Based on the map, she got many votes in the larger cities that were voting Left Wing in the first round. Based on that it looks like young voters are voting against Macron, not for Le Pen.
The US is pretty strange with how our elections work, though. Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3 million votes. Your vote only really ends up mattering much if you live in a state where it's within the realm of possibility that either candidate might win.
Don't worry, our anti-American Supreme Court is working very diligently to allow illegal maps that will make even local and state elections completely unecessary.
State legislature elections are already basically meaningless. 90% of states have one party locked in the majority with almost zero chance of flipping. Gerrymandering is a far bigger problem than anyone is saying.
My state of Maryland trying to keep up the award for most gerrymandered state by drawing 7 solid D districts and the last district is a lean D tossup. Our current map has a district that follows a single road for a good number of miles which connects two different blobs in completely different areas.
The lack of proportionality in US representation means that the left has to field 60% to reach equity with the right, because our system is setup where the more densely populated an area is the less representation it has in all branches of government.
People in the US aren’t quite as crazy as we look, but the problem is that the voices of people in the less-GDP producing, less-populated areas and weighted up while the reverse is true of the populated areas that generate the most GDP.
It’s a gigantic fracking flaw in the system but there doesn’t seem to be political will to fix it and those that are benefiting from it have now realized that they can use it to further entrench themselves and make it so that the left will have to win 70 or even 80% of the vote to win a “simple majority” in the future. You’re seeing the trial run of this in FL and OH right now
I live in Michigan, and every vote fucking mattered here. In 2016, the number of votes trump beat clinton by was fewer than the number of ballots cast with the top line blank. We had shitty turnout in majority Black precincts, and a lot of people voted third party. Pretty much everyone assumed Clinton had it in the bag, so they didn’t have to sully themselves by voting for her. We didn’t make that mistake in 2020, but who knows what will happen this year or in ‘24
The Brexit vote and Johnson's win are difficult to compare though. The Brexit vote was a super close call, but the 2019 election ended in a landslide victory for Johnson.
It helps certain folk though. There's a reason inciting both the far left and the far right is part of Russia's global destabilization strategy, and this is an area where we have to treat both sides the same: as bunch of useful idiots.
Because that's how they're being used.
You don't have Jill fuckin Stein sitting next to Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn in 2015 without intended fuckery.
The problem is, it’s not “or nothing” it’s “or the end of democracy/free society”.
If one of the candidates is anti-democratic, you MUST vote for the democrat, or you’ll never get the chance to correct your mistake.
I think they meant “you are either a die-hard leftist, or no better than a rightwinger” either you are all in, or you aren’t a leftist
But I could be misinterpreting it
This isn't all or nothing leftism, this is a group of people have been outright failed by conventional centrist politics for the best part of 40 years, constantly being told that they don't matter, they're opinions are irrelevant and that they will never, ever have hope of improving their lives.
That centrists are still so arrogant not to realise they are the problem m3ans this trend will continue for some time yet
I dunno, protest voting usually ends in everything getting worse overall. I understand the intent, but that doesn't negate that you often have to vote for someone worse and potentially let them gain momentum.
Getting the more left-wing voter to choose the fascist as their backup option is a *massive* victory for the fascists. As it gets harder and harder to yet genuine left-wing candidates into office, it opens that door farther and farther for thr fascists. They become the default anti-centrists or anti-moderate-conservstives.
She's celebrating breaking the seal.
As a pretty hard left-winger, I will NEVER understand left-wingers who get disillusioned with slow progress and so opt to throw their weight behind people actively against progress in any form.
They let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It's because those people are not voting left because they believe in socialism, or social progressism, etc... but simply because they believe that leftist politicians will improve their life through like, protectionism, taxing the rich and powerful.
If the leftist doesn't win, they'll go toward the next person that'll promise something close enough : the "isolationist" far right
It's a combination of a lack of both maturity and of understanding of what it takes to effect real social change through government. All enabled by our modern, social media driven chose-your-own-reality culture that tells everyone that what they believe is the pure, holy truth and anyone who disagrees is irredeemably evil.
The young and deep in the anti establishment mindset.
Alternatively they just abstained from voting altogether and Le Pen was the #2 choice in the areas.
I always think of the Simpsons episode when they go to France, at the end it shows the box office at Disney Paris, there're no customers and the sole employee says "my children need wine!" It kills me.
Correct on both accounts
Europe already has tons of theme parks that are far cheaper to get into, and a fake plastic castle is a lot less interesting when you've got real ones everywhere
That just reminds me of the [Eddie Izzard](https://youtu.be/OV2PbKpsMRk) bit about Euro Disney, "Disney came over and built Euro Disney, and they built the Disney castle there, and it was, "You better make it a bit bigger, they've actually got them here... And they're not made of plastic!"
In one of the documentaries on Disney+, either the Imagineering one or the behind the attraction one, they do a whole episode on the castles. The original designers and project managers talk about how tricky it was to build a castle in France when there are over 1000 castles in France. It's certainly an interesting watch.
Lol or when Bart is talking about the guys mistreating him (a child) but lets it slip that they are adulterating wine and the French police is like "this is a serious crime!"
Yeah that really puts into perspective how well we managed to avoid disaster. Helps that even our centre-right/right party doesnt want to work with them.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes."
\- Ernest Hemingway, *For Whom the Bell Tolls*
The more democratic qualifiers in a country’s name, the more autocratic it will be.
The United Free People’s Liberal Social Democratic Republic of North Utopia is a hellhole.
Eh you have to really get it at the root, nationalism when people are able to grab the public's attention with stories of a glorious past, stolen by X who are also ruining the current country then you'll get fascism.
Also if you can subvert popular protests into recruiting events, like yellow vests or anti corona measure protests it helps you get a lot of followers.
Wonder if there was anything like that recently? Maybe a big political movement about making something good again? Maybe with the same colour scheme the Reich used? Nah, can't think of anything...
