April 23, 2017

I scan the French election headlines.

1. Simon Heffer in the U.K. Telegraph writes under a headline that seems internally contradictory: "France is resigned — Marine Le Pen may win." So there's this collective entity, "France," and it's having an election, which is a means of choosing what it wants. What's to be "resigned" about, if it's getting what it wants? I can't read the whole column because I don't have "premium" access, so I'm forced to guess. It could mean that the "France" that matters — the elite, the good people — don't want Le Pen, but this other France that doesn't deserve to be called "France" is choosing her. But it might mean that the run-off style of choosing ensures that Le Pen will get through to Round 2 and her opponent will not present an adequate not-Pen choice, so she might win even though she's opposed by a solid majority. It could be kind of like the way Trump won, jazzing up about a third of the electorate, then only having to beat an opponent who was, at best, uninspiring.

2. Kenneth Rapoza in Forbes, "In France, If Le Pen Cracks 30% 'She Could Win It All.'"
"I'm not ready to make a call yet on a Le Pen victory," says Vladimir Signorelli, founder of Brettonwoods Research in Long Valley, NJ. Brettonwoods correctly called the Trump win. "I've been telling my clients that if she gets over 30% of the vote on Sunday, she has a good chance to win it all. She will make it to the second round and when she does, all she needs is roughly a third of the remaining votes from the other candidates who didn't make it," says Signorelli.

Scandal-plagued Republican candidate, Francois Fillon, is rising in the ranks at the last minute with around 19% today. Melenchon has about the same percentage. There are more similarities with Fillon and Melenchon to Le Pen than there [are] to Macron. This does not bode well for Macron....

Brettonwoods Research also suspects a 3% to 4% under-representation of support for Le Pen in the polls, based on past polls that just missed Brexit and Trump....
3. Andrew O'Hehir at Salon, "Democracy’s dyin’, who’s got the will? What France’s election tells us about the state of modern discontent/With the left facing disarray and defeat amid a new age of revolution, it's time to ask: Is democracy over?" This is a phenomenon I've been following since the Wisconsin protests. (The side that had just lost the election laid siege to the state capitol building and chanted "This is what democracy looks like.") What makes left-wingers think that when they lose, there's no democracy? There seems to be a delusion that they embody the people, so the actual voting by people is a failure of democracy if the stupid people bumble into voting for the right. I'm just riffing on the headline. Is that what O'Hehir says? He writes: "I see a bunch of people on both sides of the Atlantic desperately trying to pretend that democracy isn’t broken and may yet yield an acceptable and/or 'progressive' outcome." Ha! I think I'm right!

4. Unnamed writer at Fox News, "France election: Marine Le Pen sees Trump-like boost in support, but victory far from assured." What's the "boost" and why is it like Trump? Trump didn't get a terrorist attack on the eve of the election. What's Fox News blabbering about? This is the kind of incoherence you get when you want to use multiple ideas and don't have a way or don't take the trouble to weave it together. I suspect Fox News of being committed to throwing Trump into the story because they think it's too hard for American readers to care about France unless it's about us, and they say one thing and then another and don't think the readers will notice if the statements don't make sense together. Maybe they think it will be good because it's "Trump-like." Isn't that the way Trump does those speeches some people like so much?

5. Nikita Vladimirov at The Hill, "Ex-Obama aide [Ben] Rhodes: Le Pen victory in France would be 'devastating.'" Oh, this is one of those articles that just takes somebody's tweet pumps it into an article. The tweet is embedded and then the text quotes the tweet and there's a bit of filler to make it look as though it's something more than just the tweet. My take for that species of fake news is: MSM reports what's in social media.

6. JTA in Forward, "Should France’s Jews Leave If Le Pen Wins Elections?" The question is apropos of Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar's statement: "If Marine Le Pen is elected president of France, the Jews must leave." Lazar also said: "Putin was the first president to publicly speak out against anti-Semitism and did the most for the Jews in Russia. There is no institutional anti-Semitism in Russia."

134 comments:

rhhardin said...

What will this do for the tradition of burning cars, is the question.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Kicking radical Islam out of your country is so... anti-democracy.

Behold: the modern left. You must except your fate at the hands of radical death cultists, or else you're a racist.

Once written, twice... said...

It is funny that the right has become the force for squelching low barrier trade between countries. They are doing the work of the far left. What economic impact will this have? How much friction will this lead to when every country is being led by their nationalist party? With this undermine the free market capitalist project?

MikeR said...

"Should France’s Jews Leave If Le Pen Wins Elections?" :O How deluded can you get? France's Jews should leave right now; they are being terrorized by the Muslim immigrant population. Le Pen is their only hope.

tcrosse said...

Meanwhile the UK snap election looks like a blow-out for the Tories. Presumably this means the British Parliamentary system is broken and Britain is ungovernable. Editorian board of the Guardian hardest hit.

traditionalguy said...

The surge in invasion by Muslims has triggered a self defense reaction that the French so wanted to look down on other uncivilized folks for having.

Like FDR rounded up the California Japs after the Jap's Fleet suddenly sunk our Fleet and was 3 days away from Bombarding San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, self defense is a shameful act that we have to experience.

Hagar said...

"Democracy" translates as "mob rule."

tim in vermont said...

Obviously the destruction of the government of Libya and arming a side in the Syrian civil war, thus flooding Europe with refugees was the kind of foreign policy that made Obama and Hillary beacons of sanity in an otherwise crazy world, and the French, the Germans, and the Brits just don't get it that the flood of refugees who don't believe in democracy, gay rights, women's rights, etc, etc, etc, was unambiguously for their own good.

That's why France, The UK, Germany, and the US have the sads. Nobody understands how brilliant these people are. Laslo has a whole riff on it.

Swede said...

Hilarious.

"Is democracy dying?"

