Jonathan Haidt He argues that democracies stick together and function best when they have a dense social fabric, strong institutions, and shared narratives. When these elements fail or weaken, democracies also weaken, and this explains some of the problems we have in Spain (I think it is a mistake to delegate education to autonomous communities), but beans are not just cooked here. Donald Trump won in the USA 70 million votes and Joe Biden’s 77 million because he knew how to attract people with a simple but false message who saw a goodness and a way of life that they believed was gone forever. This creates uncertainty, restlessness and suffering, which is so easily manipulated by populist leaders to bring water to their mills. identity and xenophobic advertisements. The same thing happened with Brexit when the majority of Britons chose to be the head of the mouse despite being part of the head of the European lion they decided to move away from. And now it’s France’s turn.
The first round of the presidential election came as no surprise (apart from a higher-than-expected 26.3% abstention) and current president Emmanuel Macron, France’s leader on the Move (27.9% of the vote) and Marine National Rally’s Le Pen (23.1%). large traditional parties, socialists and republicansthey practically disappeared because they didn’t get 7% of the vote between the two and the election results were very bad. communists (2.3%) and verdes (4.5%). Only Jean Luc Mélenchon, leader of France Insumissa (22%), who was close to the left-wing populist assumptions that United We Can could defend in Spain, survived the fire. The ultra-nationalist and xenophobic Eric Zemmour (Reconquest, 7.1%) also got a good result, getting a few votes from Le Pen in exchange for softening the image of radicalism that might have been in his favor in the runoff. The serious thing is that a third of the votes went to the far right and more than half chose anti-establishment candidates. if we add abstention In the traditional parties that have formed the backbone of France in recent years, it has been revealed that 2/3 of the French today do not know themselves. This is a very profound change.
Now the struggle is between the right and the left, not as if it has been overcome, but between the center right and the extreme right, and Macron and Le Pen are fighting for the votes that go to the parties that were eliminated in the primary elections. Some leaders like hidalgo (socialist), grape molasses (Republicans) and jadot (green) Macron, who seems to have started with a certain advantage, has been promised, but I think in France they also know that everything is bull, down to the tail. Mélenchon sufficed to say that there was no vote for Le Pen, but that he did not come to ask for it for Macron, and also something is what the leaders recommend and what their followers vote for in the end. April 24, Again, abstention will be high because both candidates are provoking rejection by large sections of the population: Macron among peasants and workers, victims of inflation and loss of purchasing power.yellow vests) and in short, deindustrialization, while the far-right Le Pen is scary in the more educated sectors. led his most radical proposals Surround yourself with cats to present a friendly and welcoming display.
France loses in this polarization between cosmopolitanism and traditionalism, between Europe and nationalism, openness and xenophobia, moderates and radicals, candidates for continuity and anti-system. And Europe is losing, too, because neither Le Pen’s nationalist right nor Mélenchon’s populist left are pro-European or Atlanticist, both demanding that France leave the NATO military structure and flirt with Putin’s invading Russia. A consensus change is no longer possible in France on the essential elements of its own identity and its role in Europe. Seems like a bitter prophecy Houellebecq and that should worry us because it’s the same thing that will happen to us if Vox and United We Can manage to ‘skip’ PP and PSOE as they please. Cross our fingers.