Populist, billionaire and self-proclaimed “Trumpist” Andrej Babis won the Czech parliamentary election Saturday in a political comeback that put the country on a course away from supporting Ukraine and toward Hungary and Slovakia, which have taken a pro-Russian path.
The existence of billionaires is an affront to humanity.
The ancient Greeks considered electoral politics to be a form of oligarchy, as it favored the rich inherently.
I swear whyyyy. We are finally getting our shit together in hungary and now slovakia, poland and czechia all have to fuck it over at the same time.
Dude just wait for Germany to fuck it over, some of us are just salivating at the thought. It makes me so sick
You think that’s accidental?
His party won, that was expected. They did not win by big enough margin and will need to negotiate with 2 other populist parties to have majority.
These 2 smaller parties have completely different programmes such as one is anti-NATO and anti-EU while the other has opposite ideology. Being populists, for either of the party this was one of the main topics and he will need BOTH make his government work.
Let’s see how this comment will age but right now it doesn’t seem so bad.
They’ll also still have a minority in the Senate, is that right?
It’s a shame that people who grew up with the peace provided by the eu are so easily persuaded to leave it behind
What the hell is going on with Czech people, looking at the USA and Hungary and thinking “yup, that’s how we wanna roll”?
The people on this planet are mostly dumb as fuck. Change my mind. No, seriously. I am begging you to change my mind!
The people on this planet are mostly dumb as fuck.
Cooperate with the clever ones.
That’s the idea of democratic politics. That we elect intelligent people to govern us in the best way. Problem is some smart (and also dumb) people are realising there are way more dumb people which can be easily manipulated/convinced with populism to gain power for their own sole advantage.
That’s why the intelligent have to pick the intelligent and then have to do the convincing themselves.
The joke is that the most likely outcome is the same as what the smart people do.
A decade of Influence by unregulated billionaire owned social media and Russian bots pushing anti democratic rhetoric would be my guess.
Unfortunately, it’s the future of Europe, we will all be dictatorships by the 2030s. To those who still care about the democratic values, enjoy it while you can, it won’t last.
This is the reality.
I’m beginning to think there could be a democracy-dictatorship cycle. Takes about a hundred years for a full revolution to take place.
It’s always dictatorship, just by different means. Democracy is just too unstable with an internet that makes controlling information very difficult.
You could be on to something as far controlling the masses are concerned. Different tools were used in different times, but the games is still essentially the same.
However, the Arab Spring showed how fragile dictatorships can be when people start using the social media. Nowadays, we’re seeing how the dictators are using the very same tools for their advantage.
“Populist billionaire” is quite the oxymoron
Oh, there’s definitely more than one moron involved here.
Vlad Vexler has been talking for a while about how trumpism and putinism are not things that infect Europe but representations of a global phenomenon that had European roots as well. We need to stop seeing these are weird exceptions and start talking about this new wave of authoritarianism has a very high chance of being the European default in the 2030s.
I wrote in another thread that in 2021, when Babiš was Czech prime minister, he backed Hungary PM Orbán’s anti-LGBT law.
Just yesterday, thousands attended the banned Pride march in the Hungarian city of Pécs, showing anti-government signs such as “Hungary is a dictatorship”.
Maybe we see similar ‘events’ soon in the Czech Republic, while right-wing pro-Russian groups will demonize the West as it is now the case in Hungary?
For now it seems the Czech Republic made a step or two toward a dictatorial far-right regime like Russia’s or China’s, so the fight for democracy will intensify.
Another one bites the dust.
Dammit, now I gotta start smoking three packs per day…
Nothing good is allowed to happen ever again.
Please just take ours!
Scary