Yes. Yes, it is.

Because the hoi polloi didn't vote for your crap candidate, democracy is dying.

Every time a journalist/pundit cries, an angel masturbates.

Once written, twice... said...

According to a new poll from the Wall Street Journal people wanting the government to take the lead in solving problems is at an all time high.

The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/AmBDNDalvR_ybOgqVfvz7vw

tim in vermont said...

With this undermine the free market capitalist project?

LOL! Was there ever one? What this will undermine is the "globalist socialist, let's replace the electorate with a new, more pliable one of our choosing project."

Free markets have been tried as best they can be, like communism and socialism, none can be tested in a perfect world for them, and they won't work because "the honor system" does not work among countries. What is better is looking out for the interests of the people who actually live within the sovereign borders of a country.

Big Mike said...

What makes left-wingers think that when they lose, there's no democracy? There seems to be a delusion that they embody the people, so the actual voting by people is a failure of democracy if the stupid people bumble into voting for the right. ... Ha! I think I'm right!

I agree, Professor, you have it right. But I don't see what's funny about that attitude (I wouldn't say "Ha"). It signals a party -- the Dumbocrats -- that needs to lose a heck of a lot more before they wake up to the reality that they absolutely are utterly deluded about where they stand relative to the electorate.

(And I agree with MikeR, above, regarding Rabbi Lazar. Apparently he's part of the "I'll help you out to make sure I'm on the last cattle car" fringe. I'm more sympathetic to the "never again" brand of modern Judaism.)

Big Mike said...

@Once written, other polls show support for Trump rising to 50% and not falling. Particularly in light of what the polls said on November 7th versus the election results on November 8th, poll takers need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they're doing wrong.

Once written, twice... said...

Trump, Le Pen, etc., are not conservative politicians. In this country Trump is doing what no Democrat was able to do: He has made Ronald Reagan irrelevant. All of the Republicans who ran against him in the primary last year claimed to be the heirs of Reagan. Trump pretends that Reagan never existed.

tim in vermont said...

Remember just a few years ago when all the bien pensant Europeans were talking about "post-democratic Europe"? They fucked that up pretty quickly, didn't they?

ddh said...

The "Trump-like Boost" in the Fox News article comes from French voters who are unwilling to tell pollsters that they support Marine Le Pen because she is not considered respectable. How journalists would know that is unexplained in the article. Here's the only "proof" offered:

"Newsweek found many voters across France saying they were leaning toward Le Pen -- which would parallel the surge for Trump last year among undecided voters and supporters who chose to lay low."

tim in vermont said...

no Democrat was able to do

Hey, the Democrats demonized a hefty slice of their own base and left them alone on the curb, where Trump was able to crook is finger and pick them up, don't be so hard on the Democrats who worked so hard to make this happen. And don't forget Hillary urging her minions in the press to keep his candidacy front and center.

tim in vermont said...

Here's the only "proof" offered:

If the past election and recent super bowl have taught us anything, it is that it is better to wait for the results than to try to rub people's noses in being wrong before the results are final.

Nice day here, I think I will head to the golf course, rather than engage people who don't really want to think or discuss, but rather just broadcast their personal opinions one-way.

Tommy Duncan said...

...they say one thing and then another and don't think the readers will notice if the statements don't make sense together.

Althouse says that like it is intentional on their part. Simple stupidity is a more elegant explanation.

Once written, twice... said...

Thinking about it, not only does Trump not speak of Reagan, he does not even use the word conservative, much less promote its doctrines.

Is there such a thing as a Trump conservative?

Swede said...

Oh noes.

Trump isn't the heir to Ronald Reagan. I'M SO MAD I COULD JUST...

J/K.

Hey, did you hear? The SC had a new Justice. Fella by the name of Gorsuch.

Expect maybe...3 more of him? Yeah, about 3 more just like him.

tcrosse said...

It is funny that the right has become the force for squelching low barrier trade between countries.

The British prefer to negotiate their own trade deals, with regard to their own interests, rather than have them dictated by Eurocrats in Brussels.

Mattman26 said...

It is fascinating trying to figure out if LePen poses any real threat to the well-being of France's Jews. I refuse to condemn her because of her father's views, yet it seems no one ever points to specific evidence as to her. And I'm leery of accepting the labels thrown around as weapons by the MSM partisans of anyone they don't like as bigots, fascists, anti-semites, etc.

And as others have pointed out here, it's difficult to imagine a French home-grown threat to the Jews that's worse than what the influx of Mislims has created.

Once written, twice... said...

A decade from now we might look back and realize that the far left got the most mileage out of Trump, with the right being stripped of the ideas that made it a coherent ideological movement.

mockturtle said...

Feminists should be thrilled if Le Pen bursts through that glass ceiling. But, of course, they won't.

h said...

It's certainly true that leftists mistrust the hoi-polloi. HuffPo published an article saying men should be denied the franchise. (I suspect the article was satire, but the HuffPo editors failed to see the humor.) Even the efforts to deny a platform to speakers who have the "wrong thoughts" can be seen as a distrust that people (well -- other people -- certainly not me) will be so easily misled by a short speech with a few trite platitudes.

Is this a peculiarly leftist attitude?

Etymology aside: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi

cacimbo said...

Gee, what happened to the self proclaimed feminists who insist a vote against a woman = misogyny. If elected Le Pen would be the first female President of France - why are we not hearing endlessly about this fantastic win for womanhood.

Swede said...

I'm guessing, just to wipe the Left's eye, Trump replaces RBG with Ted Cruz.

Can you imagine that?

I'd take the day off of work just to watch MSNBC.

Fingers crossed!

Humperdink said...

OWT said: "According to a new poll from the Wall Street Journal people wanting the government to take the lead in solving problems is at an all time high."

Yep, let's have the same goofballs who created the problems put in charge of the solving them.

