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 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I'll admit that statement was an out of touch and idiotic statement. Politicians are full of those types of statements though.

The normal ones aren't though, only the racists like Trump, Le Pen, Wilders and the AfD. To say that this is normal for politicians is disingenuous.

Yeah but i feel every politician has made an out of touch statement at least once. I will admit i stayed out of the election this year because i didn't like the choices.

Sure every politician makes out of touch statements. But this is not out of touch, this is plain over the line, that's the difference. And with her family and party history its hard not to wonder what other opinions she keeps to herself.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I'll admit that statement was an out of touch and idiotic statement. Politicians are full of those types of statements though.

The normal ones aren't though, only the racists like Trump, Le Pen, Wilders and the AfD. To say that this is normal for politicians is disingenuous.

Yeah but i feel every politician has made an out of touch statement at least once. I will admit i stayed out of the election this year because i didn't like the choices.

Sure every politician makes out of touch statements. But this is not out of touch, this is plain over the line, that's the difference. And with her family and party history its hard not to wonder what other opinions she keeps to herself.

Well that's fair. However perhaps some people were willing to look passed some of this and into other of her more positive policies. Many will tell you they supported trump anti-establishment policies, getting jobs and to an extent some of the muslim ones. Personally there are things he wants i wouldn't support. As i said though i didn't vote.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Well that's fair. However perhaps some people were willing to look passed some of this and into other of her more positive policies. Many will tell you they supported trump anti-establishment policies, getting jobs and to an extent some of the muslim ones. Personally there are things he wants i wouldn't support. As i said though i didn't vote.

Problem is though, Le Pen's policies are completely unrealistic and would only appeal to the very desperate, delusional or the 'burn it down' crowd. Her 'solutions' would have made the economic problems even worse as France is in no way able to close itself off to the outside market or the EU without experiencing economic collapse. The view on Muslims is just racist, its the idea populists give that radical Islam is very scary and dangerous and therefore Muslims are too. It might be very scary, but in amount of casualties it makes in the West it certainly ranks very low on the dangerous list, more people drown in their bathtubs each year on average in Europe than die to terrorism (no joke!). Le Pen and her politics only make the Muslim-non Muslim divide wider and that will exacerbate the radical Islam problem, which is of course exactly what she wants to get more votes. The right and radical Islam feed of each other in a weird symbiotic relationship. Le Pen is very much part of the political establishment as they have three generations in politics.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I'll admit that statement was an out of touch and idiotic statement. Politicians are full of those types of statements though.

That's a pretty classic example of trying to deflect a political reality that you don't want to own up to. By your argument no-one ever needs to be accountable for anything, ever, because someone somewhere else also said something bad.


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Well that's fair. However perhaps some people were willing to look passed some of this and into other of her more positive policies. Many will tell you they supported trump anti-establishment policies, getting jobs and to an extent some of the muslim ones. Personally there are things he wants i wouldn't support. As i said though i didn't vote.

But there's a bigger thing at play here. Outside of the racism most of the stuff promised by Le Pen and Trump was pretty obviously empty promises. Both of them gave a lot of promises that were even more obvious bs than you get on average, but that's really besides the point. The real issue at play here is that a lot of people believed Trump and Le Pen where they didn't believe promises from other politicians. The question is why, and affinity probably is a big part of the answer.

Affinity is just thinking someone else is like you. Affinity fraud is the technique of making someone think you are like them, and so they are more willing to fall for your con. Do this well enough and you can even get people defending you after you've completed the con and made off with the money.

And that's where the racism comes in. By saying racist stuff (or in Le Pen's case, stuff that isn't explicitly, plainly racist but only makes sense or is believable when you have racist beliefs), both Trump and Le Pen showed affinity with a lot of voters who hold similar beliefs. That primed those voters to go along with all the other stuff. This doesn't even have to be a conscious process, in fact it works better when it isn't.

