The Norbert Hofer/Donald Trump divide

[Tender Branson]

A couple personal things I noticed recently:



* I have a relatively big (mostly FPÖ-voting) extended family and a pretty mixed (politically) amount of co-workers and friends. Nobody among them supports Donald Trump, even though like 70% of my family would vote for Hofer for President on Oct. 2 - In every discussion so far, everyone called Trump a dangerous, childish moron etc. (especially because of the nukes comments, the Khan comments and in today's conversation: the assassination remarks about Hillary).

* Austrians have never been friendly to the GOP candidate for President (not even the FPÖ-voters), but this year the divide seems to be extreme: John Kerry beat Bush by 85-10 among Austrians, Obama got 85-90% twice against McCain and Romney and while there are no polls out yet for Clinton vs. Trump, it's unlikely he'll get more than 5% support here - while Hofer gets 50-52% right now !

* The difference could be favorability ratings: While Hillary and Trump have almost 100% name recognition here, Hillary's not really that popular here (based on some "trust rating" polls I have seen, she gets a 50-40 favorable rating, Trump is at ~10%).

* Hillary's center-left counter-part here (Van der Bellen, Greens) also has 55-40 ish favorable ratings.

* But while Trump comes in at 10% favorables, Hofer is actually the most popular FPÖ-politician ever in Austria and the first one with positive favorables (+3 in the latest OGM poll).

* The difference could also be that Trump comes across as insane and a bully, while Hofer comes across as likeable and folksy.

Your thoughts ?

[Ebsy]

Reported for spam.

[Tender Branson]

Reported for spam.

No, it's a relevant topic for discussion.

[Crumpets]

It probably has something to do with "we like crazies, but only if they're our crazies." I doubt most Americans have heard of Norbert Hofer, but I can't imagine him being very popular among those who have, just as Trump isn't popular in Austria. I'd be curious to see a breakdown of favorable/unfavorable of Hofer among Trump voters, although I imagine it would be something like 5% favorable, 3% unfavorable, 92% no opinion.

[Tender Branson]

It probably has something to do with "we like crazies, but only if they're our crazies." I doubt most Americans have heard of Norbert Hofer, but I can't imagine him being very popular among those who have, just as Trump isn't popular in Austria. I'd be curious to see a breakdown of favorable/unfavorable of Hofer among Trump voters, although I imagine it would be something like 5% favorable, 3% unfavorable, 92% no opinion.

True.

But it would depend how the question is asked among Trump supporters ...

If it's:

"Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Norbert Hofer ?"

... it would yield a 2% favorable, 2% unfavorable, 96% who ? rating.

But if you ask:

"Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Norbert Hofer, the far-right/anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim candidate for Austrian President ?"

... it would skyrocket to around 60-10 favorable or something.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

* The difference could also be that Trump comes across as insane and a bully, while Hofer comes across as likeable and folksy.

Personally I'm convinced it is this.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Nobody else cares. Literally.

[Tender Branson]

Nobody else cares. Literally.

But this thread is for people who care.

Do not always post "nobody cares" in my threads, if some people might actually post relevant things here or find my posts interesting.

[Mr. Morden]

Nationalist politicians are rarely well liked in countries other than their own, for obvious reasons.

[Tender Branson]

Nationalist politicians are rarely well liked in countries other than their own, for obvious reasons.

Sure, but that's not what I meant:

If you'd do a poll among Trump supporters, Hofer/LePen etc. would all do well.

If you poll FPÖ-voters, or FN-voters Trump would suck badly because he's seen as insane.

A big divide ...

[Dereich]

This is a stupid thread.

That being said, an American ultra-nationalist in office can do things like destabalize the world economy, reshape trade structures, or start wars that could negatively effect Austria. Trump is also a Republican and Europeans even on the far-right seem to have a knee-jerk negative reaction against the Republican party since the Bush years.

Nothing an Austrian President could do would ever directly impact Americans. Austria is a complete non-entity that ranks just below Luxembourg in modern relevance. There is no reason that Americans should know about or care about anything that goes on in that godforsaken place unless they plan to go skiing in the Alps.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Nobody else cares. Literally.

Tender doesn't care that we only care about Austrian politics when there is an election. He will make us care 24/7!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nobody else cares. Literally.

[Famous Mortimer]

Hofer is much more "professional" than Donald Trump. That's certainly a difference. I doubt it's the reason for the difference of opinion though.

The thing is, Europeans basically have the same racial attitudes as Americans, they just don't realize it. I've met so many Europeans (mostly Eastern, not Austrian, to be fair) who are like "America treats Black people so bad" but they also hate Roma. You bring it up and they're like "no no, that's different. The Roma commit lots of crime, have lots of children they can't afford, live off welfare, and don't value education".

Two ways to read this situation 1) They are just total racist hypocrites 2) They're under the false impression that American racial animus is based on skin color and nothing else.

[mvd10]

Here in the Netherlands they did a Clinton vs Trump poll and Trump actually won PVV (our far-right party) voters 49-40.

[Famous Mortimer]

Here in the Netherlands they did a Clinton vs Trump poll and Trump actually won PVV (our far-right party) voters 49-40.

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for all the parties.

[aross]

A surprisingly large part of it is kneejerk anti-Americanism. Anyway, in this form this thread is inane and useless.

[mvd10]

Here in the Netherlands they did a Clinton vs Trump poll and Trump actually won PVV (our far-right party) voters 49-40.

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for all the parties.

https://www.noties.nl/v/get.php?a=peil.nl&s=weekpoll&f=2016-05-08.pdf

VVD is conservative liberal/classical liberal (centre-right), CDA is a Christian democratic party (centre to centre-right), D66 is the social liberal party (centre), PVDA is the social democratic party, SP is the socialist party, GroenLinks is the green party, PVV is the far-right party and 50PLUS is the pensioners party.

[Famous Mortimer]

Here in the Netherlands they did a Clinton vs Trump poll and Trump actually won PVV (our far-right party) voters 49-40.

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for all the parties.

https://www.noties.nl/v/get.php?a=peil.nl&s=weekpoll&f=2016-05-08.pdf

VVD is conservative liberal/classical liberal (centre-right), CDA is a Christian democratic party (centre to centre-right), D66 is the social liberal party (centre), PVDA is the social democratic party, SP is the socialist party, GroenLinks is the green party, PVV is the far-right party and 50PLUS is the pensioners party.

GL numbers are the thing that immediately jump out at me. I'm surprised there's any GL Trump supporter at all, especially considering there were 0 in Labour and D66. Who are these people? Islamists who want to trigger a race war? Accelerationists who think it will cause America to collapse?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I have seen some quasi-accelerationist leftists saying that a Trump election would mean the collapse of the capitalist world order/NATO/American supremacy, which could explain it. And GL probably has more residual hard leftists than pvdA given their history.

Also lol at those general election polls. Still can't wait for PvdD to beat PvdA.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have seen some quasi-accelerationist leftists saying that a Trump election would mean the collapse of the capitalist world order/NATO/American supremacy

Why am I not surprised in the slightest?