Somewhere I see a Barney Frank comment in there. Frank, saying in 2003, “These two entities(Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) … are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” and, “I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.”

cacimbo said...

@ mockturtle Exactly - You beat me to it.

Fernandinande said...

​Jews are leaving France in record numbers amid rising anti-Semitism and fears of more Isis-inspired terror attacks
"More than 8,000 Jews left France for Israel in 2015 – a rate far higher than anywhere else in Europe"

Bruce Hayden said...

The problem is Muslm immigration, both the terrorist that goes along with it, and the failure of Muslims in Europe of even trying to assimilate. It has been going on 1300 years (732) since the French solved their Muslim problem, with Charles Martel at Tours. the Spanish next door took over half that time (1492) to retake their entire country, the Austrians in 1683 stopping them at the Gates of Vienna, and some of the rest of Europe not until a century ago. A lot of the French are seeing that they are losing their country, their culture, their security, and their elites, who were happy with the current Muslim invasion, are proving incompetent to do anything about it. So on the eve of this election, there was another Muslim terrorist attack - this time on the police themselves, and thus, the French stare itself. Much of Europe is facing the same problem, but without France's arrogance, cultural pride, and former confidence in the rule of its cognitive elites.

Once written, twice... said...

Given that Reagan has been vanquished, can someone define what a "Trump Conservative" is?

Trump never defines himself or his actions as being conservative, so I don't think it is possible to come up with a definition.

James Pawlak said...

"Democracy is the worst of all political systems---Except all the others".

"FOR SALE: Most Modern French Military Rifle. Never Fired And Dropped Only Once".

Tom from Virginia said...

Trump and Reagan have one important thing in common.

After Reagan, the establishment - both parties, the media, the cultural elites - were determined never to allow another Reagan into the White House. The only acceptable applicants were those who bought into their worldview and the conventional wisdom. For 30 years they succeeded.

All the types that opposed candidate Trump opposed candidate Reagan. They both are exactly what the establishment most fears.

Ann Althouse said...

"The "Trump-like Boost" in the Fox News article comes from French voters who are unwilling to tell pollsters that they support Marine Le Pen because she is not considered respectable. How journalists would know that is unexplained in the article. Here's the only "proof" offered: "Newsweek found many voters across France saying they were leaning toward Le Pen -- which would parallel the surge for Trump last year among undecided voters and supporters who chose to lay low.""

I saw that, but the boost is also attributed to the terrorist attack.

Also, if people aren't telling, then why is there a boost in the pre-election polls (as opposed to just a mismatch between the polls and the election results)?

Another thing is the way (at least in the U.S.) it seems to be that the pollsters change what they are doing as the election approaches. On the eve of the election, they try to get it right, because they want to have a reputation for accuracy, but further back from the election, they produce numbers that will have an effect on the minds of the people. The election isn't going to test the accuracy of these polls, so they can give us fake polls, which are propaganda. That ends up giving the person the pollsters opposed the appearance of a "boost" at the very end.

AlbertAnonymous said...

The NY Times article just calls LePen xenophobic, as if everyone knows that. So similar to the media dismissivness of Trump.

glenn said...

Western political establishments have a lot to answer for. Especially allowing an invasion of their Democracies by third worlders. I'm still waiting for someone to point out the obvious. It was done to provide a multi generational bunch of block voters for the center left. Humanitarian gestures my ace.

Bob Boyd said...

Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan is often credited with saying something like, "Democracy is a bus. You ride it to the stop you want, then you get off."

Progs are the same. They keep getting all excited, thinking the bus is about to reach the stop they have been trying to get to for so long. They stand up, they crowd the aisle, they press toward the door....and vroom, the goddamn bus blows right past their stop.
The bus must be broken.

Bruce Hayden said...

Talking about Barney Frank, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, I noted this morning that those organizations have been stonewalling like crazy to squelch document requests esp in regards to dividends paid the Treasury. Story this morning about a federal judge getting frustrated with their excuses, ranging from Executive Privilege down through they just don't want to. Apparently, the Obama Administration switched them from paying a fixed (10%?) dividend to paying out all their profits every year to the Treasury. Not surprisingly, the other, previous, stockholders are unhappy at getting stiffed. You would think that this excess return would be going to reduce Obama's trillion dollar deficits. But only indirectly. Last month we found out that it appears that when a Republican Congress refused to fund parts of Obamacare the Obama administration appears to have picked up some of the slack from Fannie and Freddie. This isn't ATF level slush funds in the millions, but rather, we appear to be talking billions deliberately misappropriated by the Obama administration.

Michael K said...

"people wanting the government to take the lead in solving problems is at an all time high. "

Once written is concern trolling but also mouthing the left's usual desire for the government to solve all problems.

It can't even solve the ones it creates.

Reagan and Trump were both hated by the uniparty Establishment. That's one thing they have in common. I suspect policies is another but it's early.

Ryan is playing the role Bob Dole played in 1982. Trying to stop this madman from breaking all those rice bowls.

Once written, twice... said...

Reading these comments it is clear the right is no long organized around limited government Reagan style conservativism but instead prefers economic nationalism (MAGA) and going after Muslims wholesale. Other countries are following suit. It will be interesting to see where this turns out.

Carol said...

There seems to be a delusion that they embody the people

Isn't it the same way with everything? All these agitators claim to "embody the people."

The Tea Party was mad as hell! and we all want things to change but was there any consensus on what needed to change? We need tax reform but do people agree at all about what needs reforming? We need a constitutional convention, it's just common sense that we need to modernize parts of it, but is there really agreement on what needs updating? People like Mark Levin et al talk as if we're all on the same page.

It's all bullshit. I don't assume anything. I don't trust any of y'all and I don't agree with most other people's ideas. Half the time they're ideas that have already been implemented and failed.

