MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Why My Father Votes Le Pen
By Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 8:42am |I found this relevant and moving.
URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/opinion/sunday/why-my-father-votes-for-marine-le-pen.html?ref=opinion
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Comments
Thanks Michael. I'm glad you flagged this as I probably would have missed it otherwise. Very relevant and moving indeed:
by HSG on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 9:11am
There is no message or policy that can win over those enthralled with the demagoguery of ethnocentric nationalism and hate. Where tales of epic racial/religious greatness are told, and the noble herrenvolk are portrayed as either blameless victims or heroic exemplars.
by NCD on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 1:10pm
I find Chris Arnade's twitter feed, photo essays and articles enlightening on the phenomenon of Obama districts that flipped to Trump. And I find Zadie Smith's Brexit Diary a useful perspective on the groundswell of support for the Leave vote.
Macron will likely win, and then will likely be a failure like his mentor Hollande. And somehow at the next French election, we will expect the French to vote again for the next loser faineant ex-banker à la Macron to defeat fascism. Not sure how many more rounds of faux Saving Civilization we can sustain.
by Obey on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 1:52pm
An article by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis suggests that Macron may be something better than merely less evil than LePen. Varoufakis points out that Macron was one of the only high-level Hollande officials who urged him, vainly it turned out, to vote to relax the draconian terms the EU imposed on Greece in return for bailing it out. Let's hope Varoufakis is right. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/left-must-support-macron-by...
by HSG on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 4:06pm
Yes I read that last week and thought I had put up the link in the news section. Encouraging sign. His economic policies look very pc and harmless. It's all Clintonian "investment and training and retraining" without the welfare reform. But imho France needs major labor market reforms, and he seems uninclined to rock the boat.
by Obey on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 4:58pm
What kind of reforms?
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 5:15pm
There is a lot of talk of following the scandinavian flexicurity model, and a lot of increased security measures - increased benefits and training programs, but precious little in terms of flexibility, allowing employers to lay off employees, etc. Without which they'll never improve the unemployment situation. Maybe I've been missing the relevant policies...?
by Obey on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 5:52pm
These reforms would benefit France in the long run, but I doubt they would make Macron more popular. Easing termination restrictions would create more opportunities for young workers, but it would layoff more people like Édouard Louis's father.
This touches the heart of my fears about a Sanders revolution in the U.S. One can make a strong case that American neoliberalism has ignored the working class. But France? It's more progressive than the US could dream of becoming, yet workers still feel ignored. Louis claims that the Socialists' rhetoric has changed, and maybe it has, but its agenda hasn't. As you say, the rigidity of its policies are part of the problem. Even in other European countries with more flexible economies, the left stumbles, as the right wing surges. So if these models of progressive government are struggling against the nationalist tide, why do we think that emulating them will help us fight it at home.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 05/07/2017 - 10:40pm
Excellent point.
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 1:38am
A couple of points.
Notice that young people voted more for le Pen than for Macron. Older people were more anti-fascist. In France it is the young who are disaffected and desperate, demanding some, any, action that might do something about the stubbornly high unemployment rate. I think at this point there is an opening, even in France, for some kind of deal where the welfare state is strengthened while termination restrictions are loosened. Would that be a progressive move or a neo-liberal move? Well, it's neither and both. It's just a pragmatic solution to a peculiarly French problem. The center-right dominates in Germany because their economy is flourishing thanks to ECB policy that favors them and disregards the rest of the EU. But I don't see a general trend - and hence any general lesson to be drawn about right and leftward directions for policy. Especially as regards the US political scene where the starting point for health care debate is "But don't you want your Doctor to have a Ferrari?"
As regards this particular French problem, flexicurity is all the rage in Brussels these days. It's based on the undeniable success of the Danish model which I have seen up close. Although I would say that the success of the Danish model comes down to much more than just labor market reforms. It has more to do with a more progressive corporate culture, where ostensibly private companies have a much broader social sense of relevant stakeholders than just maximizing their value for shareholders. It is something that an Enarch like Macron is well placed to understand and to start implementing if he so cares. I have no idea where he stands on that.
