Thomas Köck’s “Chronicle of ongoing derailments”: Right-wing populism in Austria

For a year, the playwright Thomas Köck kept a news diary about the shift to the right in Austria and Germany. And he is now observing the strategies that populists are using to distract from the most pressing issues of our time.

What the Austrian author Thomas Köck has compiled reads like a diary of horror. A Best of the worst of 2023/2024. For a year, Thomas Köck has written down everything he noticed about the shift to the right in Germany and Austria. He watched the news, listened to the radio, activated push notifications, talked to people, simply turned on the internet and opened his eyes and ears. And the sad truth is: this book has barely been published and has already been overtaken by reality. It ends shortly before the 2024 European elections, after which it feels like several more right-wing mudslides have already slid into the valley of hope.