So much of the left-right agenda comes from think tanks funded by interested parties anyway. Let them get hold of the process and anything can happen. E.g., Heritage Foundation health insurance "solution" -> MittCare -> ObamaCare.



Oso Negro said...

I am of the opinion that a Le Pen victory and a mass deportation of Muslims would provide a fine example for the world to contemplate. Let the north Africans return to their own lands to seek such fortune as they may find. If they do not like the society of their origin, they may endeavor to improve it by such means as they can devise.

Once written, twice... said...

Michael K-- I am not concern trolling. I am gloating that Reaganism is dead.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Ann - wonder if we are talking shy Le Pen voters like we were talking shy Trump voters. We shall see.

I stumbled into an interesting audio discussion yesterday between Scott Adams and Greg Gutfeld from Fox News (you can find it from Adams' blog). This was one of the topics covered - one of the reasons that polls consistently under polled Trump may have been all his supporters who were too embarrassed to admit their support of him around family members or even strangers. There is a real possibility that the French are seeing the same thing with Le Pen. We shall see.

Gahrie said...

Thinking about it, not only does Trump not speak of Reagan, he does not even use the word conservative, much less promote its doctrines.

Neither Bush was particularly Conservative, and none of the losing Republican nominees were...so what's your point...everything normal?

Oso Negro said...

Blogger Once written, twice... said...
Reading these comments it is clear the right is no long organized around limited government Reagan style conservativism but instead prefers economic nationalism (MAGA) and going after Muslims wholesale. Other countries are following suit. It will be interesting to see where this turns out.


I would say that the Republicans are certainly not organized around limited government, but "the Right" is not monolithic in their beliefs. The current popularity of economic nationalism reflects the desperation of the citizens of the communities who have been harmed by NAFTA, globalism more generally, and the relentless Mexican diaspora that has depressed working class wages for the past 30 years. As for the Muslims, there are a lot of people who are tired of the carnage from their militant minority.

MrCharlie2 said...

I watched a stream of people voting in France: they all got out their ids to show to the poll worker. How weird is that?

Ken B said...

The press are idiots with agendas.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Oso - the problem with massive deportation in France is that a lot of its Muslims are second generation, maybe even third now. They opened their borders when their colonial empire disintegrated, and esp after losing Algeria. Sure, send the Syrians back, but what about all the second and third generation North Africans who have never been there, and may not even have close relatives left there?

Temujin said...

Anyone still interested in what Ben Rhodes has to say about foreign affairs? Jesus.

The Left does think that if they don't win, its a giant disconnect from democracy, instead of actual democracy in action. The Left, the Media, the UN and EU delegates, and most of academia from Seattle to the Sorbonne continue to write miles of words about why Brexit, Trump, and now Le Pen. What it means. How it happened. Etc. They STILL SIMPLY cannot see past their own noses. The just don't get it. I'm not sure they ever will.

When your side points at everyone else to call them Fascists while wearing black masks and using violence to stop another side from speaking or even showing up, I'd say they're right. There is a disconnect, and democracy is in peril. Just not for the reasons they think.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

It is worthwhile remembering what actually drives immigration in Europe, the industrialists, who are in a panic about an aging workforce.

Once written, twice... said...

George W. Bush most certainly did claim to be a disciple of Reagan.

buwaya said...

The political realingnment is global, with local variations. One can see both Erdogan and Duterte as part of this populist wave. The causes are similar across societies, but cultural and policy implications vary a lot. It is a class-warfare phenomenon, but not in the Marxist sense, being as it is mostly a revolt of the middle against the top, and much less about the economic system than it is about the economic situation.

It is fascinating to think that in the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Philippines the people have, it seems spontaneously and independently, revolted against the Enarques (ENA is the French elite postgrad school for the government-bureaucratic-business elite; the French have made this corporatist alliance official).

The thing has been stirring for decades.

Turkey seems to have been the earliest case where this actually changed a government, though the "deplorables" phenomenon in their case was masked by the accompanying Islamic revival. One could say that the movement as such really began in France with Le Pen pere, over forty years ago. People are forgetting that he did get into the presidential runoff in 2002 against Chirac. Britain has had an organized politics around the "deplorables" (UKIP) since the 1990s. This sort of thing is more visible, to those who wish to see, in parliamentary systems, and therefore less shocking than Trump, or for that matter Duterte, who added, for the first time, something resembling ideology to Philippine politics.

But the fact is that it is global, there is something else going on. A "tide of history", like 1848?

Oso Negro said...

Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
@Oso - the problem with massive deportation in France is that a lot of its Muslims are second generation, maybe even third now. They opened their borders when their colonial empire disintegrated, and esp after losing Algeria. Sure, send the Syrians back, but what about all the second and third generation North Africans who have never been there, and may not even have close relatives left there?

4/23/17, 9:14 AM


Bruce, I didn't say it would be "fair" or "just".

Once written, twice... said...

I am also enjoying/gloating over Trump's squandering Republicans once-in-a-generation historic opportunity to get rid of Obamacare and do massive tax cuts. Can anyone list what important conservative legislation has a realistic chance of passing congress this year?

Once written, twice... said...

Trump doesn't care about it because it is not his conservative program and right wingers will just blame Paul Ryan anyways.

buwaya said...

Reaganism was not defined by Reagan, but by his enemies.
Reagan was a man of principle, but a pragmatist.
This was clear at the time, but not visible to people inside the media-academic bubble. It always seemed weird to me that the Reagan of his critics was always a strawman and not the actual man of his policies.
So if you like, Once.., you can declare straw-Reagan dead again.

JAORE said...

"...going after Muslims wholesale..."

Hoo boy,are you going to be shocked if folks ever really go after Muslims wholesale.

Fernandinande said...

JAORE said...
Hoo boy,are you going to be shocked if folks ever really go after Muslims wholesale.


