which means more power to the globalists, thereby rendering it inevitable that even larger segments of the electorate will gravitate towards the FPÖ in the near future. Not so much out of conviction but out of a longing for ‘the good old days’ and, of course, because they have no other place to go politically.
The FPÖ will, of course, put up their time-honoured victimhood spiel, which is both a political trick as it is a reality that is hard to escape. State-level elections in Styria and Vienna, both scheduled for 2025—as well as next year’s federal elections in Germany—will have an outsized impact on the ‘unity™ gov’t’, which I doubt will survive for long after presumed—anticipated—rubbings in these state-level elections.
Beyond that, well, we’ll see.
As to the near future, well: betrayal, condescension, and increasingly panicked politicking of the ‘rainbow-coloured firewall™’ will continue, supported by the presidency and the judiciary.
Social tensions, fuelled by the anticipated continued arrival of migrants and the increasingly totalitarian policies emanating from Brussels will dominate the next few years.
The wild card, so to speak, is any further escalation in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and/or the Middle East.
We’re in for a wild ride, fellers, better buckle up and act accordingly.
Don't be too surprised by the Ivermectin-denialism and revisionism among journalists. Several of have been e-mailed information about the UN/Pan-African project (which I think has been ongoing since 1995) where Ivermectin was produced and distributed as locally as possible, to as low cost as possible, to hundreds of millions of Africans for the duration, to be used as a profylactic against Onchocerciasis (river blindness, though obviously Ivermectin works against all kinds of infections).
I mentioned it, with links to official sources including the WHO to Alex Berenson on his Substack some two years or so ago, when he had been beclowning himself by lambasting Ivermectin the same way lamestream media (such as his old employer NYT) were busy doing.
(As a consequence, I can't comment on his Substack ever since. And he has never - to my knowledge - addressed the undeniable and well-documented facts about how Ivermectin works and how safe it is.)
That this NZZ and others continue to this day to be willfully ignorant despite all documentation needed being just a few web-searches away speaks volumes about them.
All of this madness rides on top of some critical number of brainwashed people. Seemingly mad politicians will not change while their “madness” is handsomely rewarded from the imperial center. Destruction of Europe (and the West in general) of nation-states must continue unimpeded. They will use all means necessary to achieve their strategic goals, from weather warfare, to food, economy, hot wars,…, whatever it takes to achieve those goals. They will not allow “democracy” to gum up their plans. Only an united revolt across the political spectrum can save us; as long as they can slice and dice us, we will surely lose.