Research shows that voters of right-wing parties are themselves a diverse group. While some reject all political parties equally, others differ in their assessment of the political offer. The more they like their own party, the more they categorise themselves as politically right-wing and the more important they consider politics in general, the more differentiated their attitudes towards other parties become. You could also say that these people consciously make a political decision without turning away from democracy altogether and only wanting to express a protest.
If little distinction is made between the parties and all are equally rejected, then things can become problematic. To a certain extent, polarisation is beneficial to democracy because it mobilises people to vote, for example. However, it becomes difficult when the differences in content become too pronounced so that cooperation is no longer possible or when it takes place outside of substantive issues. This is referred to as affective polarisation and means a dislike or even mistrust between the voter groups and their parties.
In Austria, polarisation has always been subject to certain fluctuations. The difference to the past is that the group of FPÖ voters today is larger than ever before. Within the FPÖ electorate, a relevant proportion of voters show a high dislike of other parties overall and do not differentiate between the different parties. This group is not very satisfied with the democratic system, tolerates and trusts little in political terms.
In addition, the FPÖ's communication strategy reinforces precisely this polarisation by talking about the "unity party" when it means all other political competitors. Of course, this belies the fact that the FPÖ itself is part of the political system. In this group, it is particularly important that a sense of differentiation between the political parties and trust in democracy as such are restored.