Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

LightNews

Joost

@almodozo.bsky.social

1.4K followers 810 following 4.4K posts

Holland > Hungary > Spain Same @almodozo as on Twitter, just without the Országház. Worked at OSF and CEU, but that's a long while ago. Studied East-European History, but that's even longer ago. Now, somehow, I ended up in Extremadura.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · Sep 21

Not going to update my ancient Twitter bio, but I mostly post about:
— Elections and polls
— Central/East-European politics
— The war in Ukraine
— Maps and charts
— Dutch and Spanish politics
— Budapest memories, life in Extremadura
— The left, a love/hate relationship
— Media, archiving, minorities

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 11h

Yeah. Disapproval has bounced up and down since April, but remained pretty consistently in the same area, in some cases inching down just a bit more still. That sounds about right — and a long way from "skyrocketing without ceasing".

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 11h

Lots of nuance missing, of course, don't @ me. The ČSSD was long very much in the mainstream middle, and its progressive and populist wings alternated at the top. Vice versa, the ODS could be plenty conservative-populist, esp in Václav Klaus's later years. I'm just making some charts, man

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 11h

To expand the picture, here's what you get when you add in the populist & radical right

In between? What you might call, very broadly, the liberal-conservative middle. Which experienced three stages:

73-79% in 1990-1992
50-57% in 1996-2010, after the ČSSD grew
43-46% in 2017-2025, after ANO's rise

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 12h

Did Babiš really just rob the classical left of its electorate in Czechia? Ignoring 2013, when ANO was still role-playing as some kind of liberals, this chart waggles its eyebrow suggestively. Turns out the ČSSD's pork and cabbage voters weren't especially wedded to social-democratic principles.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 12h

The KSČM always retained the old regime's dour social conservatism, and eventually slid into red-brown national populism. The desperate Soc-Dems, having watched Babiš nick their voters, joined them on that wretched path. The one good thing about this election was seeing it bury them both. Enough!

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 12h

The Czech Communists always stood apart among their Central European peers as the only one to refuse changing its name — or renouncing its past. It kept them from an MSzP '94/SLD '93 type breakthrough, opening the door to a rare Soc-Dem success story, but did secure a loyal 10-15%. Until it didn't.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

The balance between those blocks... didn't really change. It's literally mostly just that the electoral threshold didn't keep out a bunch of potential Babiš allies this time

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

Like neighboring Slovakia, Czechia is polarized not by left vs right but between camps that each span, roughly, from left to right.

For lack of more nuanced phrasing, Babis's side are the populists (bit unfair to the SDs of 2021, maybe, but at least their electorate fits). These are the other guys.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

Babiš and his allies were hounded from office in an epochal defeat 4 years ago. He came roaring back to victory now.

Right?

But... did all that much really change in the vote?

Arguably, he consolidated rather than grew the populist pie, and the main change has been how the threshold cut across.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

a close up of a woman 's face with the words " i don 't know her "

ALT: a close up of a woman 's face with the words " i don 't know her "

media.tenor.com

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

Good, I'd been missing the graphic design of the early '00s

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 13h

Trump is not a popular president, but his disapproval has sadly definitely not "been skyrocketing without ceasing". It has only been inching up these past five months or so. See also these charts from the NY Times and The Economist:

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 14h

This is a very confusing sign...

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 1d

Berettyóújfalu

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 1d

(I saw this myself in my native country, the Netherlands, when I was a kid and my mom — a local councilor — took me to the ballot count. More recently, there was this famous illustration of the practice in Hungary: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hungar...)

Hungarians Brilliantly Spoilt Their Referendum Ballots To Protest Refugee 'Hate' Vote

They helped make the vote invalid.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 1d

Look at their pinned post. They're not American. Ballots look & work differently in other countries. In some countries — apparently including the UK, where this person is from — people can & will scrawl or draw "creative" messages on their ballot. And people at the count will notice & talk about it.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 2d

Context in this Twitter thread from last year: x.com/almodozo/sta...

Joost on X: "Ilaria Salis: an Italian election result with an important Hungarian dimension" / X

Ilaria Salis: an Italian election result with an important Hungarian dimension

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 2d

Italian anti-fascist Ilaria Salis, whose election as an MEP liberated her from house arrest and a likely 24-year prison sentence in Hungary, keeps her parliamentary immunity thanks to the tightest possible vote in the European Parliament: 306 to 305

Euronews @euronews.com · 2d

Italian MEP Ilaria Salis keeps her parliamentary immunity, saved by just one vote.

The European Parliament rejected the request to lift it: 306 in favor, 305 against.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 2d

I was gonna make a wry joke here about how "everyone knows you're either a centrist or a communist, and if you're not a communist you must be a centrist," but the problem is that you probably actually believe that

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 2d

I'm actually impressed that almost half a percent of New York City's population is Albanian

Also, I did not know that Mayor Adams's son took part in the Albanian equivalent of “American Idol,” lol

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/n...

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 3d

Are you seriously going at me, in a reply *and* a quote post no less, because...

you didn't get a reply to your bluesky post within half an hour?

Jesus christ man. Before this, I merely disagreed with you. Now I think you're completely unhinged. Good job!

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 3d

Without info about how many of those 20% would be solid Republican voters regardless, that number doesn't tell us much?

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 3d

Maybe we should have wanted to change the world though ;)

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 3d

Billy Bragg, famously a "centrist"

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 3d

The Israeli population, facing increasing isolation abroad, has only become more radicalised — and it's not just government voters

edition.cnn.com/2025/10/05/m...