Jews can go after muslims wholesale, the rest of us just retail.

buwaya said...

Or you could, Once..., actually argue a point, or contribute some insight, instead of picking fights.

This thing of yours is not a sign of compos mentis.

Once written, twice... said...

I am offering sound analysis.

Once written, twice... said...

Sorry to rain on your freak parade.

Once written, twice... said...

hillbillies.

Michael K said...

"Can anyone list what important conservative legislation has a realistic chance of passing congress this year?"

All those things you listed.

I smell panic on the hard left, like you.

Fernandinande said...

h said...
HuffPo published an article saying men should be denied the franchise.


Just white men. And property confiscated. PuffHo defended it until they discovered it was a hoax.

MaxedOutMama said...

It's not so much that Le Pen might win - it's that her opponent in the runoff might be Melenchon rather than Macron. Melenchon wants significant changes in the EU, so the shock and awe here revolves around whether the approximately 30% of voters who claimed to be undecided to pollsters will jump to Melenchon. Le Pen is the most socially inacceptable; Melenchon might be the surprise pick of the urbanites.

If Le Pen faces Macron in the runoff, the expectation is that Macron will win. But if Le Pen faces Melenchon in the runoff, the result would be that the winner would not be a supporter of the EU in its current form.

The Germans are, to be euphemistic, shitting their pants over this one. Melenchon's take RE the EU is that it should become a financial superstate, with removal of the fiscal controls on nations and some sort of redistribution scheme, and political control over the ECB which would remove any pretensions that the ECB could conduct an independent fiscal policy. He's a Communist. In Germany, such proposals are viewed akin to being asked to cut off your legs. There is no possible compromise here.

For Germany, Brexit was a horror because the UK was always firmly against such proposals, and even though the UK never bought into the Euro, the UK always was vigilant against burden-shifting and too much financial amalgamation. It was the French push for more such measures that produced Brexit.

We will see how this works out, but Germany is in deep trouble, and even if Macron gets to the second round and wins, it is very possible that the EU in its current form is no longer politically viable.

So far, the German newspapers are reporting heavy turnout, which likely means that the 30% undecided were not undecided at all. The question is, who are they voting for? My guess is Melenchon. To see just how whacked this guy is, here's a list of his proposals:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/18/news/economy/france-tax-rich-election-melenchon/

Michael K said...

Good analysis MOM.

Le Pen is "right wing" only on immigration. On economics, she is a leftist. France will not solve its problems this way but it may be too far gone anyway,.

De Gaulle needed a better successor.

buwaya said...

The EU could have avoided Brexit, with some little foresight and humility. There are a host of little things they could have done, over the last twenty years, to keep themselves from looking like such pettifogging prats to the UK public.

This is the result of the powerful being in a bubble, and worse, the handing over of all real power to a bureaucracy, unmitigated by political control. The EU kept its Union politics in a playpen, and this is the result.

mockturtle said...

Once written writes: Reading these comments it is clear the right is no long organized around limited government Reagan style conservativism but instead prefers economic nationalism (MAGA) and going after Muslims wholesale. Other countries are following suit. It will be interesting to see where this turns out.

I'd prefer to think we are organizing [loosely] around common sense.

buwaya said...

And in Brazil the entire political class is under investigation for corruption, a truly unique situation.
And in South Korea the president has fallen and they have started jailing the heads of Chaebol.
This thing doesnt just show up in elections.

Michael K said...

"he handing over of all real power to a bureaucracy, unmitigated by political control."

We were in Brussels in September 2015, right before the terror attack, and were impressed with the huge numbers of people staying in our hotel that were delegations from EU countries going to the EU Parliament for stuff. It was like DC. It was a business hotel not a big tourist type because our friends had their car and needed a hotel with a garage.

After the terror attack two weeks later, that hotel was shut up for a week and no one was allowed in or out. It was right by the Le Grand Place.

Anonymous said...

Bruce Hayden: Sure, send the Syrians back, but what about all the second and third generation North Africans who have never been there, and may not even have close relatives left there?

Massive numbers of people of that description were booted out and booted back to their ancestral homelands all through the twentieth century. (E.g., after WWII in Europe, French from Algeria, Dutch from Indonesia, etc.)

Maybe not just or fair, as Oso Negro said, but not unprecedented. Allowing the mass migration in the first place wasn't just or fair to European "deplorables" either. I fear there's going to be a lot more "not just" and "not fair" events before this story ends. They're already happening.

MayBee said...

Shouldn't we be celebrating that LePen may shatter the glass ceiling?

buwaya said...

I dont think the French are that worked up about glass ceilings. That hyper-political-feminism is mostly an American phenomenon. Its part of, and the result of, the long-running propaganda campaign to mobilize women as a political interest group.

Michael said...

"France is resigned..."

Of course they mean the French elite. America is a population which has established a government. France is a government (a Deep State, a governing class) which has fastened itself upon a population. The last thing they want to see is actual democracy.

buwaya said...

And in Europe the glass ceilings were shattered long ago. Theres no point making much of Le Pen as you have May on one side and Merkel on the other. And they had Thatcher 38 years ago, who really did shatter a glass ceiling. But she was not a feminist apparently and doesnt count.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Michael K wrote: "Le Pen is "right wing" only on immigration. On economics, she is a leftist."

That's correct, which is why it always irritates me to see the label "far rightist" slapped on her. American journalists hate American nationalism, but they always seem to try to shoehorn European pols into American political categories (and they don't even get the American pols right).

It's unfortunate that Francois Fillon's scandals tanked him because he's the closest thing to a Thatcher-style economic conservative France has. In his own way, he is as threatening to the French political class as Le Pen is. You'd think that after Hollande, the French would grasp that electing another leftist would simply be continuing down the path to hell.