Consider, for instance, how much of a big deal people made about Trump breaking with Republican orthodoxy. On foreign policy he said the US shouldn't involve itself in messes like Syria. On social services he said he wasn't going to touch medicaid. He's since broken both of those claims about as obviously as any politician is ever going to to brake a promise. Despite this just 3% of Trump voters say they regret their vote. Once you con them in to believing you're just like they are, then they'll believe all your bs, even after you've shown it was nothing but bs. Meanwhile, look at the promise Trump is doing everything he can to keep - that stupid wall and the idea that Mexico will pay for it. That idea, the won that starts with overt hostility to Mexicans, and then adds in a promise of humiliating Mexico, that's the core thing on which almost all the rest of the bs hangs.

Le Pen, like Trump, hasn't somehow managed to sell people on some populist promises, and also happens to be racist. The racism is key to making people believe the populist promises.

 sebster wrote:

But there's a bigger thing at play here. Outside of the racism most of the stuff promised by Le Pen and Trump was pretty obviously empty promises. Both of them gave a lot of promises that were even more obvious bs than you get on average, but that's really besides the point. The real issue at play here is that a lot of people believed Trump and Le Pen where they didn't believe promises from other politicians. The question is why, and affinity probably is a big part of the answer..

A simpler explantation would be that the populist promise them SOMETHING, in contrast to the radical centrist that pretty much tell them to feth off. It might be empty and stupid promises the populists give, but they at the least offer a solution to these people problems, which is more then the radical centrist offer them.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 sebster wrote:

But there's a bigger thing at play here. Outside of the racism most of the stuff promised by Le Pen and Trump was pretty obviously empty promises. Both of them gave a lot of promises that were even more obvious bs than you get on average, but that's really besides the point. The real issue at play here is that a lot of people believed Trump and Le Pen where they didn't believe promises from other politicians. The question is why, and affinity probably is a big part of the answer..

A simpler explantation would be that the populist promise them SOMETHING, in contrast to the radical centrist that pretty much tell them to feth off. It might be empty and stupid promises the populists give, but they at the least offer a solution to these people problems, which is more then the radical centrist offer them.

"Radical centrist"? Wha...? How the...? Huh?

I think you're going to have to explain how one can be a radical centrist.

Shades and a loudly coloured hat?

 sebster wrote:
You are assuming there is a total disconnect between the populations, that issues in Saudi, Iranian or whatever ME society have no impact on ex-pat communities.

I am not sure what you mean. If you mean that immigrants from Iran would be influenced by Iranian society still after leaving Iran, I'll just tell you to have a good look at Iranian immigrants and how they fare in western society, and you'll see a lot of usually secular and usually thriving people, and you would be very hard pressed to see any of them committing a terror attack. If you mean that the Iranian government is trying to influence western muslims to make terror attacks, there isn't much truth to it either, they are content of merely funding terrorist groups with actual political power, inside the middle east, as a way to extend their sphere of influence.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 sebster wrote:

But there's a bigger thing at play here. Outside of the racism most of the stuff promised by Le Pen and Trump was pretty obviously empty promises. Both of them gave a lot of promises that were even more obvious bs than you get on average, but that's really besides the point. The real issue at play here is that a lot of people believed Trump and Le Pen where they didn't believe promises from other politicians. The question is why, and affinity probably is a big part of the answer..

A simpler explantation would be that the populist promise them SOMETHING, in contrast to the radical centrist that pretty much tell them to feth off. It might be empty and stupid promises the populists give, but they at the least offer a solution to these people problems, which is more then the radical centrist offer them.

"Radical centrist"? Wha...? How the...? Huh?

I think you're going to have to explain how one can be a radical centrist.

Wikipedia has some on it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism

In practical terms you could call them the neoliberal status-quo parties in the west, who all have the same essential stances regardless if they call themselves left- or rightwing.

Is the French system automated or something? They had announced Macron had won like two hours after the polls closed and he was already in a car on his way to the palace or a bistro or something. Thats fast.

 Frazzled wrote:
Is the French system automated or something?

No. It's just that even counting just the first ballots, while not completely accurate to show the exact final percentage of vote for each candidate, made it real clear that Macron had won by a huge margin.

It was listed as presumed rather than confirmed. It's ok to call by eye if the piles of ballot papers are notably of different size in most counting areas, and Macron's vote pile was twice that of Le Pen.

