I’d like to tell Sybille Geissler that I can definitely relate to the problem she’s having at work.
VIENNA — As well as anyone, Sybille Geissler knows the threats from Austria’s far-right extremists, who in recent weeks have likened migrants to rats and blithely defended campaign material that evokes Nazi propaganda.
For over 12 years, she has led the anti-extremism unit of the domestic intelligence service, and recently testified in a parliamentary inquiry into whether the far right was trying to undermine her agency.
Her biggest challenge these days, her testimony suggests, is that the far right is part of her own government.
The original Nazi was an Austrian, so it seems a little less surprising to have Neo-Nazis in charge there than it is to have them in charge here. Of course, our Neo-Nazis try to be a little more subtle. For example, they don’t specifically invoke Nazi propaganda in their campaign literature very often and instead do things like pardoning anyone who abuses Mexicans or kills Arab prisoners.
Back in December 2016, I wrote about Trump, Austrian Neo-Nazis, and Putin, so this isn’t a new topic for me. The Trump administration has been playing footsie with the Austrian Freedom Party since the campaign, and the Austrian Freedom Party long ago pledged fealty to Vladimir Putin. Here’s how that was reported at the time:
Heinz-Christian Strache, Freedom Party leader, and Norbert Hofer, the candidate who narrowly lost Austria’s presidential election earlier this month, signed a “working agreement” on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, according to a statement from the Freedom Party.
In any case, it’s hard to protect your country from white nationalist extremists when they’re in charge of your country. In fact, it’s kind of a pain in the ass even when they’re not, as the Obama administration discovered when the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis issued a report warning of a rise in “right-wing extremism” in March 2009.
Congressional Republicans, answering to a nascent Tea Party movement and the American Legion, soon took issue with the label “right-wing extremism,” which John Boehner, then minority leader of the House, charged was being used by the Department of Homeland Security “to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation.” Boehner was particularly bothered by the report’s mention of veterans.
…A few weeks after the report was released, [Secretary Janet] Napolitano formally apologized to veterans, and after intense pressure from veterans’ groups, the department withdrew the report.
Afterward, the administration tried to depoliticize the issue.
See, even when a white nationalist party is in the minority in Congress, as was the case in 2009, they can still make life difficult for anyone who wants to point on them and yell “danger!”
If anyone thinks it’s vituperative hyperbole to call the Republicans a white nationalist party, I have to ask how they really differ from the Austrian Freedom Party. I am not apologetic about making the comparison in explicit terms.