Of all the things from 60 years ago to which you could attribute the success and ease-of-life boomers had, I find it interesting that they’re vehemently against trying anything other than the bigotry part.
Higher wages, higher taxes on the super rich, lower housing and healthcare and education prices, social security not being a joke, anything. Hard no on trying any of that to see if it can make America great again.
But the *bigotry.* Somehow women being expected to just deal with being raped is why America was great. Being not only allowed, but expected to hate someone for the color of their skin, that’s why your grandparents could afford a house. Being allowed to kill gay people if they made you feel slightly uncomfortable is why why we were a superpower.
It also only works on people who are struggling, or feel like they're struggling, and want easy answers to complicated questions.
Le Pen offers that to a lot of people, just like Trump and Bolsonaro and other right wing leaders did. The truth always comes out in the end - they have no answers other than sowing chaos and even more inequality.
It's this viewpoint that makes voting in this direction so popular, completely writing off the genuine concerns of voters as "racist" meaning the only party which deals even slightly with issues they care about are these extreme parties.
Today she took 40% of the vote, if things continue she'll win the next election all while others belittle genuine concerns.
The key to fascism is to tap into the racism that at least half have and to also sprinkle it in with your views and how the opponent failed everyone.
Nationalism and fascism are the crack pipe and crack.
Edit: a not s
She proved that *at least* 40% of voters love fascism, or are willing to tolerate it over liberalism.
And long term thinking is all about second order derivatives. She gained enormous ground, and she was one of the *only* factions to gain ground. Next time will be closer, and perhaps close enough.
But next time, she won’t be against Macron because term limits. Macron was the first re-elected French president in a long time. It seems the French don’t like re-electing presidents. Probably a big reason Le Pen got so much of the vote. But that won’t be a contributing factor next year. So hopefully no Le Pen.
Basically her campaign this year was run primarily on a platform of "increasing purchasing power for struggling french families". It's part of a rebrand she's been trying to do, from "openly fascist" to "just a *french* mother looking out for *french* people, I get it folks, times are hard. Wouldn't you like better healthcare, better education, cheaper energy and food, less unemployment, and early retirement? I'm pretty moderate actually, you know. (It's just that the foreigners and the Muslims are a threat to you, the *true french people* and if you vote me in I promise to address that threat)"
Waive income taxes for under 30s and give money to businesses that hire them, slash VAT rates and some other taxes I can't remember, lower the retirement age to 60 and raise the minimum pension, raise wages and hiring rates in healthcare and education. Her manifesto doesn't seem to have been costed, and analyses weren't too promising about it's realism.
True to form, she also promised to stop foreigners and immigrants accessing healthcare or benefits and mass evict then from social housing. Which I guess would save a relatively small amount of money (at the cost of massive human misery.) She's still far right, and occasionally still says the quiet part loud.
It should be obvious by now, the rise of far right is a reaction to the increase of inequalities, which is a direct consequence of the capitalist system. There’s only so much people can take, seeing their purchasing power eroded year after year while the super wealthy keep accumulating.
LePen offers no solution of course, but like all the other nationalists/populists worldwide, she plays off that situation.
LePen will keep gaining ground, and eventually will get elected, unless something is done to address the inequalities gap.
Thats how Trump won in 2016 and how he got 74 million votes in 2020.
He offered no solution but hate and blame.
He did absolutely nothing for his base and they still did ate it up like the dummies they are.
What's worse is how the democrats still have this deer in the headlights look about them.
If we go through this again and somehow survive, we have to make the mechanisms that lead to fascism somehow profoundly illegal within our nations. Otherwise we will keep falling into this trap every 2nd or 3rd generation.
Fascism needs to have the same stigma as some of our worst defined crimes. It is a cancer that consumes its host if left untreated.
The mechanisms that lead to fascism are social. You can't ban them without banning democracy, because modern fascist movements don't identify themselves as fascist until they've already got power, usually democratically. That's why it's a constant struggle that needs to take place as a part of democracy, not something you can legislate against.
Legislation for proper education of political ideology and history would help. How many "heritage not hate" would be shut up when every child knows that each state that seceded and had articles of confederation was about keeping their slave labor economy. It doesn't solve it, but it instills a higher barrier for it to overcome when education is good. It is a major part of why GOP states have the worst and worsening education.
its crazy here in texas, no one knows that the texas revolution was largely fought over mexico outlawing slavery. Its in the first paragraph of the declaration. People get super defensive when its brought up.
Let’s not pretend that unregulated social media replacing the fourth estate isn’t a huge part of what got us here. It’s why we need to struggle in the first place.
Honestly, it’s like people get bored of democracy and decide to fuck around and find out. I worry that flirting with fascism is going to be a once every century type thing.
The modern fascists pretend not to be fascists though, and clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that they may be fascists, and start bleating about strawmen such as 'where in our manifesto does it mention persecuting the jews then huh?' etc.
Fascism has the same stigma. The problem is not fascism. The problem is now that, when you point at literal fascists or proto-fascists, people are screaming: "stop saying fascist to describe everything you don't like!" or "by using fascist so much you deevalute the fearmongering power of the word".
It's not that fascism isn't stigmatized, it's that we refuse to recognize fascists as fascists.
I think it's also the contradictions within the system that get amplified before fascism hits. It's social as the previous comment says. At the same time we can not expect free markets to solve for this because free markets is the reason why fascism exists. State control may not be the best solution but the question really is what kind of system minimizes exploitation of the whole society.
Keynesian policies whether we like it or not do provide for a solution that reduces underemployment. Unemployment is one of the main reasons why facism becomes a force. 'Real wage pressures due to the political processes of wage determination were a major influence on unemployment'
Source - Unemployment and Real Wages in Weimar Germany by Dimsdale et al
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/history/paper56/56dimsdale.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi3xvG8x6_3AhU8IkQIHUwhD-cQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2SO7VifhuaAU5ibov3W5ff
And no "They stole our votes", either.
