2023-12-10 03:02:00
The political, social and media opinion leaders must find another way into people’s hearts and minds.
These are three recently published surveys. They are completely different in their questions. But they are more closely related than our decision-makers and opinion leaders would like. The first of these surveys, which was published last Wednesday, says: In no other EU country are there so few people who have something positive to say about the EU as in Austria – and clearly the other way around too: nowhere is the number of those who do Membership in the Union is viewed negatively, larger than in Austria. So much for the Eurobarometer, which is carried out across Europe.
The second survey – it comes from the Austria-wide integration barometer – shows that the topics of integration and political Islam are among the biggest concerns of Austrians. According to this survey, the only thing Austrians are even more worried about is inflation, but hopefully that will be over soon. However, the integration problems and the danger from radicalized Islamists remain. This means that this topic remains on the political agenda.
The third survey is not one of those, but a whole bunch of them, carried out by various opinion research institutes. Each of these surveys over the past few months showed the FPÖ in first place in the so-called Sunday question. And their party leader Herbert Kickl also came first in the so-called chancellor question, far ahead of the incumbent Chancellor and all other party leaders.
The three study results only allow one conclusion: A shockingly large proportion of political opinion leaders, social opinion leaders and probably also opinion leaders in the media have lost their contact with – and their influence on – a shockingly large proportion of the audience. Too many people no longer believe politicians when they preach the advantages of European integration (as long as they do so at all and do not, which is very popular, hold Brussels responsible for everything that goes wrong in this country). Too many people no longer believe the politicians and the relevant NGOs from Caritas downwards when they declare, according to the Merkel motto “We can do it”, that the mass immigration from foreign cultures is not a problem at all. And all too many people no longer believe the television experts and newspaper commentators when they announce that an FPÖ chancellorship would herald the end of democracy.
There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this finding: political, social and media opinion leaders must find another way into the hearts and minds of the audience. This applies to opinion leaders from Brussels to Vienna and Salzburg right down to the smallest community room, in school classes and even in many editorial rooms.
It’s just unfortunate that it’s not quite as easy as it sounds here. Because it’s not just about communication that is closer to the citizen. It’s not just about the opinion elites taking people’s concerns seriously instead of lecturing them from above. It’s about much more. Namely, a policy that gives people the security that the existing problems will be solved instead of just moderating them for years.
Such a policy is currently sorely missed: regardless of whether one looks at the current climate conference or at the EU’s various attempts to get illegal migration even to some extent under control: there is no solution to the problems in sight. Global emissions and global temperatures continue to rise, no matter how much paper and aircraft emissions the climate summiters produce. The international migration movement is gaining momentum, no matter how often the interior ministers in Brussels bring themselves to make verbal statements. And even the comparatively manageable problems in Austria – pensions, energy supply including network expansion, and deficits in education are key words – are not being vigorously resolved, but are being passed on from one government to the next. This is not how you gain trust, this is how you lose polls. And elections, some of which are coming up next year. The established parties can dress warmly.
By the way, Mr. Kickl doesn’t have a solution for any of the problems mentioned. In some of the subject areas he is even the problem himself. But experience has shown that this has never done any harm to the leader of a protest party.
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