Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
Never thought I'd say this, but it's a shame they closed Devil's Island.
French Presidential elections
- Thread starter gosub
- Start date
Never thought I'd say this, but it's a shame they closed Devil's Island.
Raheem
Well-Known Member
French people I know are currently pooh pooing Macron because he hasn't published his political programme yet (meant to be happening at the start of March) which is seen as cutting it v fine indeed. These are quite non-political people but the French do love a political programme.
People seem to be resigned to Le Pen getting through to the second round. Which feels v different to the general horror expressed when her father got through in 2002 because then people didn't believe it could actually happen.
Macron has a comparatively low score in polls in terms of how certain people are about voting for him, so there's scope for his campaign to go off the rails.
Can't see anything new really. Liberation is reporting:
'Dans l’affaire qui embarrasse la présidente du FN, plus ancienne que celle qui empoisonne depuis un mois la candidature de François Fillon, les enquêteurs se posent une question simple : le parti d’extrême droite a-t-il mis en place un système pour que le Parlement européen prenne en charge, via des contrats d’assistants parlementaires, des salaires de cadres ou d’employés du mouvement en France? Le garde du corps de Marine Le Pen, Thierry Légier, et sa cheffe de cabinet, Catherine Griset, étaient entendus depuis mercredi matin à Nanterre par les policiers de l’Office anticorruption de la police judiciaire (Oclciff), sous l’autorité des juges d’instruction du pôle financier, saisis par le parquet de Paris depuis décembre.
Emplois fictifs : deux proches de Marine Le Pen en garde à vue
Bayrou offers alliance with Macron as Fillon poll numbers seem to stabilise.Could be enough to get Macron into the runoff?
French elections: centrist Bayrou offers alliance with Macron
French elections: centrist Bayrou offers alliance with Macron
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
But nobodies said anything about not opposing them. The point under discussion is whether a vote for Macron, or the fuck Fillon (or even Hamon), actually is opposing them.
Raheem
Well-Known Member
Surely casting a vote that makes them less likely to take the presidency is unhelpful to them, and therefore a means of opposing them. If it were somehow counterintuitively helpful to them, then that would by implication make voting for them a valid way of opposing them, which obviously can't be right.
The only real question is whether voting for Macron or Fillon is, on balance, a price worth paying.
What does this even mean?
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I don't believe that not taking the Presidency, which I suspect they are very aware they are unlikely to do, is that unhelpful to the FN.
Their coming out stronger because, Sue put it,
As I've already outlined on this thread I believe the focus on 'stopping X getting elected (by voting for these shits)' is actually helpful to the hard-right and is one if the reasons they are gaining strength. Such a focus on the official electoral outcomes all too often ignores the growing political strength.
Your second sentence is just a muddle, advancing a position that no one has suggested.
If you write incomprehensible sentences, it's not surprising that people don't understand what you're on about.
If you do want people to understand (and it seems a bit pointless posting otherwise), less tortuous sentences are a good idea.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Well I've not lived in France so could be wrong but I'd certainly predict that the corruption allegations will/have hurt Fillon much more than they hurt her.
hot air baboon
Well-Known Member
somebody interviewed on the radio the other day talked about having to vote back in appalling establishment hacks to oppose something worse as a Hobbesian Choice...I'm not sure if it was a malapropism or an inspired bit of word-play ( or possibly both )
She's playing it as 'the political establishment's out to get me/us' and I suspect that will work reasonably well. This has all been going on for some time after all and she's still polling well.
Also think her vote's more solid and likely to get out and vote than Macron's, for example.
Fillon's been hit specially hard because he was playing the honourable gentleman card.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
And I disagree with you here, I think. If it comes down to it, and Le Pen makes it to the second round, as looks very likely, a vote for whoever is also there, even Fillon, is opposing the FN on that particular day.