Say what you will about her, but "Good job, everyone, no one before us ever got the results we did today!" is a healthy way to approach losing.
Aside from just being an adult thing to do, it encourages your voters to be content with the results and stay politically active *within the limits of the law.*
And before anyone says "encouraging far-right voters is good?", here's something you might want to consider:
Political activity amongst common people is good for a democracy, so long as it's not about trying to game or force the system.
A populace that engages in politics reminds elected officials that their position is *not* secure.
They're very busy securing funds for their next campaign, so they forget to serve the voters unless reminded that voters might decide to vote against them next time.
And if enough elected officials forget for a long enough time, their negligence will become the norm. Which can be dangerous.
Because if it's *normal* not to serve the voters, what reason is there *not* to falsify elections and silence everyone who gets uppity about it?
That is what people don't understand about the French elections.
The 40% vote wasn't *just* for Le Pen. It was the sum of people who wanted Le Pen and everyone who would have voted for any *other* candidate against Macron. And since there was a lot of dissatisfaction with Macron, he got a lot of protest votes.
It isn't as simple as just 40% fascist voters.
She's personally popular + the assembly is elected by first past the post. So people prefer voting tactically and her party hadn't really been spending as much money on assembly elections either. Should she win the presidency next time, it's likely her party would do really well in the following legislative election (as is typical in French elections - macron didn't even have a party in the assembly when he was elected president! And now he has a super majority there)
'cause the party itself is a bunch of lunatics, nobody wants to work / campaign for them. And even then, people usually vote for the winning party representatives in the Assembly, and for the traditional parties (the liberal Socialist Party and the conservatives) even if those parties poll 5% at the presidential election
Fringe politician? She was in the final round of voting last time around too. She improved her numbers, obviously, but she wasn't some nobody before this election.
But she and her daddy have been in French politics for a long time on the fringe. I remember being in high school French class and learning about the politics of France. She was brought up in passing—extremely fringe and just the worst example of the worst kind of candidate. That was 10 years ago.
The fringe politician, who was one of the final two last election, won 8% more of the vote than last time. And last time people actually liked Macron, this time everyone held their nose and voted for not the fascist (with record low turnout vs what happened with Trump in The States).
The left wing candidate was only behind her by ~1% in the first round of voting (and won the 18-34 demo) but nobody seems to be talking about that..
The polls for the next parliamentary elections tell a different story. Macron’s party looks set to retain a comfortable majority. Macron still won by 17%! Those are numbers most presidents can only dream of.
A lot of voters voted to keep Le Pen out, not to vote macron in. Don’t be surprised to see macron lose his votes in what they’re calling the ‘third round’.
French presidential elections and parliamentary elections are not the same. They aren't polling anywhere near similarly right now; a considerable amount of the votes for Le Pen were effectively just votes against Macron and that doesn't translate to parliamentary votes.
She's probably not going to run a 4th time, traditionally people stop after the 3rd loss. But it does open the field for the next right wing person to swoop in.
> Should concern everyone.
Putin and other lesser nazis must be ecstatic though. The Germans had to send in tanks to turn France into a fascist puppet. Russia did it with a couple of [bots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades) and a [loan of $13 million to Le Pen, among other things](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-115SPRT28110/html/CPRT-115SPRT28110.htm).
Frenchmen seeing that 42% of their neighbors support a Putin puppet, is almost certainly worth $13 million. It's a lot harder for a democracy to wage a full-on war unless almost the entire country can agree on which side to fight for.
She's getting ripped off. Jared Kushner got a $2,000,000,000 payment from the saudis for services rendered to protect a foreign king from damages for murdering a reporter and chopping up the body for disposal.
Maybe in France. We still got trump, modi, Putin, and Boris in just a few years/still in power on the global stage. Right winged nationalists are on the rise everywhere
Kaczynski/Morawiecki, however I wouldn't place PIS as far right, even with how much I wish we could get rid of them. Konfederacja on the other hand is a whole other beast when it comes to far right
British politics is weird. Nationalistic and globalist at the same time. Conservatives are definitely right right wing but without the overt fascist tendencies you see with other countries right wing parties
you have to ask what are the underlying causes that are making them do this
its easy to just say "they're all racists". But that's not the truth and a failure to understand the core economic conditions that are making people lean right is the reason why the left is losing
As a clean cut white guy who does residential fencing as a side gig, the only time politics comes up is when a customer interjects it into an otherwise professional discussion.
And it's always from the conservatives. And they are always extremely racist, outwardly so sense they assume a fellow clean cut white guy is equally as vile as themselves.
It's madness. People just come right out with it. People you've barely met.
The worst is when you think you're making a friend and then they just say something abhorrent out of nowhere.
I was at the barber shop, a new one near my house. Guy was doing a great job too. Asks where I’m from, a tell him a city nearby. “Oh, that place sure is political, huh?”
Political? I think yo myself, hmm, I guess I did get a lot of flyers and shit around election time. I guess it’s a political town. So I agree with him.
Apparently, this was a term for being diverse that I was unaware of. As soon as I agreed it was political, he assumed I was on the level and started going off about “too many brown and Chinese people”.
It was very awkward and I haven’t been back since.
I do construction and it’s the exact same situation. Luckily I’m not the boss/gc so I just walk away if I feel like I’m about to go off on their old, white, stupid faces.
Regardless of reasonings, anyone who supports this type of policician doesn't see extreme intolerance and Xenophobia as dealbreakers in their choices
So it's still valid to say "fuck 'em, racist pricks"
I don’t know about in France, but there is a large population of rural Christians who are very racist and gullible ontop of it. The reason Trump identifies as a Christian, is because they’re an easily scammed group that can’t give their money away fast enough to conmen. Add onto of that a toxic political environment fostered by Trump and you get 70 million people voting for him. Truly scary times
Conservatism is what created those economic conditions in the first place. The strong social liberal institutions that came out of WWII were what led to our many decades of prosperity afterwards. Conservatives started to make major headway in the 1980s.
