What Happened in Austria?

Just a few weeks before Americans voted in a black socialist as president, Austrians rocked the European political establishment by handing a stunning victory to nationalists who openly oppose non-European immigration and the loss of sovereignty to the European Union. It was a breakthrough unthinkable in any English-speaking country, and again confirms that the brightest political hopes for our people are in the nationalist parties of small European countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria.

The numbers were dramatic: In the September 28 parliamentary elections, Joerg Haider’s new party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria, increased its share of the vote from 6.59 percent to 10.4 percent, while his old party, the Austrian Freedom Party, went from 11.04 percent to 17.54 percent. If the two nationalist parties had been a single party, their combined total of 28 percent would have made them the number-two party in Austria. As it was, the Alliance and the Freedom Party achieved something nearly unprecedented: two nationalist parties dramatically increased their support in an election in which they competed against each other.

“Social security for our people. They are against HIM because HE is for YOU!”

On October 11, euphoria on the right was dampened when the charismatic Haider died in an automobile accident, but this did not change the assessment of the results by the pro-establishment Wiener Kurier: The general elections were “the biggest move to the right in the history of the post-war republic.” “This is madness, what this means is simply appalling,” wailed Erwin Wurm, one of the country’s best known sculptors. The Daily Telegraph in Britain fretted that “from the outside, it looks at best distasteful; at worst, downright sinister.”

How did post-war Austria, a cozy, Alpine country better known for Mozart and skiing than for politics, come to stand for the worst in “right-wing extremism”? Is this a success that can be repeated elsewhere?

Source:
What Happened in Austria?
American Renaissance