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Is there more to it, because from that wikipedia site it sounds as if he wasn't actually involved?

stefan_ 5y ago
Well, the FPÖ was half of his cabinet. No, what brought him down specifically was his party lieutenants paying a fake researcher (Sabine Beinschab) with state money for fake survey results benefiting Kurz, then paying news media some more out of state coffers to place those surveys. With his full knowledge as proven through text messages, of course.
lambdasquirrel 5y ago
I think there's a bit more to it. Kurz decided to form a coalition government with the politicians involved – i.e. the far-right party in Austria. Keep in mind, in Germany, none of the other parties have been willing to form a coalition government with Germany's respective far-right party, the AfD. This has effectively shut out the AfD from having any actual influence in the government, despite having a sizable minority in Thuringia and Saxony.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  But that in itself should not be "falling from grace", neither should be forming coalitions with the AfD - it would just be democracy. Of course it would be unforgivable in the eyes of some people, but that goes for many things. I personally find coalitions with socialists unforgivable, but the other parties in Germany have no issues with it, and no media outlets spin it into a scandal.
  - neuronic 5y ago
    AfD are literal fascists, there is nothing democratic about them. NSDAP was also democratically voted into the Parlament… only to disassemble it.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      They are certainly not fascist by nature, and they were elected democratically. The story of how the NSDAP took power is also a bit more complicated, and the election system was amended to prevent such cases in the future. There may be fascist members of the AfD, but there are also communist members of other parties and nobody cares, even though it is an equally murderous ideology. There is one party in Germany that is literally the party that was in power in the socialist democratic republic and actually murdered people, and all the other parties are cooperating with them. In contrast to that, the AfD is not a descendant of any fascist parties, it was split off from the CDU over differences in economic strategies. Their original founder is a convinced Christian, definitely not a nazi. What it boils down to, and what recent years have shown (also the Trump years), is that people or especially leftists don't really care that much about democracy anyway. They are only in favor of it as long as their party of choice gets elected.
      - neuronic 5y ago
        > communist members of other parties Who? DIE LINKE is constantly (rightfully) critizied for their extremist parts and members, also for their SED roots. I agree with your assessment about murderous communism but disagree that nobody cares. I was born in the GDR and hate communism with a fiery passion. Plattenbauten are traumatic for me. Anyway... The AfD is a fundamentally anti-democratic party at least since Petry took over. It became 10x worse with Gauland and Weidel. The debate is pretty clear in Germany and you are legally (!) allowed to call some of its members fascists because that is exactly what they are and exactly how they act. Proven Neo-Nazis like Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz are only dealt with to save face in front off media and later re-introduced to powerful party positions anyway. Their only goal is disruption, they have zero constructive solutions to anything and their ideas are based on lies and fake news. On top of it all, they are directly supported by Russian money, a country whose main foreign policy has been disruption since the 1980s. Also, I didn't talk about how the NSDAP finally seized power, that reads like a distraction. I am talking about how NSDAP was democratically elected for multiple periods although their street thugs already roamed Germany for nearly a decade before Hitler became chancellor. As in - angry people are happy to democratically vote anti-democrats. AfD is just proving it a second time.

Well, the FPÖ was half of his cabinet. No, what brought him down specifically was his party lieutenants paying a fake researcher (Sabine Beinschab) with state money for fake survey results benefiting Kurz, then paying news media some more out of state coffers to place those surveys. With his full knowledge as proven through text messages, of course.

lambdasquirrel 5y ago

I think there's a bit more to it. Kurz decided to form a coalition government with the politicians involved – i.e. the far-right party in Austria. Keep in mind, in Germany, none of the other parties have been willing to form a coalition government with Germany's respective far-right party, the AfD. This has effectively shut out the AfD from having any actual influence in the government, despite having a sizable minority in Thuringia and Saxony.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
But that in itself should not be "falling from grace", neither should be forming coalitions with the AfD - it would just be democracy. Of course it would be unforgivable in the eyes of some people, but that goes for many things. I personally find coalitions with socialists unforgivable, but the other parties in Germany have no issues with it, and no media outlets spin it into a scandal.
- neuronic 5y ago
  AfD are literal fascists, there is nothing democratic about them. NSDAP was also democratically voted into the Parlament… only to disassemble it.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    They are certainly not fascist by nature, and they were elected democratically. The story of how the NSDAP took power is also a bit more complicated, and the election system was amended to prevent such cases in the future. There may be fascist members of the AfD, but there are also communist members of other parties and nobody cares, even though it is an equally murderous ideology. There is one party in Germany that is literally the party that was in power in the socialist democratic republic and actually murdered people, and all the other parties are cooperating with them. In contrast to that, the AfD is not a descendant of any fascist parties, it was split off from the CDU over differences in economic strategies. Their original founder is a convinced Christian, definitely not a nazi. What it boils down to, and what recent years have shown (also the Trump years), is that people or especially leftists don't really care that much about democracy anyway. They are only in favor of it as long as their party of choice gets elected.
    - neuronic 5y ago
      > communist members of other parties Who? DIE LINKE is constantly (rightfully) critizied for their extremist parts and members, also for their SED roots. I agree with your assessment about murderous communism but disagree that nobody cares. I was born in the GDR and hate communism with a fiery passion. Plattenbauten are traumatic for me. Anyway... The AfD is a fundamentally anti-democratic party at least since Petry took over. It became 10x worse with Gauland and Weidel. The debate is pretty clear in Germany and you are legally (!) allowed to call some of its members fascists because that is exactly what they are and exactly how they act. Proven Neo-Nazis like Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz are only dealt with to save face in front off media and later re-introduced to powerful party positions anyway. Their only goal is disruption, they have zero constructive solutions to anything and their ideas are based on lies and fake news. On top of it all, they are directly supported by Russian money, a country whose main foreign policy has been disruption since the 1980s. Also, I didn't talk about how the NSDAP finally seized power, that reads like a distraction. I am talking about how NSDAP was democratically elected for multiple periods although their street thugs already roamed Germany for nearly a decade before Hitler became chancellor. As in - angry people are happy to democratically vote anti-democrats. AfD is just proving it a second time.