Happy Thanksgiving From Vienna

This is the first time I’ve spent Thanksgiving outside of the United States. It’s weird, but not as weird as you might think.

For one thing, a lot of stores here in Vienna have “Black Week” signs and I don’t think it’s a show of solidarity with BLM. It’s an obvious reference to Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving, which makes it a totally American thing, Thanksgiving not being a thing here at all.

It also wouldn’t be too hard to find a Packer bar, if a guy was into that kind of thing.. that kind of thing being the Packers getting crushed by a much better opponent. I’m likely to pass.. as will the Packers as they don’t have a running back who can run. You can also find a turkey dinner at the very same place that you could watch the Packers-Lions game — the Marriott Hotel — but when in Vienna I’m going to eat like a local. I’m looking for a little Viennese cafe off the beaten path. There is a subway stop called Pilgrimstrasse, but I don’t think I could get off there and see a reenactment of the first Thanksgiving much less a series of elaborate floats honoring the latest Broadway plays and country music stars.

The most common language I hear spoken here is English and the most common dialect is American. However, just before settling in for a two-hour concert I was joined by a man about my age from Dublin and we chatted pleasantly, or as pleasantly as two guys in their sixties in need of a bathroom that proved elusive, could. For my part I’m proud of the fact that I’ve succeeded enough in looking Euro-sorta (key: wear lots of black and a scarf) that I’m usually greeted by wait people in German. Then I disappoint them.

While I love my country, I don’t really want the rest of the world to adopt my language and culture, though I do want it to adopt our classically liberal, pluralistic and tolerant values.. to the extent we still have those ourselves.

The politics here are not that much different from those back home. There is an ongoing struggle between the establishment left-center and hard-right populists. Here in Austria, despite a series of scandals, the Freedom Party of Austria, hard-right populists, have an excellent chance of winning national elections next year. Sound familiar?

And just as in the U.S., part of the problem is the tin ear of liberals. As the opinion editor of Politico Europe wrote just a few weeks ago:

“Centrists have been all too quick to accuse populists of weaponizing issues like the climate transition, immigration, cultural disorientation, identity anxieties and the cost-of-living squeeze. They point to disinformation and demagogic manipulation, talking almost as though the here-and-now challenges and fears faced by ordinary families are either made up or overblown, overlooking the widening gap between everyday concerns on the one hand, and centrist politics and cross-party consensus on the other.”

What’s called a “centrist” here is a “liberal” back home.

As is often the case, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has a practical take on this. “The sensible thing for politicians at the moment is to be working out how do we stay by people’s side,” he said. and he warned that “groups of voters” see threats and not opportunities, and that they are “worried culturally as well about the changing nature of their society, and worried economically.”

Specifically, Blair worries that the EU is moving too fast on climate change. According to that recent story in Politico quoted above: “Populists are in a good position to exploit this mounting backlash, as opinion polls show an overwhelming majority believe climate change is a serious problem and support green policies to tackle it, but their support falls once these policies come into force and people start experiencing their additional burdens, or can see they will soon.”

American climate activists who look to Europe should think again. The backlash isn’t exclusive to the U.S.

Okay, so, we’re rambling a bit today. But let’s summarize our points. There’s a little too much American cultural hegemony around for my tastes, but there’s also too much similarity with our struggle for the very future of a pluralistic democracy. Liberals, outside of the likes of Tony Blair, are as clueless here as they are back home. You can find both the Packer game and a turkey dinner in Vienna and you don’t have to look too hard for either, but let’s make like the Viennese when we’re in Vienna. And also, things look bleak for the Packers.

Happy Thanksgiving.