this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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"Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has announced that he is dissolving the national assembly, and calling for legislative elections on June 30 and July 7.

The French president said that he can’t pretend nothing has happened, that the outcome of the EU election is not good for his government and that the rise of nationalists is a danger for France and Europe."

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[–] [email protected] 277 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Hey, uhh, Europe? Can we talk?

Look, I know the way the left has been handling immigration has you upset, but could you please take a closer look at the absolute freaks you're electing today?

I mean, just take a good look at the United States, circa 2017 through 2020. Did we look like electing an absolute freak worked out for us? Did it fix our own immigration problems? Did it make electing your own Donald Trumps look like a good idea?

[–] [email protected] 118 points 5 months ago (11 children)

When people feel ignored in a democratic country, they begin to feel like the democracy they live in is a sham or that democracy itself doesn't work.

Votes like this aren't necessarily about "we need a different direction" and more about desperation and/or anger. They want to show the elites of their country that they still have the power, they want to cost them something for treating the population like it's there to be harvested from, they want to shake up the status quo at all cost.

They want to prove to themselves that their vote still matters.

Letting it get to this point is really bad governance. Once you get here, either they win, or they don't. And of they don't, most of the people who support them have their suspicions confirmed, they don't live in a democracy, they voted and didn't get what they want, again. This creates a division that is difficult to come back from.

[–] [email protected] 109 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Except the fascists ARE the elites most of the time. This never hurts them. It only hurts themselves.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. And they won't fix immigration, they'll just enrich themselves as much as they possibly can.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (4 children)

These right wing parties need migration. Their whole existence depends on there being immigrants to blame so actually closing the borders and "sending them home" is the worst move they can make politically speaking.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes, you just wanna punch yourself in the dick. It won't fix your problems, but it'll make em feel less important for a few minutes.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago

They want to prove to themselves that their vote still matters.

Voting ultra right because of this is like trying to prove life is worth living by eating a bullet

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think you're being too charitable.

Some people will happily elect somebody that will be horrible to people they don't like. Far more people than is comfortable.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I just cannot comprehend how anyone can look at post brexit UK and think "yes, I want the same for my country"

[–] [email protected] 70 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's truly bizarre. Every couple of decades or so, either the United States or significant chunks of Europe decide, "What the hell, let's give the right-wingers another chance, they say they'll fix immigration," and then we end up cutting funding for services and giving tax cuts to the rich. They pull this shit every goddamn time, and we keep falling for the bait-and-switch.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The recent success of the European far right is precisely because they've revised their image to get rid of the freakshow aspects. The days when you could dismiss these people just by calling them "absolute freaks" are over.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But the freakiness is still 100% present in their platforms and ideologies. They're just dressing nicer now.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately, “decorum” is really the only thing keeping some folks from hopping on board those movements, not the policies themselves.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

No... No they are all still freaks. Did you just take off your "they live" sunglasses or something? The Freakshow aspect is in the ideological makeup.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (12 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The US won the Civilization cultural victory 70 years ago and the world has continually gotten worse as a result.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

It makes me want to mock the EU considering how much, deserved, shit the US gets. But this is just depressing. I would much prefer the US to be mocked as we get our shit, hopefully, together. Not fucking join us.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (17 children)

I am from the U.S. so I don't really understand how this works, or what the significance is. Can anyone EILI5?

[–] [email protected] 160 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (15 children)

Macron's party got disastrous results and got trounced by the far right in the European elections.

He had been selling himself as the shield that protected France from the rise of the local far right party. With these results, he has lost his credibility, and therefore his government did as well.

Therefore he's calling out-of-schedule French parliamentary elections that -- I assume -- he hopes will reelect his party and allies ahead of the far right. It might work: the far right party polls strong at around 30%, but has few allies, and may not be able to form a coalition government. If Macron himself can, that will strengthen his legitimacy.

