It's quite funny: After the conservative CDU's historical loss in last month's federal elections in Germany, some on the right wing of the party suggested they needed a figure like Austria's right wing Wunderkind, Sebastian Kurz.
And then today:
Austria's ruling People's Party (OeVP) said it had been targeted by raids from prosecutors on Wednesday morning, with local media reporting that offices in the chancellery were among those searched.
Cellphones and documents were confiscated in the raids, which Austrian media reported was connected to ongoing corruption allegations.
According to Die Presse newspaper, raids also took place in the chancellery and targeted several employees of OeVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
The newspaper reported that the raids related to possible corruption offences in the publication of adverts and opinion polls in the Oesterreich daily.
Kurz himself is allegedly suspected of being an accessory to the offences, it added.
AT&T Is Funding Right-Wing Conspiracy Network OAN, Reuters Reports
Wonderful. I’m a life long DC Comics fan but I may have to stop supporting them as their parent company is the main funder of this hate spreading conspiracy theorist channel.
Sebastian Kurz has been in office since January 2020. He'll probably be booted out of office before the year's end. The last time when the Austrian chancellor who held on to the office for more than two years was in 2016. that chancellor was Werner Faymann who stayed in office for almost 8 years from December 2008 to May 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Kurz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ors_of_Austria
We have to be careful when discussing the motivations of other people. If you're mistaken, they will identify you correctly as the toxic combination of obnoxious and wrong, which may make them more suspicious of anyone on your side.
Regarding Group 1, most people aren't single issue voters. Ideological positions often map often onto larger visions of the world. If you're right, Democrats could get massive supermajorities if they were just willing to compromise on one or two issues, and that's just not the way modern politics goes.
With group 2, there's no party that desires to keep the poor poor. Some voters don't see Democrats as helping them, partly because the problems are difficult and often involve major tradeoffs.
With group 3, we do have to keep in mind that Democrats, especially white progressives, have moved to the left more than Republicans have moved to the right. So this is going to lead to a backlash, even if you think this is a positive developments.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/182598...ing-trump-2020
Progressive institutions have been willing to tolerate some left-wing stupidity, like everyone at the Smithsonian who okayed the chart suggesting that married parents or valuing intent in legal matters is uniquely white, or all the corporate anti-racism training that suggests a preference for measurable results is indicative of white supremacy.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/tema-okun
https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian...values-1518333
With group 4, there is a venn diagram with the other groups, so many people who against political correctness are also going to be rather bigoted. But that's not the case with everyone. There is also a potential problem for Democrats if they lose people who were usually on their side, even if they didn't like those voters.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
Stalking Schools and Scaring Kids Is the New Anti-Vax Trend
A group of anti-vaccine protesters gathered in front of a school in England on Monday and distributed pamphlets showing photos of dead and disfigured children to students, claiming the COVID jab is to blame.
“My 13-year-old daughter called me after she arrived at school saying a woman had tried to force her to take a vile leaflet… apparently it showed a color picture of a young girl covered in blood and the woman told her the vaccine had killed her,” one parent told SWNS, a British news agency, which reported that police are now on the look-out for the anti-vaxers involved.
The incident—which according to parents left children entering the school “in tears”—is the latest in a slew of anti-vaccine protests targeting students as more young people gain access to anti-COVID jabs. And they’re taking place at schools around the world.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
When was the last time a third party has ever won a presidential election in the U.S. history? There was a time when A third party came in second place in a presidential election. 1912 was the last presidential election that a third party won second place. It all began when Theodore Roosevelt clashed with the incumbent president Taft. Teddy Roosevelt returned to politics and tried to seize the nomination from William Taft. But when the attempt failed, Teddy decided to launch his own party. He didn't win the election but came in second place. Of course the second place was due to the fact he was a very popular president before he left the office.
So if Donald Trump formed his own party and tried to run for presidency again, he would fail again and not even score a fourth place behind the Green Party, Libertarian Party and the two major parties in the race. Because he became extremely unpopular with the swing voters and lost two red states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_U...an_Party_split
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_U...ntial_election
Third Parties also did play a role in the 1992 Presidential elections. Ross Perot split the Republican Party vote and allowed Bill Clinton to win.
For example, Ross Perot took away some of the votes in red states like Montana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Georgia.
In the state of Montana, Bill Clinton won a plurality of votes at 37.6%. He didn't score a majority of votes. Perot got 26% of the votes in Montana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_U...ion_in_Montana
Perot also won 11.81% of the vote in Louisiana, 13.34% in Georgia, 13.66% in Kentucky, 15.92% in West Virginia, 18.71% in Iowa.
Arkansas (Clinton's home state) was one of the only 3 states along with the D.C. where Bill won over 50% of the vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_U...on_in_Arkansas
And sadly, the results of 3rd party spoilers is often the opposite of what they wanted. Teddy Roosevelt ran because he thought Taft wasn't progressive enough, but the result of his vote splitting was to elect Woodrow Wilson, who is in the running for worst president of all time - not because of his failures, but because of the long term consequences of his successes. Wilson was a first class regressive on many issues and the end result of his 8 years was worse for what Teddy wanted then if Taft had been reelected instead.
Unless ranked choice voting hits a critical weight of states (not likely to ever hit the big red states) that's what most 3rd parties are going to be seen as by most people.
The Reform Party had the twin benefits of starting in Minnesota (which has a long history of nurturing 3rd parties) and being financed by a prominent billionaire backer. And even those two things didn't stop Pat Buchanan from taking advantage of it's small size in order to hijack it - running on a platform that was pretty much the opposite of what the Reform Party stood for.
Dark does not mean deep.
Guys I am willing to do a lot of things to support the good cause but I honestly don't know if I can boycott HBO and cancel my subscription. And this generates some self-loathing because I feel like I'm comparing myself to the GQP eejits that can't handle wearing a mask or getting a shot for the greater good.
MAGNETO was right,TONY was right, VARYS was right.
Proud member of House Ravenclaw and loyal bannerman to House Baratheon
"I am an optimist even though I am told everything I do is negative and cynical" --Armando Iannucci
If Trump were to run as an independent candidate, he would certainly top the libertarian and green party candidates.
I wonder if it would increase the percentage of the Democratic vote, just because of what it says about Republicans, and because it would seem likely that Democrats would win comfortably.
Last edited by Mister Mets; 10-06-2021 at 07:09 PM.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets