“Disaster narrowly averted” was the British Guardian newspaper’s view of the defeat – by only 31,000 votes out of 4.64 million – of the far right Freedom Party in Austria’s presidential elections this past weekend.
But it is hard to escape the conclusion that varied forms of populism – whether anti-immigrant or more broadly anti-establishment – are on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic.
Austria, I would argue, is a canary in a coal mine. A new political divide is emerging.
So what is this divide, and what are its consequences? CONT.
Simon Reich (Rutgers U. Newark), The Conversation