Thanks!

Wow, a win by a tremendous margin. I wonder what this means in terms of policy. It certainly seems to shut down some of the more radical argument.

The polling is very interesting, given that the margins were blown, yet it is a non-story whereas Brexit and Trump, well within expectations, were all about how polls "failed".

 jmurph wrote:
Wow, a win by a tremendous margin. I wonder what this means in terms of policy. It certainly seems to shut down some of the more radical argument.

The polling is very interesting, given that the margins were blown, yet it is a non-story whereas Brexit and Trump, well within expectations, were all about how polls "failed".

The win does not shut down the arguments. Macron cannot ignore the fact that so many people voted for Le Pen, and a large number of people abstained or spoiled their ballot. If he is to bring the country back together, he must find some way of satisfying these peoples' needs and concerns.

By which I mean if he does not want to pull France out of the EU, he must push for some kind of reforms of the EU that allay the worry about lack of accountability, and so on.

There is also the important consideration that the En Marche party is only a year old and doesn't hold a single seat in parliament.

He won in a landslide...

A freak'n mandate dude. Seems to me, that "more of the same" got a huge affirmation.

Yeah, Le Pen got a "lot" of votes, but Macron got double that, despite being in a brand new party.

Hopefully the Macron government can do something about that dismal unemployment rate.

 whembly wrote:
He won in a landslide...

A freak'n mandate dude. Seems to me, that "more of the same" got a huge affirmation.

Yeah, Le Pen got a "lot" of votes, but Macron got double that, despite being in a brand new party.

It's definitely a mandate for change, but seemingly reasonable change, instead of the usual "change everything and whine when it all breaks" of normal populism.

People saying it's a huge victory for Macron should wait for the legislatives. A lot of people voted "against" Le Pen, rather than voting "for" Macron.

You shouldn't forget Macron got "just" a fourth of the votes in the first turn. That's not really a plebiscite.

The real question now is; will he get the majority so that his mandate will work? Because for parlament, it's not just to know who will be the president.

One thing is sure; people will be in the street. Macron isn't a "no left nor right". He's clearly leaning on the right. People from "the Left" don't want him as a president. They won't let him do as he pleases.

 Sarouan wrote:
People saying it's a huge victory for Macron should wait for the legislatives. A lot of people voted "against" Le Pen, rather than voting "for" Macron.

You shouldn't forget Macron got "just" a fourth of the votes in the first turn. That's not really a plebiscite.

The real question now is; will he get the majority so that his mandate will work? Because for parlament, it's not just to know who will be the president.

One thing is sure; people will be in the street. Macron isn't a "no left nor right". He's clearly leaning on the right. People from "the Left" don't want him as a president. They won't let him do as he pleases.

this is largely my estimation. Macron won an "anti Le Pen" vote, not a "Pro Macron" vote. That's only going to play for so long before Le Pen's immediate relevancy fades, and Macron's core support is nowhere near as wide as it would appear given this latest vote.

Lets hope he can use what he was lucky enough to fall into wisely, otherwise he's in for a rough time.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Macron won an "anti Le Pen" vote, not a "Pro Macron" vote. That's only going to play for so long before Le Pen's immediate relevancy fades, and Macron's core support is nowhere near as wide as it would appear given this latest vote.

A thing to know : for the young people who voted Left, Le Pen isn't really that terrible as a lot of traditonnal media were painting her. Because for them, it was really choosing between two Evils, two Rights - in fact, some see Macron as a "sane Trump", since both are business men and clearly see things from an employers perspective. This time, it worked - some chose to vote "against Le Pen" and voted Macron, others were just voting nul or didn't vote. Next time...I'm not sure the same trick will.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Fascist...that word is thrown around so much these days it's losing all meaning. And so many who are quick to use it are also quick to physically attack the people who they don't agree with. How ironic.

