--- On Mon, 6/8/09, Michael McIntyre <morbidsymptoms at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Michael McIntyre <morbidsymptoms at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Voters steer Europe to the right
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, June 8, 2009, 11:27 AM
> I'd forgotten that. Consider
> him a dead metonym. Just rechecked - far
> right parties in Austria got 35% of the vote in this
> election.
> MM
[WS:] It goes beyond Austria. Right wing, nationalist/nativist anti-immigrant "Festung Europa" parties gained considerably in all EU countries.
I cannot help but think of the following memorable quote: "when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand." (HL Mencken)
OTOH, voter turnout was exceptionally low, over 50 percent of those eligible (including this writer) did not bother to vote - which is probably the right thing to do. Populism and its participatory rituals suck. I'd rather trust government officials than xenophobic mobs.
Wojtek