It’s 51.4% Zeman vs. 48.6% Drahos.
Things seemed dire for Zeman ten days ago, but he scraped by thanks to Drahos having the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk (to steal a phrase from Farage).
Map. Drahos got 68.8% in Prague, and 90.3% amongst Czechs voting abroad (including close to 70% even amongst the 197 Czech voters in Russia).
This continues the general lower IQ/populist nationalist vs. higher IQ/liberal globalist pattern that is well established in both Czechia and most other European countries.
A very worrying trend. Still, in the moment, we can bask in Zeman’s victory and the despair of the Blue Checkmarks.
It may have been fairly tight but he got more votes in absolute terms than he did five years ago, prior to all the scandals and against a much more charismatic opponent. He’a in a strong position and was not lacking confidence in his acceptance speech.
Is he so physically decrepit that he has to walk with a cane? That would make his victory somewhat more impressive imo.
But yes, the general dumbness of nationalists is a problem.
Any insight about Zeman’s areas of strength. He did really well in Northern Moravia.
Interactive maps here.
https://volby.idnes.cz
Really makes you think from a woman who would happily see Europe’s native population replaced by Somalis
(I know what she actually meant)
Is she even ethnically European?
She sure does love interfering in elections.
Since the 1990s, Czech Republic often seems to have the most sensible politics in Europe.
Its Russia’s fault, as you know.
https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/957328473202315264
Zeman vs Femen
Zeman won in the end, there can be zero doubts that the funding for these kind of stunts come from Soros. The strange thing with that incident is that the Femen woman was not even white.
Zeman won because he went for the jugular. He effectively used the migration issue and Drahos’s ‘open letter’ from 2015 supporting the Merkel-jugend migrants.
This in spite of what was about 80-90% media and cultural demonisation of Zeman, with the usual artists staging pro-Drahos concerts, etc…
The reality is that liberal globalists cannot win in an open elections. So they manipulate and cheat, but it is a downward spiral. Next Italy in March… if the lib-socialists win, I will eat my weight in tortellini…if they lose, I think the Brussels game is over.
Is there really a difference between the IQ of the people that live in the leftist Czech cities and those that live a bit further away from the cities? I doubt that is is true because they not that racially different from the rest of the population and it has to do with the fact that cities tend to pay more. People are also much easier to brainwash in the cities because the people end up have more contacts to radicals that tell them how to think than people that live away from the cities.
I think so, yes – at least if these Czech electoral patterns are comparable to Russian ones. (In Moscow districts, correlations between education level vs. voting for Putin – if you’re poorly educated; for the liberal candidate – if you’re well educated, are better than for wealth vs. voting for Putin/liberal). And in the very smartest regions – e.g., elite university districts – Putin actually often loses, which would be unthinkable anywhere else in Russia.
There was a strong possibility that Putin lost in 2012 in the Israeli voting. Although this was only based on an internet survey, which isn’t necessarily representative sample of the demographics that actually voted (only around half of the readership who took part were eligible to vote).
http://www.newsru.co.il/israel/22feb2012/vybory_pr_106.html
One of the best predictors in voting for Zeman vs. Drahos was knowledge of foreign languages. Among the Czech-language-only speakers, Zeman won extremely big. The industrial northern Moravia, industrial north-west (former Sudeten), and the hilly provincial central farming region between Bohemia and Moravia, were Zeman’s strongholds. You better speak Czech if you plan to visit there.
I don’t think the reason is IQ. Some of the smartest people I know are well-adjusted provincials with no desire to see the world. We have a split between people who live off globalism in one form or another (Prague is a classical example), and the people who don’t. Globalism is a very broad economic concept and most universities, culture circles and capital cities’ dwellers are automatically pulled into it. They support globo-liberal policies because it benefits them. In many ways they are very stupid people, impractical, useless, and unable to provide for the future. But they are dependent on globalism for their jobs, lifestyle and meaning in life. Many literally don’t know how to do anything but speak some foreign language and are verbally gifted. They will defend open borders, ‘Atlantic’ solidarity and weird social mores until the end. They have no place to go – unless they themselves emigrate. I suspect it is similar in Moscow.