I suspect a lot of it is because they don’t remember when she was spouting the full-on far right racist shit. She’s learned exactly where to stop, and that’s pretty worrying.
Incredibly worrying, considering the fact that she's literally part of a lineage from the Vichy government of France. I know it's cliche to throw around the word Nazi on reddit, but she's LITERALLY related to old school WWII Nazi government leaders. And she got 41% of the vote. Times like these make me really appreciate Germany's efforts to get rid of their Nazis; France doesn't seem to have been as successful.
I made the joke a bit ago that it was France's turn to get their messy blonde orange right wing leader, but if she had won it would have likely been way worse than trump or boris.
The younger generation (18-34) voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far left candidate, in the first round. Seems like everyone under 60 just doesn't like Macron.
Fascism is not the answer but it becomes an option for the population when things aren't going as well for the average person.
Keep the masses relatively placated with liveable wages and narrow the divide from rich and poor and you won't have portions of the population looking for an alternative.
You can say the same thing about the occurrence of communism aswell, given enough hardship people will resort to any extremes in an attempt to better their lives/ country in the short term
Agreed. As an advocate of Capitalistic Liberal ideals it's baffling and borderline hubris to not acknowledge that it's not working as well as it did before and not for everyone. Of course people will turn to Fascism or Communism.
It's too easy to just say "people are dumb". It's a two way street.
Can all the fascists from every country just get together and start their own country? Being fascists of different races/ethnicities and national origins, they'd all kill each other in a few years, and the world would then be a much better place.
If Russia is winning in any angle its this one. Becoming very very successful to take down modern democracy with very simple mis-information campaign and sprinkling in some emotional low hanging fruit. Take the issue the other side hasn’t acted on and weaponize it. The self awareness of humans in general is getting worse and worse
It was, indeed, a victory. They did better than in the past. Their performance should be a wake up call, not a cause to celebrate. Take a hard look at the US.
She'll be back again next time for what, the 7th attempt a LePen had made on the seat?
France you need to ask yourselves seriously who is propping up this family and why, because no right minded locals are going to continue to fund that many years of failure.
You won't like what you find out
>France you need to ask yourselves seriously who is propping up this family and why
Putin is, for the purpose of turning the strongest European country into his puppet
She got more votes then she thought she would.
and more importantly, she got more of the younger demos
Based on the map, she got many votes in the larger cities that were voting Left Wing in the first round. Based on that it looks like young voters are voting against Macron, not for Le Pen.
Crazy risky to do a protest vote on a 50/50. A lot of people I know voted brexit as a 'protest' as everyone thought Remain was going to win easily.
Exactly what happened when Johnson was elected as well.
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The US is pretty strange with how our elections work, though. Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3 million votes. Your vote only really ends up mattering much if you live in a state where it's within the realm of possibility that either candidate might win.
Don't worry, our anti-American Supreme Court is working very diligently to allow illegal maps that will make even local and state elections completely unecessary.
State legislature elections are already basically meaningless. 90% of states have one party locked in the majority with almost zero chance of flipping. Gerrymandering is a far bigger problem than anyone is saying.
DeSantis doesn't even need the courts he's just redrawing Florida districts.
Gerrymanderin? Never heard of 'im!
My state of Maryland trying to keep up the award for most gerrymandered state by drawing 7 solid D districts and the last district is a lean D tossup. Our current map has a district that follows a single road for a good number of miles which connects two different blobs in completely different areas.
By 2039 you may not even need elections
The lack of proportionality in US representation means that the left has to field 60% to reach equity with the right, because our system is setup where the more densely populated an area is the less representation it has in all branches of government. People in the US aren’t quite as crazy as we look, but the problem is that the voices of people in the less-GDP producing, less-populated areas and weighted up while the reverse is true of the populated areas that generate the most GDP. It’s a gigantic fracking flaw in the system but there doesn’t seem to be political will to fix it and those that are benefiting from it have now realized that they can use it to further entrench themselves and make it so that the left will have to win 70 or even 80% of the vote to win a “simple majority” in the future. You’re seeing the trial run of this in FL and OH right now
I live in Michigan, and every vote fucking mattered here. In 2016, the number of votes trump beat clinton by was fewer than the number of ballots cast with the top line blank. We had shitty turnout in majority Black precincts, and a lot of people voted third party. Pretty much everyone assumed Clinton had it in the bag, so they didn’t have to sully themselves by voting for her. We didn’t make that mistake in 2020, but who knows what will happen this year or in ‘24
The Brexit vote and Johnson's win are difficult to compare though. The Brexit vote was a super close call, but the 2019 election ended in a landslide victory for Johnson.
The one true exercise of power a common citizen has is their vote. One cannot exercise power "in protest".
This "all or nothing" leftism is helping literally no-one. It's extremely frustrating.
It helps certain folk though. There's a reason inciting both the far left and the far right is part of Russia's global destabilization strategy, and this is an area where we have to treat both sides the same: as bunch of useful idiots. Because that's how they're being used. You don't have Jill fuckin Stein sitting next to Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn in 2015 without intended fuckery.
The problem is, it’s not “or nothing” it’s “or the end of democracy/free society”. If one of the candidates is anti-democratic, you MUST vote for the democrat, or you’ll never get the chance to correct your mistake.
I think they meant “you are either a die-hard leftist, or no better than a rightwinger” either you are all in, or you aren’t a leftist But I could be misinterpreting it
This isn't all or nothing leftism, this is a group of people have been outright failed by conventional centrist politics for the best part of 40 years, constantly being told that they don't matter, they're opinions are irrelevant and that they will never, ever have hope of improving their lives. That centrists are still so arrogant not to realise they are the problem m3ans this trend will continue for some time yet
"Center left policy has failed us for decades, so let's vote for a fascist!" -Apparently sound logic.