Generally I don't think that progressives should get hung up on trying to get back to old policies from the seventies, or see everything in terms of running more programs through the government or higher taxes. There are lots of pro-market reforms the left could champion - Obamacare being one such (flawed) instance. Another being anti-trust legal efforts. A third could be - as Peracles has mentioned in passing - improving corporate governance. A fourth - removing implicit subsidies to Wall Street. There is nothing intrinsically left-wing about these policies, apart from the fact that they upset rich people who are used to not having to work for their money.
Anyway, end of rant. I just think there is an excessively blinkered view of what counts as progressive. If it improves the general welfare, it's progressive in my book.
by Obey on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 5:48am
Thanks for the detailed response. I used "progressive" as shorthand, but what I really meant was focusing on the working class. Louis's criticism of the French center-left parallels criticism of the American center-left by Sanders and the British center-left by Corbyn, in a nutshell, that government is ignoring the working class. (This is also, not coincidentally, the message of the populist right from Farage to Trump to Le Pen.)
But Sanders' and Corbyn's solution to is make to their respective countries more like France--where the workers also apparently feel ignored. And it's not just France. The Netherlands, Spain, Austria, and even model flexicurity democracies like Denmark and Sweden are seeing a rise in anti-establishment, nativist ferment. I expect that Louis's father has counterparts in every Western industrialized nation.
I certainly agree that smart, pragmatic, progressive policies can benefit workers on both sides of the pond, but will those policies be recognized as pro-working-class? If Macron pushes the reforms you recommend and that French workers need, I predict that he will face massive labor strikes and accusations of privileged elitism from both ends of the political spectrum.
In short, I worry that policies that improve the general welfare, as you put it, may help a bit with our economic problems, but they won't solve our political problems.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 11:08am
Thanks for the response, Mike. I'm spending next weekend with a couple of journalists from L'Humanité and le Monde Diplomatique (i.e. far left and really far left-wing). So I'll know more about what the atmosphere is like on the French left. Up until now all our messages have been focused on the terrifying prospect of a Macron loss. I'll report back if anything interesting comes out of it.
Again, not a fan of these boxes - Corbyn doesn't want to make the UK "more like France". For one thing he does not want to privatize health insurance as far as I know. He doesn't want to reform labor contracts to make dismissals all but impossible. He does want to make university tuition free perhaps and wants to raise the minimum wage marginally more than the Tories. But just because he has the same enemies as Melenchon, that doesn't mean that his policy proposals map nicely onto anything they have in France.
On Macron, I'm also encouraged by Varoufakis' anecdote about his head-on attack against the ECB tight money policy. He lost the battle, but he seems to be on the right side of that debate imho. A lot of the problems with the rise of a racist right-wing have to do with the ECB impoverishing southern Europe leading to a flood of low-wage economic refugees coming north.
Finally, before we crap all over France's economy, they still do have a higher prime-age employment rate than the US. So criticisms and calls for reforms can be exaggerated too.
https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment-rate-by-age-group.htm
by Obey on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 11:35am
OK, I think my clumsy analogies are muddling my point. What I'm trying to get at is a shared political malaise that seems to have infected democracies across the industrial world. One of the most common criticisms, echoed in this op-ed, is that center-left leaders have lost touch with workers and no longer represent their interests. If this charge is accurate, the logical course for the left is to pursue more worker-centric policies.
But I wonder whether that will actually cure the malaise. I base this concern on the sheer diversity of nations suffering from the malaise--from free market stalwarts like the US to heavily-regulated economies like France to flexicurity exemplars like Denmark. The fact that they are so dissimilar is the point. If all these models are infected, what makes us think that policy movement in one direction or the other will offer a cure?
In any case, I look forward to hearing what you learn from the French journalists. We can continue the conversation then if you prefer.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 12:15pm
I'll put the question to my commie friends over a few Gauloises and Pastis.
by Obey on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 12:43pm
Vive la révolution
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 1:47pm
Perhaps one reason that the neo-fascist just lost badly in France to the neo-liberal while the US saw an opposite result in November is that despite some holes the French safety net remains, as you point out, much stronger. In addition, although unemployment is higher in France, employed workers there still have many more protections and a relatively better standard of living than their American counterparts. To the extent there is a connection between a more economically just France and her unwillingness to entrust power to LePen, the progressive argument that reducing wealth and income inequality and protecting workers will reduce political strife is strengthened.
by HSG on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 9:38am
I would suggest
1) she's been around a lot longer and still carries the stench of her father no matter how many smilies she puts on her platform
2) The French hate Trump and have no intention of following down our path. Ditto Brexit.
