Post by Harkovast on Apr 24, 2017 15:05:40 GMT
Okay so let's try and talk about something political and see how that goes.
We are going to talk about the French national elections, most specifically the national front candidate Le Pen.
Now before I say anything else I have to make completely clear that I do not like Le Pen.
She is coming from a party that is trying to down play their antisemitism. Yeah, its that kind of party.
With Trump you can read between the lines and see racist intent, with Le Pen its a lot more front and centre. This isnt a main stream party getting hijacked, this is a crazy racist party coming to power.
Also if she wins, that is basically the end of the EU as we know it and the tearing up of the post ww2 european order.
So I'm not a fan, and I am certainly not cheerleading for her.
Okay? We're all clear that I dont like Le Pen and I hope she loses? Good.
I'm really concern she's going to win.
The fact is, she has answers to people problems.
Her answers might be bullshit, but shes offering solutions.
When there is a terror attack she says "we need to deport more muslims and stop letting them in", her mainstream left wing opponents say "We cant give in to fear" which is basically a rallying cry of "lets not do anything, ignore it and it might go away, everything is fine."
To put it another way "make France great again" vs "france is already great."
And we've all already seen how that contest ends.
The problem isn't that the nationalists are offering anything astoundingly new.
(Warning, this is the point where you are going to get mad and probably think I support Le Pen. You have been warned.)
The problem is the the left, the establishments and the progressives are failing.
They have nothing to offer.
People are upset about mass immigration, they are scared by terrorism, they get poorer and poorer while the rich elites only get richer. When they complain they are called stupid and racist and told to shut up.
We're seeing this battle repeated over and over and it keeps going the same way.
Brexit and Trump both followed this same pattern.
Now you might say "but Brexit voters ARE stupid and Trump supporters ARE racist and everything IS fine as it is!"
And to that I would say you don't understand how democracy works.
Whether something is true doesn't matter. What matters is what people believe, because that is what makes them vote.
If the lefts progressive ideas are correct, they seem to have totally lost the ability to communicate this concept effectively.
Now the media are sayign that there is no way Le Pen can win this thing...which is about the least reassuring thing I've ever heard at this point.
The logic is that after the first round of voting, the top two people go through to the second round, and in this round all the people who didn't vote Le Pen will rally around her opponent.
But here is something to consider.
The guy who came third was from the mainstream right wing party. His chances imploded because he was paying his wife for a job that didn't exist and got busted.
But he still sprung back to third place...how did he do it?
By tacking to the right hard. He went very anti immigration and very anti terrorism. basically he copied Le Pen's play book and managed to partially salvage his fortunes.
Who are all his voters, the third biggest block, going to go for in the next round?
There is a movement happening across the globe. It is rejecting the globalisation, multiculturalism and establishment politics of western society.
In part it is succeeding because its opponents don't see the danger.
It gets dismissed as stupid and ridiculous, then as it gets stronger it gets painted as evil.
Very large percentages of different countries now support this stuff.
We can't dismiss them and hope to win.
If close to half of a country are irredeemably stupid or racist or evil then your country is already fucked and there is basically no hope.
I don't believe this is the case.
I think there are real fears and concerns of people who are really struggling and see their governments as out of touch and unconcerned.
And in a way I'm one of them.
I feel like that! The government in Britain doesn't give a fuck. I feel poorer than I used to, the country seems more unstable, terrorism seems worse.
This hasn't caused me to want to go for any of these nationalist solutions, but I can see why someone would.
I'm not going to sit on a high horse and sneer at people who decide they are getting shafted and go for the crazy solution.
The truth is that the progressive, left wing, establishment forces have not only failed to reach out to these people, they have actively ignored them or viewed them as the problem we need to solve.
Is it any wonder they are using what little power they have to fight back?
This might be a bad idea for that person to do, but at this point what alternatives do they have? Just keep everything the same and hope somehow that makes things better rather than continuing the miserable trend they are on?
I feel like we are all on a crazy train about to go over a cliff and we need to change direction before its too late, but were all so confident in how right we are that we are all just pretending the cliff isn't there, and anyone complaining about it is clearly an evil agent of a rival train company.
Staying the course is going to lead to the disaster. The left needs a new kind of politics, because even if Le Pen loses this time, the wind is behind her and people like her.