To repeat myself again, such a situation represents a defeat for the left. That defeat has already happened. If all that is left is to keep a fascist out of power by whatever means necessary, then I say that you put that clothes peg on your nose and you do it. (Literally. I would literally do that, and I would hope that millions of others would do so too.) But you don't let whichever fuck you end up voting for forget that clothes peg - that is also important. Chirac was morally undermined by the most enormous victory he ever had in his political career. A vote to keep out le Pen is not the end of anything. It's simply the end of a particularly inglorious day.
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Also I have to say that the idea that a weak fascist president is preferable in some ways to a neoliberal alternative for tactical reasons is repugnant to me. If people think like that, I think they've lost it. I cannot sign up to any political position that thinks that way.
Raheem
Well-Known Member
No, it isn't a muddle and, although the position outlined has not been expressly advanced by anyone, I'm saying it's an inescapable logical implication of yours.
Keep in mind that, in the second round, there are only two candidates and two possible outcomes. I can imagine people having cogent reasons for abstaining, but yours seems a little odd. You're basically saying that voting against the FN in this circumstance actually helps them, that defeat is victory, in some unspecified way. I don't see any basis for that, but if I pretend to, then I can't see why it wouldn't be logical to take things a step further and actually vote for them, in order to deny them the second place that would supposedly bolster their position. Unless that's something you would actually recommend, then it seems to me that your position, as stated, is not coherent.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I utterly reject that way of thinking tbh. The idea that not winning this year isn't so bad for the FN is utterly mad. This could be their only realistic chance of ever winning. Who knows what will happen in the next five years? That's a future for us all to work out. Nothing is predetermined. In five years' time, the FN could be a busted flush. If Le Pen wins this year, they absolutely fucking won't be.
People like me saying 'vote anyone but the fascists' are accused of compromise and selling the left short, but I see the above attitude as unbelievably defeatist - the idea that the FN will only grow from this, that its appeal will only widen. That's the defeatist position.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Yeah 'after XYZ, us!' never works out well tbh, but I don't think redsquirrel was doing that.
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frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
I think it's more a case of arguing that Fillon and the like are the same type of people that created the conditions that led to Le Pen and so on getting so successful. Tbh if I lived there I would probably vote against Le Pen tbh as the 'lesser of two evils' but in the long term that's not great towards building an alternative in terms of electoral politics let alone anything else. I don't think people who vote against Le pen purely to stop the fash getting in are wrong though (and tbh I'd do it if I was there!) as long as they acknowledge that's not a long term solution
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Exactly. but that's all I've ever been saying on this thread and mostly all I've seen anyone saying. It's no solution to anything at all except keeping out a fascist.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Same. Again, on this thread, that's all I've ever said. (sorry for the self-justification stuff)
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
My understanding:
"Let them win and fuck it all up this time rather than gaining power so that they can do it next time properly."
As in, they themselves are planning for a proper assault next time in 2022, which may very well be true, but so what? For me, there is no way in which an FN defeat this time is not better than any kind of FN win this year.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
If that's what he said then I disagree with him (cos I don't necessarily think they would 'fuck it up') but I haven't been reading the thread tbh so I haven't really read his posts. I don't really have time to at the moment,
I do kinda sympathise with the view that Fillon or someone would just be 'kicking the can down the road' but like nobody has any idea what will happen in 2022 let alone in December or next Thursday.
I do kinda sympathise with the view that Fillon or someone would just be 'kicking the can down the road' but like nobody has any idea what will happen in 2022 let alone in December or next Thursday.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
i also think that by her getting in and fucking things up, it might pave the way for someone worse than she is or a party that's worse than the FN. because her not being able to carry out some of her policies could be put down by her selling out to the establishment or whatever or be put down to her giving in to their agenda and 'here's someone who won't give in to their agenda'. although i think that's more likely in america than france tbf, where donald trump seems to be a uniquely incompetent politician, and some of the stuff that's happened before and since the election in terms of the people he's surrounded himself with and the people that he's ended up cultivating, leads me to think that his failure could very well pave the way for a real fascist.
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