Leadership in the Czech Republic Passes to a Trump Like Figure

No, That is Not Good - Is Europe  Slowly, Silently Turning Fascist?

One of the casualties of the Syrian Civil War has been the destruction of democratic values in Europe. The Czech Republic joins Poland and Austria and Hungary as turning away from decency and compassion and is now looking at government as an oppressive force.

From the Financial Times

This week’s Czech election, after Austria’s parliamentary poll a week earlier, has shown that the march of the populists in Europe is far from over. The clear winner in Prague was a five-year-old party led by a billionaire businessman, Andrej Babis. Support for mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties all but collapsed. A far-right party won 11 per cent of the vote. The victory of a wealthy, media-owning tycoon in a country from the ex-Soviet bloc brings inevitable concerns, too, about the potential for “state capture”.

There are plenty of examples in the ex-communist world of wealthy leaders running countries in the interests of themselves and their cronies, weakening democratic restraints to make themselves difficult to unseat. One big question is whether the Czech Republic will now join Hungary and Poland to form an enlarged illiberal bloc in central Europe. Mr Babis certainly shares the anti-migrant stance and hatred for EU refugee policy of Hungary’s premier Viktor Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling party.

The good news is that the new Czech leader does not display the fascist tendencies of other countries of central Europe. But it is clear the the attempt of Europe to do a decent thing, accept refugees from Syria and other war torn areas has had a terrible impact on government, and that nativist peoples of many European countries, maybe all European countries are now turning the continent back to the 20^th Century, and not the good part of it.

Of course in America we don't know or care what is going on.