Perhaps the demonization of LePen will backfire. Of all the Europeans, it was the French who struck me as the most nationalistic in the sense of being fiercely proud of their customs, traditions, and culture. The neighborhood around the Abbey Church of Saint Denis, where most of the French kings are buried, is now Muslim territory and a terrorist has attempted an attack at the Louvre. My guess is that the French are no longer willing to put up with this shit and don't want to wait until a bomb explodes in Chartres Cathedral or Versailles or people start getting attacked at outdoor cafes for drinking wine.

Yancey Ward said...

Le Pen will lose in the second round to Macron, but it will be closer than most think, and will mean the death of the center-right parties which will pull out all the stops to get Macron elected. In effect, Le Pen's will become the opposition party to the one in power. The same thing is going to happen almost everywhere else in Europe- the center-right parties' leaders will sell their souls fighting off the nationalists within their camps and will find themselves out of power and with no future at all in short order.

I think in Germany later this year, Ms. Merkel will find herself losing her majority and will be forced to share power with the Socical Democrats, and her party will wither away within a decade to be replaced by AfD as the opposition to the left.

Michael K said...

France is a government (a Deep State, a governing class) which has fastened itself upon a population. The last thing they want to see is actual democracy.

They are still working out the results of the French Revolution. Before the Revolution, 75% of the population did not speak French.

The Ecole system does a much better job of educating elites than the US Ivy League colleges, which are getting much, much worse. The "Oxbridge" system of England does better. Cambridge has done science much better than Oxford but both are far superior to the US except for MIT and Cal Tech. We have better engineering schools at the state level.

The French problem has been with their politics since World War I.

Hagar said...

The Austrians did not "turn back the muslims at he gates of Vienna in 1683."
The Iranians attacked Suleiman in his rear and he had to give up on Europe and run back home to defend his eastern frontier.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

MaxedOutMama said...
We will see how this works out, but Germany is in deep trouble,


I can't see this. Germany has the best positioned economy in Europe. Everyone else goes down before Germany does and if these other countries start going down this will actually solve Germany's main structural problem, a lack of low wage workers. The loss of markets may be a problem but even here Germany is OK, with deep roots in American and asian markets.

Michael K said...

Germany would be far better off with Poles and Russians than with the Muslims.

Anonymous said...

exiled: Of all the Europeans, it was the French who struck me as the most nationalistic in the sense of being fiercely proud of their customs, traditions, and culture.

That is true, but they are also infected, like Americans, with universalist pretensions (aka "hubris"). True, French culture is extremely attractive to many people - but that does not mean that everyone is adaptable, or wants to adapt, to French culture, any more than everyone on earth (or all the nice people, anyway) wants to be an American living in American culture, just because the material wealth of either country makes them nicer places to live in, materially. That this is hubris and ignorance may be slowly sinking in to all but the most blind "proposition nation" ideologues, but it may be too late.

The neighborhood around the Abbey Church of Saint Denis, where most of the French kings are buried, is now Muslim territory.

Too bad this basilica is off most tourists' radar these days. It's a marvel, both architecturally ("the first Gothic church", and, I think, my favorite one), historically (those kings), and for, lol, a sobering and thought-provoking Tintin en France experience.

OT anecdote: I visited a few years ago and the neighborhood around the basilica metro stop and basilica felt safe enough - don't know if that's changed. But "Muslim territory" is not inaccurate. I noticed an interesting and informative "demographic gradient" on the metro ride there. On the ten or so stops from the touristy area to the basilica, the demographic profile of the passengers in the car changed smoothly from a bunch of white people (at the Invalides stop), to 100% non-European (except for my husband and I, that is) at the basilica stop. Some scholarly-looking types touring the basilica, but other than that not much in the way of tourists. Shame, it's well worth a visit.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

What is ignored here is that what is killing Europe is China not some cabal of internationalists. The manufacturing industries that sustained southern Europe for decades are dying or have died because of China's low cost mercantilism and complete lack of respect for intellectual property. Increased immigration into Europe is in large part a symptom of China's attack on western commercial dominance. The effects are less extreme here but not dissimilar.

traditionalguy said...

The Franks are the traditional Mohammedan nemesis. But they have been smashed into pacifism by the Prussians and from a deep shame from their Vichy cooperation with the Nazi Fuhrer.

Le Pen wants to be a fighting France again that dumps the guilt and shame from 75 years ago.

Leadership is all a movement needs. Ask the Orange Clown.

John henry said...

Two authors who are really good on this issue of Eurabification are Oriana Fallaci and Claire Berlinski.

I highly recommend both. Eurabification is Fallaci's word. At least she is where I first heard it 15-20 years ago.

Available via Ann's portal

John Henry

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

The Chinese must just be laughing there heads off about this shit. They have completely disrupted Europe without firing a shot.

Michael K said...

Sadly Fallaci is no more and Berlinsky has gone full #NeverTrump.

She has fled Turkey.

Michael K said...

The Chinese have their own serious problems which seems to have escaped the attention of ARM.

tcrosse said...

The Iranians attacked Suleiman in his rear

Paging Laslo.

buwaya said...

The Ottoman Sultan in 1683 was Mehmet IV, not Suleiman. You are thinking of the siege of 1529. I dont think there was a Persian war in Mehmets time.

The principal Turkish army, levied from the main military castes of the whole empire and which took over a year to assemble, was crushed at Vienna. Besides the attrition of the campaign and the retreat only a remnant escaped. They did not withraw, they were exhausted and defeated.

And then for the next 20 years they had to deal with a sustained western attack (the "Great Turkush War") that took the Europeans back to Belgrade.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"A decade from now we might look back and realize that the far left got the most mileage out of Trump, with the right being stripped of the ideas that made it a coherent ideological movement."