Political violence has never been exclusive to fascism. I mean, even anarchism has done so. And anarchism is basically the polar opposite of fascism. Or do you consider anarchism to be the same as fascism ^^?
Anyway I'm pretty glad that some people are unwilling to stay silent and inactive when others preach genocide…

Yes but be sure they preach it rather than a slighter form of xenophobia. I say this as a technically jewish person (jewish mom makes you jewish). I think people are exaggerating the extremism on most of the sides. Also to my knowledge the Jews didn't attack anybody before they were discriminated against. Maybe i just don't know the full history but what sort of jewish terrorist attacks could there have been before WWII?

Far as muslims here i don't think i'd mind them but i'm not sure about ones coming from other countries. As i've said myself i imagine people coming from other countries grew up in that culture. Even if they didn't entirely fit there's probably something they're used to that they won't be here. There may very well be mostly good ones coming but to deny the threat from the terrorists would be a great folly. I mean i don't think we can forget the massive terrorist attacks. At least some form of strictly regulated immigration, background checks and observation into the people coming from lands which produce terrorists would be a good idea.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Ahah my smug sense of superiority toward the USA is once again vindicated! Take that Trumpites .

I almost wonder if that was why Macron won. The french were like well we could elect Le Pen but then we couldn't be smug french citizens so let's vote macron to rub it in the faces of the UK and USA. France snobby and smug as ever ;P. Hon hon hon *snobby french laughter*. That's me teasing btw.

 ulgurstasta wrote:
A simpler explantation would be that the populist promise them SOMETHING, in contrast to the radical centrist that pretty much tell them to feth off. It might be empty and stupid promises the populists give, but they at the least offer a solution to these people problems, which is more then the radical centrist offer them.

That makes no sense. Hearing one set of promises and being unimpressed doesn't make a person more willing to believe the con artist who comes along afterward. If you see a street vendor selling a chocolates, but then see the price is twice what you'd want to pay, you don't then get all excited when you see a van labelled 'free candy' and just jump right in.

No, there has to be a reason for people to suspend disbelief when someone makes wild, implausible promises. Maybe it isn't that they've already bought in to that candidate because of her racism, maybe it's something else. But it sure as gak isn't because they don't like some other candidate's promises.


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I am not sure what you mean. If you mean that immigrants from Iran would be influenced by Iranian society still after leaving Iran, I'll just tell you to have a good look at Iranian immigrants and how they fare in western society, and you'll see a lot of usually secular and usually thriving people, and you would be very hard pressed to see any of them committing a terror attack. If you mean that the Iranian government is trying to influence western muslims to make terror attacks, there isn't much truth to it either, they are content of merely funding terrorist groups with actual political power, inside the middle east, as a way to extend their sphere of influence.

No, I don't mean the Iranian government influencing people to make terror attacks. That's a pretty strange interpretation of my post, to be honest.

Yes, I did mean immigrants continuing to be influenced by conditions back home. Thing is, your claim that such people are unlikely to commit a terror attack isn't correct. And not necessarily immigrants themselves, but often their kids. Quite a lot of the foreign fighters heading off to join ISIS are kids from middle class families. Some aren't second or third gen immigrants, aren't even Muslim, but a large majority are.

What I'm saying, basically, is that while the violence in Islam is pretty clearly caused by political and social issues in particular Muslim nations, it isn't as simple as just taking some people out of those countries and watching them, and their children and all subsequent generations just naturally, automatically naturalise.


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 whembly wrote:
He won in a landslide...

A freak'n mandate dude. Seems to me, that "more of the same" got a huge affirmation.

Yeah, Le Pen got a "lot" of votes, but Macron got double that, despite being in a brand new party.

Yep. It says something about the panic among the mainstream that their guy can win by 35 points and people are still freaking out.


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 Sarouan wrote:
People saying it's a huge victory for Macron should wait for the legislatives.

It was a huge victory. 35 points is massive in any election. Sure, Macron beat an historically weak candidate, but the margin still remains as it was.

A lot of people voted "against" Le Pen, rather than voting "for" Macron.

You shouldn't forget Macron got "just" a fourth of the votes in the first turn. That's not really a plebiscite.

