this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
1186 points (99.4% liked)

World News

39364 readers
2241 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 155 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I feel like "the right gets a big showing early on but ends up losing" is a regular feature of modern French elections. It seems like it's happened multiple times in my lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 130 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Still, they are way too cocky all over the world. But great work, France. Thank you

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I definitely wouldn't extrapolate anything about the rest of the world from this. I just remember "Le Pen is going to be the next president of France" being said more than once in my lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Conservatives just lost the UK in a big way. France on course to do the same (not to the same extent). Tons of money (and Russian manipulation) are pushing hard for far-right politics, but they keep losing. Remember, abortion has won every time it's on the ballot since Roe was overturned. I'm still cautiously optimistic about the US's chances

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)

While I agree with you in general, it's the electoral college that's a uniquely American fuckery I worry about. France and the UK don't have to worry about the majority vote being the losers.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There are so many levels of fuckery in the American system. It goes all the way up to just asking the supreme court (who you appointed) to please let you win.

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

Yep it’s fuckery turtles all the way down

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

You are more optimistic than I am, but I hope you're right. At this point, my hope is that at least Democrats will retain the congressional power to do something about a Trump regime I am seeing as an increasing inevitability.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Don't get me wrong, I'm still terrified, but I think the chances are better than the media is portraying currently.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Don't forget that the media's main goal is profit. How can they make sure to make more and more profit? By constantly showing you stuff that keeps you in fear and in turn makes you want to know everything that's happening. The only way to know the current events? Watch our media segments, read our newspaper, read our website etc. (also see 24/7 news cycle)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

What you said is true and in addition to that we should consider that the responsible thing to do in the face of fascism is raise the alarm. Not crying panic over far right politicians and their nightmare policy fantasies would just normalize them and help bring those nightmares about.

So while there is a fairly typical “follow the money” argument to be made here, alarmism over fascist ideologies is also just good activism and responsible citizenry.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

"The French are socialist cowards who don't know shit but actually get off their asses to protest...."

-- 'Muricans

[–] [email protected] 62 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

The background trend, unfortunately, is of the far right slowly but surely gaining votes. We pushed them back to third place today, but they still almost doubled the number of representatives they'll be sending to parliament (from 89 to the projected ~130 for today's elections).

  • In 2002, Jacques Chirac won against the far right with 82% (to the far right's 18%).
  • In 2017, Macron won against the far right with 66% (to the far right's 34%).
  • In 2022, Macron won against the far right with 58% (to the far right's 41%).

IMO it's largely a consequence of the center-left and center-right (Hollande, Macron) completely abandoning the working class, and demonizing the left whilst cozying up to the far-right (mostly Macron, though Hollande definitely slid right over his term).

[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago

IMO it's largely a consequence of the center-left and center-right (Hollande, Macron) completely abandoning the working class, and demonizing the left whilst cozying up to the far-right (mostly Macron, though Hollande definitely slid right over his term).

A tale as old as time.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Thank you for giving more info, I appreciate it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

IMO it’s largely a consequence of the center-left and center-right (Hollande, Macron) completely abandoning the working class, and demonizing the left whilst cozying up to the far-right (mostly Macron, though Hollande definitely slid right over his term).

While i am no fan of Hollande and establishment socialism, I feel like he's really the butt of the joke here. Whatever we do, we always seem to punch left.

He was president for 5 years, yeah it was limp-dicked as fuck and it veered right in mid-course, but if you remember, he was basically elected on a platform of not being Sarkozy. The people were so KOed by his mandate that Hollande's whole angle was to be the "back to normal" president. And that's a promise he kind of kept, if you look at his time, sandwiched between two hyper-mediatic hard-right presidents, well yeah it felt like the kind of politics our parents talked about. Not great politics, just normal not-sadistic politics.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Not to make this about the US, but hopefully we see similar.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The far right is making a huge push around the world in recent years. Every time populations resist their influence is a giant win for humanity and the future.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago

I believe we have it in us but this Democratic Party is a finely oiled machine designed to blunt our progress, not lead it. Goddamn Biden said in the beginning that he wouldn’t seek reelection and he should have stuck to that. Now he’s in danger of actually losing to Shitstain L’Orange.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

In their presidential elections at least it's pretty much by design. It happens because they have 2 rounds.

The first round the far-right option gets a relatively large amount of votes. Then the round after only 2 options remain, so anyone who doesn't want the far-right option just votes for the only other option. Not sure what happens in general elections, but presumably it's somewhat similar because there's still 2 rounds.

As far as election systems go it has quite a lot of obvious flaws, but it's perhaps not quite as bad as first past the post. At least it makes the tactical voting a bit more straightforward.