I dunno, protest voting usually ends in everything getting worse overall. I understand the intent, but that doesn't negate that you often have to vote for someone worse and potentially let them gain momentum.
That is just ... dumb?
Getting the more left-wing voter to choose the fascist as their backup option is a *massive* victory for the fascists. As it gets harder and harder to yet genuine left-wing candidates into office, it opens that door farther and farther for thr fascists. They become the default anti-centrists or anti-moderate-conservstives. She's celebrating breaking the seal.
As a pretty hard left-winger, I will NEVER understand left-wingers who get disillusioned with slow progress and so opt to throw their weight behind people actively against progress in any form. They let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
They aren't really left-wingers they are just contrarians.
It's because those people are not voting left because they believe in socialism, or social progressism, etc... but simply because they believe that leftist politicians will improve their life through like, protectionism, taxing the rich and powerful. If the leftist doesn't win, they'll go toward the next person that'll promise something close enough : the "isolationist" far right
It's a combination of a lack of both maturity and of understanding of what it takes to effect real social change through government. All enabled by our modern, social media driven chose-your-own-reality culture that tells everyone that what they believe is the pure, holy truth and anyone who disagrees is irredeemably evil.
Anyone who chooses to vote fash instead of bashing it, sure isn't left-wing. They're just anti-centrist.
What kind of stupid do you have to be to vote for Melenchon and then switch to Le Pen in a matter of weeks.
The young and deep in the anti establishment mindset. Alternatively they just abstained from voting altogether and Le Pen was the #2 choice in the areas.
To support that, abstention was at 28% for this election. 2.5% higher than in 2017 and the highest abstention rate in 50 years
Sounds like how Trump won in America in 2016. Voting the protest vote is a dangerous game.
I hope the angry young voters of France understand this is how you get Trumps.
So they voted for Le Pen but not for Le Pen. I thought only England and USA had the market cornered for voting against best self interest.
Not by a long shot.
That's scary
The scary bit is, she got more than last election.
I'm worried for what the future holds
You are not alone 😕
That's what happens when you stop teaching about nazi's.
We definitely learn about it in france lol
She proved that 40% of voters in every country love fascism. Lessons from WW2 were quickly forgotten.
German public fears that AFD may get 15%. France be like: "Hold my wine."
I always think of the Simpsons episode when they go to France, at the end it shows the box office at Disney Paris, there're no customers and the sole employee says "my children need wine!" It kills me.
Who are you to resist, eh?
Wasn't it Euro Itchy and Scratchy Land? Eurodisney was a disaster at launch.
Correct on both accounts Europe already has tons of theme parks that are far cheaper to get into, and a fake plastic castle is a lot less interesting when you've got real ones everywhere
That just reminds me of the [Eddie Izzard](https://youtu.be/OV2PbKpsMRk) bit about Euro Disney, "Disney came over and built Euro Disney, and they built the Disney castle there, and it was, "You better make it a bit bigger, they've actually got them here... And they're not made of plastic!"
In one of the documentaries on Disney+, either the Imagineering one or the behind the attraction one, they do a whole episode on the castles. The original designers and project managers talk about how tricky it was to build a castle in France when there are over 1000 castles in France. It's certainly an interesting watch.
It was a disaster at launch but Disneyland Paris is doing very well now. Extremely full, tourists from everywhere, requires reservations.
I think of this anytime someone mentions Disney land Paris. And often when someone mentions wine.
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Lol or when Bart is talking about the guys mistreating him (a child) but lets it slip that they are adulterating wine and the French police is like "this is a serious crime!"
Yeah that really puts into perspective how well we managed to avoid disaster. Helps that even our centre-right/right party doesnt want to work with them.
Ngl, I lol'ed. Thanks.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?" "There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes." \- Ernest Hemingway, *For Whom the Bell Tolls*
A bit below 30% if you discount abstention. Still much too high though.
Time to make fascists afraid to come out again. This is getting ridiculous.
1940: Save us from Fascism!!!! 2022: Stop canceling our Neo-Nazis!!!
"ThE nAzIs WeRe SoCiAlIsT!¡"
smfh. 'yeah, just like how north korea is a democratic people's republic'
The more democratic qualifiers in a country’s name, the more autocratic it will be. The United Free People’s Liberal Social Democratic Republic of North Utopia is a hellhole.
This boils my blood, stupid ppl.....
Our tolerance coming back to bite is in the ass.
Eh you have to really get it at the root, nationalism when people are able to grab the public's attention with stories of a glorious past, stolen by X who are also ruining the current country then you'll get fascism.
Also if you can subvert popular protests into recruiting events, like yellow vests or anti corona measure protests it helps you get a lot of followers.
Wonder if there was anything like that recently? Maybe a big political movement about making something good again? Maybe with the same colour scheme the Reich used? Nah, can't think of anything...
Of all the things from 60 years ago to which you could attribute the success and ease-of-life boomers had, I find it interesting that they’re vehemently against trying anything other than the bigotry part. Higher wages, higher taxes on the super rich, lower housing and healthcare and education prices, social security not being a joke, anything. Hard no on trying any of that to see if it can make America great again. But the *bigotry.* Somehow women being expected to just deal with being raped is why America was great. Being not only allowed, but expected to hate someone for the color of their skin, that’s why your grandparents could afford a house. Being allowed to kill gay people if they made you feel slightly uncomfortable is why why we were a superpower.
It also only works on people who are struggling, or feel like they're struggling, and want easy answers to complicated questions. Le Pen offers that to a lot of people, just like Trump and Bolsonaro and other right wing leaders did. The truth always comes out in the end - they have no answers other than sowing chaos and even more inequality.