Mandates are a nonsense. The winner always claims one, the loser always denies it. But I do agree with your overall point that Macron can hardly claim his vision is the clear will of the people. He's going to have to start working the political scene to build a coalition very quickly, and it will be harder than usual because his own party is tiny.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Also to my knowledge the Jews didn't attack anybody before they were discriminated against. Maybe i just don't know the full history but what sort of jewish terrorist attacks could there have been before WWII?

I failed to understand how you went there .
And no, the Jews didn't do anything.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
At least some form of strictly regulated immigration, background checks and observation into the people coming from lands which produce terrorists would be a good idea.

Background checks have always been here and make sense.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I almost wonder if that was why Macron won. The french were like well we could elect Le Pen but then we couldn't be smug french citizens so let's vote macron to rub it in the faces of the UK and USA. France snobby and smug as ever ;P. Hon hon hon *snobby french laughter*. That's me teasing btw.

Us French people, acknowledging that what other strange people from barbarous land think matters? Let alone change our behavior because of it? Oh come on, that's science-fiction .

 sebster wrote:
Thing is, your claim that such people are unlikely to commit a terror attack isn't correct. And not necessarily immigrants themselves, but often their kids.

Iranians immigrants are unlikely to commit a terror attack. Arguably Saudi, Pakistani, Afghani are, but for a combination of cultural and political reasons Iranians are not.

 sebster wrote:
What I'm saying, basically, is that while the violence in Islam is pretty clearly caused by political and social issues in particular Muslim nations, it isn't as simple as just taking some people out of those countries and watching them, and their children and all subsequent generations just naturally, automatically naturalise.

While I generally agree with your point I think Iran was a pretty poor choice of an example to illustrate it.

Congrats France on your ability to keep your sense of smug French superiority over us silly Americans.

.. seems a bit weird that the French president speaks English both more correctly and coherently than the current POTUS

 sebster wrote:


It was a huge victory. 35 points is massive in any election. Sure, Macron beat an historically weak candidate, but the margin still remains as it was.

It's not massive when you know how France's presidential election works. Second turn is basically a duel between the two first, but what you should take into accounts are actually the voting polls in the first turn.

We know Macron got about 25% of the votes, while knowing there were people who got into the "scare train" with the spooky possibility of having Fillon vs Le Pen, a lot of people decided to "not waste their vote", by voting for the candidate who seemed to have the best chances not to lose in front of Le Pen while not having a Full Right result. Fillon's program wasn't that far from Le Pen's, actually.

25% in the first turn, in these conditions, it's not that huge. Second turn was basically giving a false choice to the voters - and the media played their part by making sure to see the worst of the two was Le Pen. There was absolutely nothing about the debate of the actual programs of both candidates - it was more personnal attacks and spreading rumors about the other candidate. Second turn was actually a struggle to motivate voters to go and vote "against Le Pen", but like I said a lot of Left people really don't like what Macron said he would do. Eventually, a part of them voted for him - you should also note the high numbers of nul vote and abstention. Actual supporters of Macron weren't 65%. It's was no more no less than being sure Front National won't be on presidence this year.

Does it sound familiar? Yes, yes it does.

35 points in any election isn't massive. You have to see the context and where the numbers were taken from. When you see at the "Big Picture" about what actually happened to have this result, you understand it's not that big a victory. It's more about the Elite reassuring themselves about blocking the path to the Front National, this time again. But it's really gaining time, and nothing else. If Macron shows he's as empty as he sounded during the election, then you can be sure everything will start again - with people learning and not being tricked with the same song.

Front National is gaining some ground bit by bit. This time, it was still too soon. Meanwhile, the "Insoumis" are still doing their quiet work underground. A lot of liberal-right leaning elites may have a harsh surprise in a not so far future.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The view on Muslims is just racist

Since when is Islam a race?

In any event, best of luck to France with their new President. And don't forget, Sunday is Mother's Day.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The view on Muslims is just racist

Since when is Islam a race?

Nice deflection, she has also said some horribly racist things about migrants. The correct term, Islamophobia, doesn't begin to describe the vileness of her statements which is why I use the much more powerful term of racist. Do you have anything to say about her comparing French Muslims praying to genocidal Nazi occupation or did you just want to pick words?

It is funny because this time the woman is older than the man! TEEHEE!