If you think Drahos is ‘smart’, just try to talk to him. You immediately hit a mental wall of hardened liberal-globalist stupidity that doesn’t suggest a high applied IQ (maybe the aptitude was there at the beginning, but it led to nothing). Watch the Jordan Peterson Channel 4 discussion (Jan 16) to see how the oh-so-smart-high-IQ interviewer completely fails even the most basic practical intelligence test. This is the way they are, they don’t think much about anything, so what is the ‘high IQ’ all about?
In the 16th century Nostradamus predicted that mankind will eventually divide between international rich allied with each other with no nation to call their own – and everyone else. And they will fight each other. I don’t really take Nostradamus seriously, but the observation is valid, it fits what has been happening.
They don’t need to win elections if they have media, academia and culture domination to the point where the right-wing just decides that it’s easier to surrender to the left’s social agenda and focus right-wing efforts entirely on a zealous advocacy of tax cuts and the like.
Finnish presidential election tonight. The Greens have an openly homosexual open borders, pro-color-revolutions, anti-Bush-wars but pro-Obama-wars activist who will get maybe 10 %. The nationalists have a young female who looks good on TV but becomes embarrassing as soon as she opens her mouth (she is a creationist, ugh).
The cuckservative mainstream right-wing sitting President will win and he will never oppose the globalist agenda that actually didn’t win the election. Eastern Europeans will be in the same situation in a decade or two if they just focus on beating liberal globalists in elections instead of developing a culture to match them in media and academia.
I believe in IQ as a metric, but with reservations
I spent most of my life working in elite universities. If society had collapsed, my colleagues would have starved.
I now live in a small town in New Zealand in the middle of nowhere. I would trust the locals in Central Otago to rebuild civilization within two generations.
This is why I criticized Orbán for spending money on football (soccer), while not spending on education. Teachers were already left wing to begin with, but this all pushed them further to the left, and also raised their commitment to the leftist cause. So they are putting great effort into indoctrinating children with liberalism.
Are you certain they would not have indoctrinated them if your leader had invested more money into their salaries?
I know of previously apolitical teachers becoming hardcore leftists over the past few years. People react to incentives, I’m sure less of them would be working to undermine Orbán and his government if their self-interests were well served by keeping him in power.
There is also a growing anti-Orbán movement among students, including high school students. While it’s undoubtedly pushed by parents and teachers, it’s made very easy by the fact that Orbán seems willing to shortchange their education in favor of dumb soccer players who then don’t even win much. The fact that education spending doesn’t much influence life outcomes is neither here nor there, because most people don’t know it, and if you tell them, won’t believe it. “Orbán wants us to stay dumb!” is an effective slogan.
Because our football teams perform poorly at the international stage (be it international football or Europa League or Champions League), it also makes Orbán look incompetent.
Education is one thing, IQ is another. The former is environmental, the latter is innate.
No, he didn’t, but it was close, and he lost in much of the West (blue = Putin, green = Prokhorov):
http://akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/russia-2012-elections-abroad.png
In San Francisco, it was 57% Prokhorov vs. 27% for Putin, which is even better than for the US as a whole (lots of Silicon Valley types there).
Yes, sure, these people can be pretty close-minded (though conservatives are more close-minded on average), and are certainly far snobbier.
Unfortunately, they’re still smarter (on average), and have greater life success on most metrics.
Incidentally, I would note that even in Prague, Drahos scored his highest percentage (almost 80%) in Prague 1, the site of Charles University. This is even higher than in places like Lysolaje and Troja, which judging from Google Maps I imagine are inhabited by millionaires.
Yes, Moscow certainly has no shortage of such characters.
Interesting. One curious feature of Russian protests in this electoral cycle is that high school students seem to be really noticeable (whereas in 2011-12 it was dominated by “office plankton”).