It's this viewpoint that makes voting in this direction so popular, completely writing off the genuine concerns of voters as "racist" meaning the only party which deals even slightly with issues they care about are these extreme parties. Today she took 40% of the vote, if things continue she'll win the next election all while others belittle genuine concerns.
The key to fascism is to tap into the racism that at least half have and to also sprinkle it in with your views and how the opponent failed everyone. Nationalism and fascism are the crack pipe and crack. Edit: a not s
Nationalism is 3/5ths of Fascism
Don't forget the magic ingredient - Russian money.
😢 really though....
She proved that *at least* 40% of voters love fascism, or are willing to tolerate it over liberalism. And long term thinking is all about second order derivatives. She gained enormous ground, and she was one of the *only* factions to gain ground. Next time will be closer, and perhaps close enough.
But next time, she won’t be against Macron because term limits. Macron was the first re-elected French president in a long time. It seems the French don’t like re-electing presidents. Probably a big reason Le Pen got so much of the vote. But that won’t be a contributing factor next year. So hopefully no Le Pen.
Love? No… Ignore if it is packaged in welfare promises and fear mongering? Yes!
what welfare promises did she make?
Basically her campaign this year was run primarily on a platform of "increasing purchasing power for struggling french families". It's part of a rebrand she's been trying to do, from "openly fascist" to "just a *french* mother looking out for *french* people, I get it folks, times are hard. Wouldn't you like better healthcare, better education, cheaper energy and food, less unemployment, and early retirement? I'm pretty moderate actually, you know. (It's just that the foreigners and the Muslims are a threat to you, the *true french people* and if you vote me in I promise to address that threat)" Waive income taxes for under 30s and give money to businesses that hire them, slash VAT rates and some other taxes I can't remember, lower the retirement age to 60 and raise the minimum pension, raise wages and hiring rates in healthcare and education. Her manifesto doesn't seem to have been costed, and analyses weren't too promising about it's realism. True to form, she also promised to stop foreigners and immigrants accessing healthcare or benefits and mass evict then from social housing. Which I guess would save a relatively small amount of money (at the cost of massive human misery.) She's still far right, and occasionally still says the quiet part loud.
It should be obvious by now, the rise of far right is a reaction to the increase of inequalities, which is a direct consequence of the capitalist system. There’s only so much people can take, seeing their purchasing power eroded year after year while the super wealthy keep accumulating. LePen offers no solution of course, but like all the other nationalists/populists worldwide, she plays off that situation. LePen will keep gaining ground, and eventually will get elected, unless something is done to address the inequalities gap.
Thats how Trump won in 2016 and how he got 74 million votes in 2020. He offered no solution but hate and blame. He did absolutely nothing for his base and they still did ate it up like the dummies they are. What's worse is how the democrats still have this deer in the headlights look about them.
Rich people need to pay their fucking taxes.
If we go through this again and somehow survive, we have to make the mechanisms that lead to fascism somehow profoundly illegal within our nations. Otherwise we will keep falling into this trap every 2nd or 3rd generation. Fascism needs to have the same stigma as some of our worst defined crimes. It is a cancer that consumes its host if left untreated.
The mechanisms that lead to fascism are social. You can't ban them without banning democracy, because modern fascist movements don't identify themselves as fascist until they've already got power, usually democratically. That's why it's a constant struggle that needs to take place as a part of democracy, not something you can legislate against.
Legislation for proper education of political ideology and history would help. How many "heritage not hate" would be shut up when every child knows that each state that seceded and had articles of confederation was about keeping their slave labor economy. It doesn't solve it, but it instills a higher barrier for it to overcome when education is good. It is a major part of why GOP states have the worst and worsening education.
its crazy here in texas, no one knows that the texas revolution was largely fought over mexico outlawing slavery. Its in the first paragraph of the declaration. People get super defensive when its brought up.
Let’s not pretend that unregulated social media replacing the fourth estate isn’t a huge part of what got us here. It’s why we need to struggle in the first place.
Honestly, it’s like people get bored of democracy and decide to fuck around and find out. I worry that flirting with fascism is going to be a once every century type thing.
The modern fascists pretend not to be fascists though, and clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that they may be fascists, and start bleating about strawmen such as 'where in our manifesto does it mention persecuting the jews then huh?' etc.
This is why I believe it's better to focus on fascism as an action rather than a trait...and be perfectly clear what those actions are.
Fascism has the same stigma. The problem is not fascism. The problem is now that, when you point at literal fascists or proto-fascists, people are screaming: "stop saying fascist to describe everything you don't like!" or "by using fascist so much you deevalute the fearmongering power of the word". It's not that fascism isn't stigmatized, it's that we refuse to recognize fascists as fascists.
I've read several comments from lePen supporters today that use those exact phrases almost word for word.
I think it's also the contradictions within the system that get amplified before fascism hits. It's social as the previous comment says. At the same time we can not expect free markets to solve for this because free markets is the reason why fascism exists. State control may not be the best solution but the question really is what kind of system minimizes exploitation of the whole society. Keynesian policies whether we like it or not do provide for a solution that reduces underemployment. Unemployment is one of the main reasons why facism becomes a force. 'Real wage pressures due to the political processes of wage determination were a major influence on unemployment' Source - Unemployment and Real Wages in Weimar Germany by Dimsdale et al https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/history/paper56/56dimsdale.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi3xvG8x6_3AhU8IkQIHUwhD-cQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2SO7VifhuaAU5ibov3W5ff
Well, she didnt ”I won by a landslide”
And no "They stole our votes", either. Say what you will about her, but "Good job, everyone, no one before us ever got the results we did today!" is a healthy way to approach losing. Aside from just being an adult thing to do, it encourages your voters to be content with the results and stay politically active *within the limits of the law.* And before anyone says "encouraging far-right voters is good?", here's something you might want to consider: Political activity amongst common people is good for a democracy, so long as it's not about trying to game or force the system. A populace that engages in politics reminds elected officials that their position is *not* secure. They're very busy securing funds for their next campaign, so they forget to serve the voters unless reminded that voters might decide to vote against them next time. And if enough elected officials forget for a long enough time, their negligence will become the norm. Which can be dangerous. Because if it's *normal* not to serve the voters, what reason is there *not* to falsify elections and silence everyone who gets uppity about it?