Right now we can look back and realize that the Right got the most mileage out of Obama, with the Left being stripped of the ideas that made it a coherent (let's pretend) ideological movement.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
The Chinese have their own serious problems which seems to have escaped the attention of ARM.


Why don't you share your vast knowledge of China's problems with us? Not saying they don't have some, just that they are making more for everyone else.

Sebastian said...

Both the US and Europe face unsolvable problems. Some groups have become useless to society. Some areas have no reason for being. Some groups don't and won't fit into the national culture. A portion of the elite despises the national culture. These problems can only be managed, as lang as economies are just strong enough over all. Europe has the bigger problem with Islam. The US has the endless problem of race, which the usual suspects don't want to end.

MaxedOutMama said...

ARM - but Germany really relies on the Euro for a lot of its manufacturing base. If Germany still had the DM things would be different now:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/balance-of-trade

It was the Euro which created that surge. Germany gets the benefit of very low interest rates (German government bonds are surely a safer way to conserve capital than Italian or Greek bonds) while having a very significant export advantage because the Euro is valued net across the EMU countries.

Life and economies are paradoxical. Germany wants to be fiscally sound, a net exporter, and therefore maintain a devalued currency, which is not possible all by themselves.

Germany does have a demographic issue of monumental proportions, and I doubt that the events of the last few years have made things better.

In any case, Belgium is leaking early tallies which seem to indicate that Macron is on top, so the Germans can sit around and brood on all this for few months until their election later this year, which is thankfully going to be boring.

Leigh said...

@ Althouse, Fox is probably mentioning Trump w/Le Pen because of the populist link -- or, perhaps because Obama has "waded into the French election" and supports Macron. http://abcnews.go.com/International/obama-wades-french-election-ahead-sunday-vote/story?id=46914016

But everything is about Trump, don't you know? Rachel Maddow reported that the people in Venezuela rioted last week after Trump's FEC filing. Yeah, those people who are being shot in the street, who have no food or toilet paper, are going on the internet to read Trump's FEC filing.

In related news -- "democracy dying" -- let's not forget the Muslim birthrate is 9.
N I N E.

buwaya said...

It looks like Macron vs Le Pen.
Daily Mail.

Michael K said...

"Why don't you share your vast knowledge of China's problems with us?"

Why don't you subscribe to Stratfor ? You could use the education.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Marine Le Pen has outperformed her father in the first round of voting but not by much, 21.7% versus his best of 16.9% of the votes.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
Why don't you subscribe to Stratfor ? You could use the education.


Come on Mikey, you can do better than that. Dazzle with us with your knowledge rather than weigh us down with your weak put-downs.

Hagar said...

buwaya is corret. I conflated Suleiman the Magnificent's campaign with Mehmet IV's.

Leigh said...

@buwaya, agreed. Official results from the French interior ministry (per Zero Hedge) have Le Pen ahead by 2 points. But the French media are putting out their exit poll results which show Macron leading by 2 points, and they are relentlessly bashing Le Pen. Here is the life feed from France 24:

https://youtu.be/1Ydto3Iyzic

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

MaxedOutMama said...
ARM - but Germany really relies on the Euro for a lot of its manufacturing base. If Germany still had the DM things would be different now:


No disagreement from me, but Germany still has a very competitive manufacturing economy that would survive most shocks whereas manufacturing in southern Europe is already struggling or failing and faces a worsening future. The Euro has certainly hurt these countries but it is China that is really killing them.

Michael K said...

I hate to se ARM struggling with the internet so I thought I would help.

According to Stratfor, China is at the end of its high-growth/low wage cycle and has entered a new stage known as “the new normal” which will in turn be followed by a period of much slower growth.
“China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was,” the report reads.
Instead a new group of 16 nations which includes most of South-East Asia, East Africa and part of Latin America will emerge in China’s place as an economic powerhouse.
According to the report, China will also lose some of its military might as Japan becomes more dominant in the region.


There is more on Stratfor but this was free. Stratfor predicts major issues with the western China poor. They are also having trouble with the PLA corruption.

You're welcome.

Hagar said...

and for both, troubles in Istanbul were probably more important for the withdrawal than those on the Persian border.

Mehmet's invasion also met with large numbers of experienced European military forces with much improved weaponry after the 30 Years War and following unrest.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
There is more on Stratfor but this was free.


Too cheap to buy a subscription? And, cut and paste doesn't count. The contents of the report are a prediction, may or may not come true. Unquestionably China's growth has slowed but if it hadn't they would have taken over the world economy in short order. Again, China has problems, but it has caused most of the chaos roiling the West and the West is clueless when it comes to formulating a response, dithering away its resources in the ME, which comprises no significant threat to western dominance whatsoever. We can argue about why that is.

Michael K said...

I have been a subscriber for years but I am not conducting a seminar for you. Get your own subscription.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
I have been a subscriber for years


Then why only share publicly available information?

buwaya said...

Fillon concedes, endorses Macron.

buwaya said...

That Macron -
An Enarque and very well connected, and very good at speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
From his private life, a rather weird guy, who married a woman old enough to be his mother and unable to bear him children.

tcrosse said...

Poor Macron. Imagine being named after a diacritical mark. Just ask Tilda Swinton.

buwaya said...

Le Pen declares victory, advance to second round.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

From wiki...
"Macron is married to Brigitte Trogneux, who is 24 years older[78] than he and was his teacher in La Providence high school, Amiens. The pair first met when he was a student in her class, aged 15, but were only officially a couple once he was 18."

Surprised the Daily Mail hasn't made more of this story, it is certainly one of their favorite topics in recent years.

buwaya said...

Odds are heavily against Le Pen in the runoff.
Conventional wisdom it seems favors Macron in a blowout, maybe 60-40.

tcrosse said...

Conventional wisdom it seems favors Macron in a blowout, maybe 60-40.

Nous allons voir.

