The Battle of Vienna

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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10 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    My first thoughts were “What is Austria’s migrant policy, currently?” and I checked the Google.

    Recent news articles mentioned when I googled “austria migrants” had the following headlines:
    More patrols at Germany and Austria border to check for migrants
    Stowaway migrants found crushed under trucks in Austria
    Austria To Ban Migrants From Buying Guns

    I didn’t even click on those articles. Just read the headlines.

    The problem with dodging a bullet is that many guns can fire more than one bullet.Report

  2. Jesse Ewiak says:

    “Well, unless polls change between now and the next Austrian election, that will be the Freedom Party. Which is precisely the party we don’t want to win even if they do get the most votes. It is, in fact, the diminished possibility of that which is cause for us to express relief. And, of course, Austria has a multi-party system with proportional representation that forms governments on the basis of deals rather than who gets the most votes.”

    I have to push back on this. If we lived in a different political system and as a result of this election, Gary Johnson was installed as Speaker of the House or some other powerful position because Trump + Johnson gets you over 50% (and also is more votes than Clinton by herself), nobody would claim that Hillary should win just because she has a pularity if another group has a majority.

    OTOH, we don’t have that system and there are plenty of other offices in the US where getting more votes than the 2nd place person even if nobody gets 50% – even though I’ll happily support conservatives embracing IRV, PR, and other types of voting systems. 🙂Report

    • If Johnson had the ability to toss his votes to Trump, I think there’d still be complaints. Fewer, but still complaints. If it were the case that coalition intentions were not announced beforehand, I think there’d be a lot more complaints. In fact, I’d be myself complaining.

      (FWIW, I don’t for a minute think that the complaints about the EC are insincere. In addition to the inadequacies of the system, I think Democrats are more temperamentally favorable to “people vote” as Republicans are to “states vote” even apart from immediate self-interest. That said, I do think a lot of them are looking quick-fixy rather than confronting an ambiguous outcome that might cut different ways under different non-EC models. Hence, discussions about how to improve the system indicate near-complete satisfaction with “most votes wins.”) (Except in Maine.)Report

      • Kim in reply to Will Truman says:

        I do. I predicted before the election the bitchery about the EC. Didn’t predict the riots, but those were Also Planned.Report

      • Morat20 in reply to Will Truman says:

        For sincerity, I do note the interstate voting compact has been around for a long time now, and the bulk of states that have signed it are (IIRC) traditionally ‘Democratic’ ones.Report

      • scott the mediocre in reply to Will Truman says:

        Except in Maine, CA, LA, and WA (I wonder if GA will be next?), although IIRC LA oscillates back and forth between bog standard primaries + FPTP general and the “jungle primary”. Ultimate the two round system yields to a candidate with the most votes, but by no means always the winner of single round FPTP.

        Also various lower trophic level govts have IRV (in the US). I believe Saul’s San Francisco is the largest in population.Report

  3. Joe Sal says:

    Will this is good work, was there any data on how many on the left and right that didn’t vote?Report

  4. notme says:

    Too bad, I thought this was about the 1683 battle of Vienna that stopped the Muslim invaders. Should this post be titled The Battle of Austria?Report