Needless to say, this is a risky gamble.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 5 months ago (6 children)

He acknowledge he lost his credibility and therefore he dissolves the parliament? He just gain my appreciation

[–] [email protected] 48 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Because delaying mean’s momentum against him will continue to grow

You wait it out if you think there’s no chance for you or you hope it fades

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Still a very bold move imo

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"dissolving parliament" means they've announced a general election. Parliament won't meet any more, and all the existing members of parliament will go home and begin campaigning

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Russia is the biggest winner when far-right sentiment increases

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That's why they are funding and supporting far-right parties in almost any Western country. The AfD in Germany is a good example, their MPs were literally caught receiving money from the RuSSians. Their MEPs also work for the Chinese intelligence service btw

[–] [email protected] 73 points 5 months ago (2 children)

An unprecedented move which could backfire as it did for Chirac in 1997. Macron is playing a dangerous gamble with the Fifth Republic... 🗳️🇫🇷

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Comparing it to Chirac's situation is downplaying how crazy te move is right now. Can you imagine how fucked up this is? Like "oh, the far right has more than twice as many votes as we got, it must be some sort of big misclick situation, lets check it out !"

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think it's more that the situation is only going to get worse the longer we wait so he's pulling the trigger now for the best conditions he's ever going to get. Not great

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Why is the right becoming more popular? What changed?

[–] [email protected] 79 points 5 months ago (8 children)

2008, the global financial crash, the subsequent shift of trillions of all the currencies towards the already-rich, then Covid hammering the final nail in the coffin of proving that governments care about the people only inasmuch as they provide value.

We’ve had sixteen years of people getting poorer and poorer, shit getting more expensive, and the news outlets they read pointing towards immigrants/gays/leftists as the problem.

The right take those messages and amplify them. They tell people that only they can speak truth to power, when the reality is far more nuanced than that. But people don’t want nuance, they just want to be able to pay their bills. The people aren’t stupid though, they know that the windbags can’t really change anything, but the status quo hasn’t done shit to help them, so fuck it, we’ll vote for the other guy.

“They’re all the same anyway”

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

This is more of a general answer as fascism seems to be gaining more ground globally. A book published in 1997 "The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy" theorized roughly every 80 years (or about a human life span) we face a crisis related to a critical mass of people losing the knowledge and shared values from the previous generations. Imagine the perspective of a Revolutionary War veteran who fought under General Washington to help forge the United States, who would be understandably upset to hear any mention of a Civil War between states, which didn't start until 82 years later.

We are losing that collective memory now both in the U.S. and abroad; the remaining World War II veterans are in no position to punch these fascists when they see a swastika flown at a rally. Unless we vote in numbers large enough to throw the MAGA movement into the dustbin of history, in the future we can expect younger Trump acolytes to take root in the same vacuum of thought.

From a recent article

”With these words Biden addressed the bitter irony that haunted the commemoration ceremonies. While D-Day occurred eight decades ago, America is now just five months from an election that could bring to power a man and a movement who embody and celebrate the twisted authoritarian values of the enemies we sought to defeat so long ago. Fascism has not gone away. The tactics of the Nazis to employ racism and demagoguery to divide society and enable their seizure of power and their gutting of democratic institutions currently are the playbook of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.”

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago

All the major media outlets have been bought by a few far-right billionaires. For some years now, propaganda has been omnipresent, 24 hours a day.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Social media disinformation campaigns from the Kremlin and possibly also the CCP.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

There's too many factors to name in a brief comment, but here's an interesting statistic:

In all recent European elections, all center-left parties that have tried to swing to the right on immigration to try and woo right-wing voters, have lost seats. No exceptions.

Edit: Clarified the swing on immigration was to the right.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Is this because they waited too long, or because the answer is something other than anti-immigrant sentiment?

For example, there’s this statistic that almost everyone dies shortly after having CPR performed on them. Paradoxically, that doesn’t mean CPR is bad: it absolutely saves lives. It’s just that they do it too late on a lot of people (and also perform it on a bunch of people who are going to die no matter what but that’s not the point of this anecdote).

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

WTF, why would he do that... This gives me David Cameron / Brexit referendum vibes.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Maybe he hopes that left-leaning voters will get mobilised by the election outcome today.

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