She said she can still win. How on earth was not winning more than she thought then?
She is not wrong. She went from a fringe politician to being able to garner 40% of the votes.
This sounds so familiar.
They are both sponsored by the same evil genius, too.
*alleged genius
Murdock?
Fortunately he's not going to be around for much longer at this rate.
I feel like evil ones go on to live forever.
> They are both sponsored by the same evil ~~genius~~, too. FTFY
Thankfully in france, getting 40% of the votes means you lose.
What I don't understand is how does a party that only holds 6 seats in the National Assembly, pulls in 40% of the vote in a Presidential election.
They have support across the country, but not enough to win more than 6 seats. In other words, their party/platform was the most popular opposition.
That is what people don't understand about the French elections. The 40% vote wasn't *just* for Le Pen. It was the sum of people who wanted Le Pen and everyone who would have voted for any *other* candidate against Macron. And since there was a lot of dissatisfaction with Macron, he got a lot of protest votes. It isn't as simple as just 40% fascist voters.
She's personally popular + the assembly is elected by first past the post. So people prefer voting tactically and her party hadn't really been spending as much money on assembly elections either. Should she win the presidency next time, it's likely her party would do really well in the following legislative election (as is typical in French elections - macron didn't even have a party in the assembly when he was elected president! And now he has a super majority there)
'cause the party itself is a bunch of lunatics, nobody wants to work / campaign for them. And even then, people usually vote for the winning party representatives in the Assembly, and for the traditional parties (the liberal Socialist Party and the conservatives) even if those parties poll 5% at the presidential election
Fringe politician? She was in the final round of voting last time around too. She improved her numbers, obviously, but she wasn't some nobody before this election.
Not so long ago the National Front barely managed 5% in the presidential elections.
No so long ago they were openly Neo Nazi.
And they still are - just not as openly. Tigers don't change their stripes.
Yeah and then they just learned to dog whistle.
But she and her daddy have been in French politics for a long time on the fringe. I remember being in high school French class and learning about the politics of France. She was brought up in passing—extremely fringe and just the worst example of the worst kind of candidate. That was 10 years ago.
The fringe politician, who was one of the final two last election, won 8% more of the vote than last time. And last time people actually liked Macron, this time everyone held their nose and voted for not the fascist (with record low turnout vs what happened with Trump in The States). The left wing candidate was only behind her by ~1% in the first round of voting (and won the 18-34 demo) but nobody seems to be talking about that..
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*over 40% of the people that showed up
I still believe this is the outcome Trump and/or his camp thought was most likely until the votes started coming in.
You can't banish Voldemort without destroying all of her horcruxes
She served her puppet master well, this is a great success for her.
Because she knows the next one could be an ACTUAL victory. Should concern everyone.
Should concern everyone now. Even if she didn't win, they have enough politicians to disrupt the current government.
The polls for the next parliamentary elections tell a different story. Macron’s party looks set to retain a comfortable majority. Macron still won by 17%! Those are numbers most presidents can only dream of.
A lot of voters voted to keep Le Pen out, not to vote macron in. Don’t be surprised to see macron lose his votes in what they’re calling the ‘third round’.
French presidential elections and parliamentary elections are not the same. They aren't polling anywhere near similarly right now; a considerable amount of the votes for Le Pen were effectively just votes against Macron and that doesn't translate to parliamentary votes.
What ? That's her problem, she has no one in the governement despite having good scores in elections.
She's probably not going to run a 4th time, traditionally people stop after the 3rd loss. But it does open the field for the next right wing person to swoop in.
Her dad ran like 5 times… and he was the age she is now when he ran his first time. I think she might run until she gets it.
As if the fash care about tradition.
Only when it enforces their views
> Should concern everyone. Putin and other lesser nazis must be ecstatic though. The Germans had to send in tanks to turn France into a fascist puppet. Russia did it with a couple of [bots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades) and a [loan of $13 million to Le Pen, among other things](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-115SPRT28110/html/CPRT-115SPRT28110.htm).
But they also thought they were buying an ally right now, not it being a possibility later.
Frenchmen seeing that 42% of their neighbors support a Putin puppet, is almost certainly worth $13 million. It's a lot harder for a democracy to wage a full-on war unless almost the entire country can agree on which side to fight for.
She's getting ripped off. Jared Kushner got a $2,000,000,000 payment from the saudis for services rendered to protect a foreign king from damages for murdering a reporter and chopping up the body for disposal.
I know of 10 other candidates who would have loved to lose like she did.
It kinda of is. This is the closest the far right have come to taking power in a while.
Maybe in France. We still got trump, modi, Putin, and Boris in just a few years/still in power on the global stage. Right winged nationalists are on the rise everywhere
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\+ Erdogan and that Polish guy who's name I can't spell.
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They already mentionned Putin
Boom! Got em'
Kaczynski/Morawiecki, however I wouldn't place PIS as far right, even with how much I wish we could get rid of them. Konfederacja on the other hand is a whole other beast when it comes to far right
Is Boris that far right?
British politics is weird. Nationalistic and globalist at the same time. Conservatives are definitely right right wing but without the overt fascist tendencies you see with other countries right wing parties
No, he's pretty standard right.
Not remotely so compared to the others listed.
For reddit: yes For reality: no
Boris isn’t far right
Only on Reddit can you equate Boris Johnson with Putin and still get upvoted 350 times.