Michael K said...

ARM, I just did a Google search. You could,too. Using the subscription would take more work and you are not worth it.

You sound more like Ritmo every week.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
Using the subscription would take more work and you are not worth it.


Not buying this. Not the bit about me being unworthy, that seems fair enough, but the bit about that it would take more work. I am calling BS on this.

Rabel said...

I'll just bring this over here:

Macron's wife is 24 years older than he is.

Trump's wife is 24 wears younger than he is.

Winning.

Michael K said...

OK, Here you are:

According to Stratfor, China is at the end of its high-growth/low wage cycle and has entered a new stage known as “the new normal” which will in turn be followed by a period of much slower growth.
“China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was,” the report reads.
Instead a new group of 16 nations which includes most of South-East Asia, East Africa and part of Latin America will emerge in China’s place as an economic powerhouse.
According to the report, China will also lose some of its military might as Japan becomes more dominant in the region.


And

China has completed its cycle as a high-growth, low-wage country and has entered a new phase that is the new normal. This phase includes much slower growth and an increasingly powerful dictatorship to contain the divergent forces created by slow growth. China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was. That role will be taken by a new group of highly dispersed countries we call the Post-China 16, which includes much of Southeast Asia, East Africa and parts of Latin America. China will not be an aggressive military force either. Japan remains the most likely contender for the dominant position in East Asia, both because of its geography and because of its needs as a massive importer.

The latter from the Decade Forecast 2015 to 2025.

I suppose you thought I was not really a subscriber.
You really are getting more like Ritmo.

That is the last time I will address you in comments.

Paco Wové said...

AReasonableMilo sure is in a bitchy mood today.

Darrell said...

AReasonableMan rarely is.

Michael K said...

A nonsubscriber to a private intelligence service has no idea how hard it is to find specific reports.

This is not a course I'm teaching.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
"China has completed its cycle as a high-growth, low-wage country and has entered a new phase that is the new normal. This phase includes much slower growth and an increasingly powerful dictatorship to contain the divergent forces created by slow growth. China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was. That role will be taken by a new group of highly dispersed countries we call the Post-China 16, which includes much of Southeast Asia, East Africa and parts of Latin America. China will not be an aggressive military force either. Japan remains the most likely contender for the dominant position in East Asia, both because of its geography and because of its needs as a massive importer."



I found this simply by plugging into Google, no subscription necessary.

https://www.stratfor.com/forecast/decade-forecast-2015-2025

Michael K said...

I see ARM is trolling me. Ritmo Jr.

Yancey Ward said...

Macron wins the second round 51-49. National Front becomes the opposition. Le Pen wins the next election in a landslide.

All of the center-right's base will be absorbed by National Front within 2 years.

Daniel Jackson said...

It's Macron at 23.7 percent versus Le Pen at 21.7 percent. Even though she made the playoffs, she hasn't a chance since the other candidates will pledge their support to the boy wonder.

In the south, the French regard him as an odd duck, if only because the Children of the Revolution of '68 have three mantras they will not shirk: Fuck American, Fuck the Rich (and Mrs Macron is very rich), and Fuck Economics. Supply and Demand? What's that? We make our own rules.

The Macrons met when he was fifteen and she was his teacher in school. They started a relationship then although his parents tried to break it up. I think in the States, at that age, that sort of thing is not considered kosher. http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/emmanuel-macron-wife-brigitte-age-photos-france-president-married-teacher-kids-trogneux/

Any thought that the French will finally embrace fiscal responsibility is a wet-dream; this is where the first mantra enters. Fifty years of left thinking has removed a shred of that sort of thing. Not going to happen until this generation of flower power is pushing up daisies.

Ironically, aside from the few bad apples, I think the newer generations of Middle Eastern immigrants are the future of France, and not with the Islamic bullshit the MSM is pushing. After three generations, most are integrated into French laic culture and think of themselves as French. Unemployment? Fuck, everyone in France is either unemployed or underemployed.

It's the retirees, the pre-revolution generation, that fuel Le Pen since they are voting their economic interests in keeping their pensions going. Le Pen is a joke, as well as Macron, since she has no intention of changing the vast senechal system that forms the buttress of the Kingdom of France. A royalist claque in modern clothes.

France will lumber on for a few more election series. Then who knows. Right now, the other 55+ percent of the French are disgusted with the predictable results (and the far left students are burning tires in Paris); but, they have not a clue of where to go and what is next.

Interesting times, indeed.

Michael K said...

" Le Pen wins the next election in a landslide."

I have that feeling in the year of Trump. We'll see.

Young brides are a French tradition, I don't know about grooms.

Lavoisier's wife was 13 when they married. She helped with his work and after he was guillotined by the Terror, she worked the rest of her life to preserve his reputation and his work.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

No one is trolling you, you moron. Just clarifying a few facts.

Alex said...

One thing you can know for sure if Le Pen is elected she will shut down the Calais 'jungle' for good.

Alex said...

Honestly the best thing about this is 'Muricans talking about French stuff. I love it. Nice payback for what Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette did for America.

Michael K said...

I don't know what she will do with the Calais "jungle." We changed our travel plans because if it and the migrants trying to block Chunnel trains. It's a mess but I don't know where they will go. It would be a war.

Gospace said...

Multiple problems with China. An aging work force, aging faster then most due to the one child policy pursued for so long. Overvalued real estate, a bubble waiting to burst. Complete empty cities, poorly built expensive buildings with no population and no business or reason for being. And something I read a while ago as a scandal waiting to happen- warehouses full of different refined metals, not just gold or silver, but aluminum, steel, etc., that seem to have been pledged as loan collateral by more then one entity. One ton may have 4 or 5 separate owners with paperwork showing they each own the whole ton.

China is a centrally directed economic house of cards just waiting for the right wind to knock it all down.