This entire report should be read in the context of what happened in Austria last Sunday, when Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPÖ) came a clear first with 35% in the first round of the national presidential election. The president of Austria’s authority is the same as that of the president of Israel and they both are modeled after the British queen, but still, it is a huge gain for the right in the land that gave us Mozart but then followed with Hitler. Hofer will face Alexander Van der Bellen of the Austrian Green Party in the second round on May 22.
Eva Trimmel, owner of the Fett und Zucker cafe in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt by Trimmel, has barred FPÖ supporters from her establishment following their party’s unprecedented success in Sunday’s Presidential election, The Local reported. When Trimmel opened for business on Monday, she wrote on the menu board on the sidewalk that customers who are “part of the 35%” should go look for another café. And below that exclusionary message she added the hashtag #rightwingNOTwelcome.
Now, as we hinted above, there’s a big difference between rightwing Jewish politics, or GOP politics, and Austrian rightwing politics, obviously because Austria in the past provided Germany with some of its best Nazis. So that when Austrians are voting right, even when they’re doing it in a justified response to the Muslim influx that’s been overwhelming all of Europe, Jews and other folks with long memories get just a tad concerned.
Critics of Eva Trimmel have compared her action to the Nazis excluding Jews from public spaces and from various establishments. One commentator, Philipp K, wrote on Trimmel’s Facebook post: “The same as 70 years ago! Then Jews were not allowed to go in, and now it’s [FPÖ] voters!”
Trimmel responded: “I have positioned Fett und Zucker as a queer-feminist, anti-racist café. I want no people with right-wing points of view to come in.”
OK, so she’s on the obnoxious side, intolerant and probably forgets your order and serves your cappuccino either tongue-searing hot or tepid, and her cupcakes must be stale. Nevertheless, barring voters she doesn’t like is still short of marching them to the nearest train station for a one-way trip to Poland.
Are Europeans really this bad with proportionality all the time?