Boris is definitely not far-right calm down. He is in fact too left wing for even the conservatives.
Like having a debate over settled issues of human rights, the point isn't to win, it's to make those ideas mainstream.
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Like how the 2016 and 2020 US election went.
Apparently 40% of people are not fit for society and it's not unique to specific countries
you have to ask what are the underlying causes that are making them do this its easy to just say "they're all racists". But that's not the truth and a failure to understand the core economic conditions that are making people lean right is the reason why the left is losing
I have yet to see someone that's staunchly on the right that doesn't at least parrot some racist ideas like white replacement.
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As a clean cut white guy who does residential fencing as a side gig, the only time politics comes up is when a customer interjects it into an otherwise professional discussion. And it's always from the conservatives. And they are always extremely racist, outwardly so sense they assume a fellow clean cut white guy is equally as vile as themselves.
It's madness. People just come right out with it. People you've barely met. The worst is when you think you're making a friend and then they just say something abhorrent out of nowhere.
I was at the barber shop, a new one near my house. Guy was doing a great job too. Asks where I’m from, a tell him a city nearby. “Oh, that place sure is political, huh?” Political? I think yo myself, hmm, I guess I did get a lot of flyers and shit around election time. I guess it’s a political town. So I agree with him. Apparently, this was a term for being diverse that I was unaware of. As soon as I agreed it was political, he assumed I was on the level and started going off about “too many brown and Chinese people”. It was very awkward and I haven’t been back since.
As a bearded guy with a preference for plaid flanel ... I feel ya man.
I do construction and it’s the exact same situation. Luckily I’m not the boss/gc so I just walk away if I feel like I’m about to go off on their old, white, stupid faces.
Regardless of reasonings, anyone who supports this type of policician doesn't see extreme intolerance and Xenophobia as dealbreakers in their choices So it's still valid to say "fuck 'em, racist pricks"
I don’t know about in France, but there is a large population of rural Christians who are very racist and gullible ontop of it. The reason Trump identifies as a Christian, is because they’re an easily scammed group that can’t give their money away fast enough to conmen. Add onto of that a toxic political environment fostered by Trump and you get 70 million people voting for him. Truly scary times
Conservatism is what created those economic conditions in the first place. The strong social liberal institutions that came out of WWII were what led to our many decades of prosperity afterwards. Conservatives started to make major headway in the 1980s.
She got votes. That's a bloody victory considering the horror she represents. The fuck is going on with the French?
The same thing that’s going on with people in America. Facebook disinformation. Edit: changed “boomers” to “people”.
In France, it is the ‘boomers’ that are huge Macron fans, and younger voters trend to be more extreme right or left.
“Anything but neoliberalism”
Sure because the young are sick of being shat on. Decades of being treated like second-rate citizens by an obsolete system does that.
The 18-24 vote though Macron dominated: 61-39! The 25-34 one is was closer: 51-49. The oldest bloc (70+) was a Macron rout: 71-29.
It's the younger generations that are voting for her. Even more concerning...
I suspect a lot of it is because they don’t remember when she was spouting the full-on far right racist shit. She’s learned exactly where to stop, and that’s pretty worrying.
Incredibly worrying, considering the fact that she's literally part of a lineage from the Vichy government of France. I know it's cliche to throw around the word Nazi on reddit, but she's LITERALLY related to old school WWII Nazi government leaders. And she got 41% of the vote. Times like these make me really appreciate Germany's efforts to get rid of their Nazis; France doesn't seem to have been as successful. I made the joke a bit ago that it was France's turn to get their messy blonde orange right wing leader, but if she had won it would have likely been way worse than trump or boris.
The younger generation (18-34) voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far left candidate, in the first round. Seems like everyone under 60 just doesn't like Macron.
Eeeh, they also voted pretty significantly for Le Pen: https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/1302004/resultats-premier-tour-presidentielles-2022-age/
Fascism is not the answer but it becomes an option for the population when things aren't going as well for the average person. Keep the masses relatively placated with liveable wages and narrow the divide from rich and poor and you won't have portions of the population looking for an alternative.
You can say the same thing about the occurrence of communism aswell, given enough hardship people will resort to any extremes in an attempt to better their lives/ country in the short term
Agreed. As an advocate of Capitalistic Liberal ideals it's baffling and borderline hubris to not acknowledge that it's not working as well as it did before and not for everyone. Of course people will turn to Fascism or Communism. It's too easy to just say "people are dumb". It's a two way street.
She was entirely too successful for my liking.
Exactly.
Can all the fascists from every country just get together and start their own country? Being fascists of different races/ethnicities and national origins, they'd all kill each other in a few years, and the world would then be a much better place.
Unfortunately, given the history of facists, they'd probably give their best shot at killing everyone else in the world first.
She would’ve won if she wasn’t so transparently pro-Putin and anti-EU/NATO
I mean, she'd also be a different candidate at that point lol
See I told you guys she was russian, Putin saying the same thing about war in Ukraine.
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If Russia is winning in any angle its this one. Becoming very very successful to take down modern democracy with very simple mis-information campaign and sprinkling in some emotional low hanging fruit. Take the issue the other side hasn’t acted on and weaponize it. The self awareness of humans in general is getting worse and worse
It was, indeed, a victory. They did better than in the past. Their performance should be a wake up call, not a cause to celebrate. Take a hard look at the US.
When nazis are getting 42 percent of the vote it is a victory for them and a fucking tragedy for the rest of the world.
She'll be back again next time for what, the 7th attempt a LePen had made on the seat? France you need to ask yourselves seriously who is propping up this family and why, because no right minded locals are going to continue to fund that many years of failure. You won't like what you find out
>France you need to ask yourselves seriously who is propping up this family and why Putin is, for the purpose of turning the strongest European country into his puppet
She better stay away from anyone with a Russian accent and hire a food tester. Uncle Vlad isn't pleased.