Right-wing populism.

[hollodero]

(09-20-2016, 02:48 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: That's alright, I'll follow along on Die Welt, Der Spiegel, and Deutsche Welle until the election.

Seriously though, I get what you're saying. Everything about Trump and his supporters (not the "eh, it's not Hillary" folks, but the actual supporters) is definitely akin to the right-wing populism going on in Europe right now. I can't decide whether our two-party system makes it worse, or better in our efforts to fight it off.

Worse, only in a sense though. I'll try to explain.
Right-wing populism offers no facts, no arguments, no solutions, no sense of competence. All those things are presented as establishment keeping the honest people down (or something like that). The very first thing right-wing populism does is to replace facts and rationality with emotions. Then you can say anything, fact-checking is no longer the point - if you get the people to want to believe the messages that respond with their feelings (mainly fear, hate, all those emotions cleverly created by those demagogues). That is the main base for their success. That, and the fact that people choose to be dumb. Not trying to be condescending, it's just how it is.
Which also means - it's only effective in opposition to a government. Only then.

Austrias contributions to the world have been very small since WWII, and given what they were before that that is probably a good thing. There's one sad exception: We might be patient zero regarding right-wing populism. We had it back in the 80/90. (Now why us, it's not just that we are Nazis, it's more that we feel particularly inferior and insecure. Still everyone thinks he personally is bright. That's what allows right-wing populists to easily "give them an idea" about how facts are fiction and fiction is fact and how they get owned by powerful people and their "conspiracies" that "others don't see through". You get the idea.

How we got rid of them - another politician from another party simply called them on their bluff. And invited them to form a government.
Now the right-wing party was stronger, but they willingly gave away the Chancellor anyway. (What did Trump offer Kasich again?). What followed was a freakshow. One new minister - in hindsight probably the smartest - bought a Jaguar and took off within a month. The rest was sheer awfulness in full display. Next election the right-wing dropped to 10%. Defeat. (For a few years.)

Now that's why I think your system is "worse". You can't just let a rising "Trump party" be a part of government so everyone can see their inaptitude and smokescreens. You would have to go through the whole "he's in power now"-thing, without any taming. And that might be quite a dangerous time.
Now the solution seems grim anyways - but there's probably really little else you could do. Demagogy can't be fought based on rational words. But you don't want to sink to their level too.