My inner conspiracy theorist just thought something.
Well done, you have me convinced that Orbán made a big mistake.
How trusted are your schools?
In Germany, schools were trusted by 63% at the end of 2017, 8% less than one year ago.
https://www.presseportal.de/pm/72183/3828545
I tried to search, but couldn’t find anything.
The problem is that for Orbán football is a hobby, but education is not, neither is science. Even based leaders are unfortunately less intellectual than cucked leaders, and so they will naturally appeal more to less intelligent people, even if that wasn’t a natural tendency in the first place.
I think that Femen attack may have been crucial in putting Zeman over the top. Rather than highlighting how physically decrepit he really is, it succeeded in garnering sympathy for a frail old man unfairly attacked by a gibbering foreign lunatic. I think it almost certainly boosted his standing among Czech women, who used to be prone to maternally clucking over poor dear Havel when he was running into things or wearing his trousers backward and so on.
Zeman has diabetic neuropathy, problems with walking. His intellect is untouched, in TV debates he crushed his opponent without effort. It was like watching cobra playing with a little bunny.
Intellectual cucked leaders compensate by importing foreigners who weaken the educational system.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-towns-filled-with-refugees-ask-who-is-integrating-whom-1508074522
People who are not happy with current politics: those who fear immigration (this was the major point), those who do not want euro (they fear getting Greeced), people who are fed up by mainstream pro-EU propaganda. Those who do not like political NGOs.
People from economically depressed regions (outside Prague and few large cities). Especially northern parts of Bohemia and Moravia.
People who are pro-guns (this was discussed in one TV debate).
Parents who do not like the recent law about inclusion of feral gypsies into elementary schools.
People who saw that Drahoš is merely empty suit with no political programme, no ideas, unable to speak in public.
Probably more interesting is why someone would vote for the empty suit Drahoš. He represents utopia many still dream about, the EU utopia. Especially young people at universities hope for big European career. Prague is full of people who make killing by plundering EU funds, full of bureaucrats employed in countless “European departments”, full of NGOs financed by the EU. All these people fear Zeman, that he may destroy their current or future livelihood.
Tell that to high IQ (but stupid) Hungarian virtue signallers who can read English and read The Economist and think that what you wrote is Orbán’s or Putin’s fake propaganda. We know they and their descendants are better off under Orbán, but they are too short sighted to see that and can only see the corruption and the stupid football stadiums under Orbán, and that the West is so much richer.
Since this is a rare discussion about the Czech Republic, I would like to draw attention to one rising Czech political star, Václav Klaus Junior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Václav_Klaus_Jr.
He is son of former Czech PM & President Klaus. With high pitched voice and hideously deformed face (screw-up during childbirth) he makes unlike political star. For many years Klaus Jr. worked as a teacher and director of a posh high school, and didn’t care much about the politics.
Two years ago he started to write opinion columns for a left-center newspaper. He ranted against immigration, against the EU (he wants to leave right now) and against every progressive idea one can think about. These columns got really popular.
Last autumn he was elected into the parliament, as member of the party his father founded. He got the largest number of preferential votes. Frightened incompetent old party hands try to keep this ambitious newcomer down, but eventually he may take the party over. Or create a new party, or take over the existing anti-immigration party where he would fit quite well. Everything is possible.
In the parliament, as the head of its education committee, he started to dismantle the crazy progressive reforms introduced to Czech school system by the previous social-democratic government.
Sounds like a really good guy.
Hope he remains successful.
Applebaums husband was the Brexiteers secret weapon
Anatoly is right. The main factors were age and education. Zeman won among the people over 50 years old and people without the high school leaving exam (called maturita in Czech, an analogue of the German Abitur). Among the people under 50 and people with at least the maturita, Drahoš won.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, his own experience as an elite educationalist, Klaus Jr.’s theories on education are very bad. If he can succeed in dismantling the social democrats’ recent experimentations (awful), he will indeed be the makings of a national hero, provided he can refrain from substituting his own.