We are going to talk about the French national elections, most specifically the national front candidate Le Pen.
Now before I say anything else I have to make completely clear that I do not like Le Pen.
She is coming from a party that is trying to down play their antisemitism. Yeah, its that kind of party.
With Trump you can read between the lines and see racist intent, with Le Pen its a lot more front and centre. This isnt a main stream party getting hijacked, this is a crazy racist party coming to power.
Also if she wins, that is basically the end of the EU as we know it and the tearing up of the post ww2 european order.
So I'm not a fan, and I am certainly not cheerleading for her.
Okay? We're all clear that I dont like Le Pen and I hope she loses? Good.
I'm really concern she's going to win.
The fact is, she has answers to people problems.
Her answers might be bullshit, but shes offering solutions.
When there is a terror attack she says "we need to deport more muslims and stop letting them in", her mainstream left wing opponents say "We cant give in to fear" which is basically a rallying cry of "lets not do anything, ignore it and it might go away, everything is fine."
To put it another way "make France great again" vs "france is already great."
And we've all already seen how that contest ends.
The problem isn't that the nationalists are offering anything astoundingly new.
(Warning, this is the point where you are going to get mad and probably think I support Le Pen. You have been warned.)
The problem is the the left, the establishments and the progressives are failing.
They have nothing to offer.
People are upset about mass immigration, they are scared by terrorism, they get poorer and poorer while the rich elites only get richer. When they complain they are called stupid and racist and told to shut up.
We're seeing this battle repeated over and over and it keeps going the same way.
Brexit and Trump both followed this same pattern.
Now you might say "but Brexit voters ARE stupid and Trump supporters ARE racist and everything IS fine as it is!"
And to that I would say you don't understand how democracy works.
Whether something is true doesn't matter. What matters is what people believe, because that is what makes them vote.
If the lefts progressive ideas are correct, they seem to have totally lost the ability to communicate this concept effectively.
Now the media are sayign that there is no way Le Pen can win this thing...which is about the least reassuring thing I've ever heard at this point.
The logic is that after the first round of voting, the top two people go through to the second round, and in this round all the people who didn't vote Le Pen will rally around her opponent.
But here is something to consider.
The guy who came third was from the mainstream right wing party. His chances imploded because he was paying his wife for a job that didn't exist and got busted.
But he still sprung back to third place...how did he do it?
By tacking to the right hard. He went very anti immigration and very anti terrorism. basically he copied Le Pen's play book and managed to partially salvage his fortunes.
Who are all his voters, the third biggest block, going to go for in the next round?
There is a movement happening across the globe. It is rejecting the globalisation, multiculturalism and establishment politics of western society.
In part it is succeeding because its opponents don't see the danger.
It gets dismissed as stupid and ridiculous, then as it gets stronger it gets painted as evil.
Very large percentages of different countries now support this stuff.
We can't dismiss them and hope to win.
If close to half of a country are irredeemably stupid or racist or evil then your country is already fucked and there is basically no hope.
I don't believe this is the case.
I think there are real fears and concerns of people who are really struggling and see their governments as out of touch and unconcerned.
And in a way I'm one of them.
I feel like that! The government in Britain doesn't give a fuck. I feel poorer than I used to, the country seems more unstable, terrorism seems worse.
This hasn't caused me to want to go for any of these nationalist solutions, but I can see why someone would.
I'm not going to sit on a high horse and sneer at people who decide they are getting shafted and go for the crazy solution.
The truth is that the progressive, left wing, establishment forces have not only failed to reach out to these people, they have actively ignored them or viewed them as the problem we need to solve.
Is it any wonder they are using what little power they have to fight back?
This might be a bad idea for that person to do, but at this point what alternatives do they have? Just keep everything the same and hope somehow that makes things better rather than continuing the miserable trend they are on?
I feel like we are all on a crazy train about to go over a cliff and we need to change direction before its too late, but were all so confident in how right we are that we are all just pretending the cliff isn't there, and anyone complaining about it is clearly an evil agent of a rival train company.
Staying the course is going to lead to the disaster. The left needs a new kind of politics, because even if Le Pen loses this time, the wind is behind her and people like her.