She does, I saw her, ‘creation’ has worked for her. I would forgive her some religious zealotry. What is she going to do, pray in the presidential palace? People should strip out the non-essential stuff when voting.
I agree, but that is very hard, probably not possible. The institutions don’t run on ‘voting’ or even basic fairness. And any success is too far in the future to make any difference. In the next economic downturn, we might see violence between the liberal centre and the provincials. It has happened before. I don’t think the current trends are sustainable. You can’t simultaneously replace large part of the population, lower their living standards (especially among young males), and force feed them some trans-humanity, non-gender, new identity. When the honourable institutions will cease to be relevant, the real sh..t will start. They only have themselves to blame.
But he was implying that it was IQ. My point is that if you define IQ like that, it doesn’t correlate with actual practical intelligence. Maybe people who had aptitude and tested highly when younger were more likely to vote for Drahos, but their actual applied IQ looks worse than for Zeman voters. They believe a lot of nonsense and are easier to manipulate by the media – how does that match high IQ? Test is just a test, intelligence has to be applied in a critical way.
Unless you also think that over 50 people have lower IQ than people under 50, the age argument also doesn’t correlate with IQ.
Tempted to scoff at the notion, but I haven’t visited the South Island in years and in Auckland I go for months at a time without even speaking to a New Zealander, so you may be right.
I last visited Auckland in 2014. I spent a month in Takapuna. Auckland is your typical anywhere city with a diverse population, but I don’t know how you managed to avoid speaking to a Kiwi. I thought Pakeha looked like a majority in Takapuna, although they are a minority in the whole city as South Auckland is overwhelmingly Polynesian.
Last time I looked, Otago had the best school grades and Southland was the richest province per capita.
That is in spite of the fact that the highest paying jobs in any country tend to be concentrated in the major cities and Southland doesn’t have too many of those.
Bogans are not as bad as JAFAs make them out to be.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/72699448/southland-earnings-highest-in-new-zealand
Where are you from originally?
NZ-born, from Wellington, a rather nicer city than Auckland (still incredulous at how shabby much of this city is). I scorned JAFAs for years, then mutated into one within months of moving here.
I live in the CBD itself, where the concentration of foreigners, resident or otherwise, is highest. Workspace is full of foreigners, and all the service staff in the shops are foreign too. On some days I hear more German or Portugese spoken on the street than English, never mind Chinese. True, things are different in Takapuna, or even across the harbour in Devonport, but I seldom leave central except for church, and there I usually meet only Russian migrants (plus Ukrainians, Georgians and occasional Kazakhs and Uzbeks).
True enough about Southland, but for years I’ve spreading absurd stories the South Island in an attempt to scare foreigners away from this country, and I would encourage you to do the same – One Auckland is quite enough to be going on with.
While your IQ to liberal-globalist support correlation is very strong, I think it’s purely coincidental.
Capitals are usually IQ magnets, but also Starbucks, craft beer, soy milk and genderless lumberjacks magnets. All my Navalny supporting acquaintances fit that category, doing everything I just mentioned, have mediocre desk jokeys jobs and, most importantly, not particulary bright or politically savvy.
Smart people I know, are either very reserved and cautious in politics or straight up Putin supporters. Pretty much most of IT in my decade+ experience in Moscow is generally pro-Putin, conservative and yet they are mostly cognitive elite (atleast in technical sense)
Czech Republic has small military unit in Afghanistan. Soldiers voted at Bagram base, 99 in the first round, 98 in second round.
Unlike typical Czech living abroad they preferred Zeman. He got 46% in the first round and 60% in the second.
https://www.volby.cz/pls/prez2018/pe311?xjazyk=CZ&xobec=999997&xsvetadil=AS&xzeme=4&xokrsek=78
Diplomats and do-gooders in Kabul preferred Drahoš (59%).
https://www.volby.cz/pls/prez2018/pe311?xjazyk=CZ&xobec=999997&xsvetadil=AS&xzeme=4&xokrsek=77