3) Macron still offers some possibility of hope
4) I'd guess fighting against real terror creates more sympathy for Macron than a panic attack like the US self-induces.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 10:07am
A variant of (2). Don't underestimate the value, to the French, of feeling superior to Americans.
by Obey on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:13pm
Yez what Obey said. Not kidding.
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:18pm
Bien sur, je le connais assez bien, surtout a Paris, mais dans les autres endroits aussi. Mais ca me plait, s'ils trouvent n'importe pas quelle raison pour embrasser le sanite. Le plus important pour moi c'est seulement le continuite du EU, meillerursurs sans frontieres dures, pas ces petites querelles et rivalites stereotypiques, soit sa version de "Freedom Fries" ou autre trivialite. Enfin, la France sera toujours differente, tout le monde le sait, surtout ses voisins, l'original pays exceptionel. Mepris, orgueil et arrogance sont sa reputation, mais aussi la culture forte qui lutte contre sa etat courante diminuee au-dela les memes problemes quoitiden que facent les autres. Mais un point ou deux contre les Americains de temps en temps, c'est pas mal, hein? Il me semble juste du moins.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 1:36pm
I don't see that at all. I see a neo-liberal winning with votes from those that think socialism has hurt opportunity in their country combined with votes of those who like socialism but voted for the neo-liberal while holding their nose so that the fascist wouldn't be elected.
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 11:15am
Let's not get distracted by the outcome of particular elections, which are determined by many variables. Whether or not Trump and Le Pen crossed the necessary vote threshold to win, they both did astonishingly well, and they both appealed to the same kind of voter using the same kind of rhetoric. Nationalism is rising and liberal/labor parties are waning in almost all western democracies--even those with robust regulation and strong safety nets. So why are you confident that creating better regulation and building a stronger safety net will stem the tide in the U.S.?
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 11:46am
If white nationalism is rising despite Liberal efforts to help those impacted by automation, why are minority groups criticized for looking out for their own interests labeled as outliers ("identity politics"). Aren't minority voters, including LGBT groups the last hope for Liberal democracy in the United States? Whites who are suffering want to blame immigrants, minorities, and homosexuals. I see no way to attract them back to the Democratic Party.
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:00pm
You really don't get the tiresomeness and counterproductive nature of earnest political correctness? Even though hip liberals themselves joined in ridiculing it a long time ago?
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:54pm
You attack me for pointing out a problem. If white nationalism is a core issue, and the response of the Democratic Party is to attract white nationalists, what does that mean for minority groups. Democrats fought for healthcare, saved the auto industry, and made efforts to focus on science and education. Democratic policies looked to the future. Trump is attempting to destroy healthcare and these other initiatives. If white nationalism is at the core, what can the Democratic Party offer?
The "In the News" section has two articles of interest. One deals with regret over voting for Trump. The story involves an immigrant who build a restaurant business, was granted a stay under Obama, but deported under Trump. The man's wife and friends did not believe that Trump would deport "good" people. The second article notes that cultural anxiety played a major role in voting for Trump.
You hate when I bring the issue of race into the discussion about how Democrats can attract Trump voters, yet race is at the center of the discussion. White nationalism has a meaning and that meaning centers around race and ethnicity.
Edit to add
A take from the NYT
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/world/americas/white-nationalism-expl...
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 4:30pm
Paris has had a couple of ugly terrorist attacks along with some strikes & uprest by North Africans, so it's not surprising that nationalism is 1 option on the table (as it has been for years), and in a year where Brexit passed and we got a scare from the Netherlands, it's also a trendy way of lodging a protest vote.
That said, France doesn't have the electoral college, so didn't have to worry about catering to each and every swing region, and having the election in 2 stages allowed them to blow off protest steam in the first stage without putting a gun to their heads in the second. I don't think Le Pen's showing is "astonishingly well" - I think it's pretty pathetic all things considered, and hopefully marks a passing of this "populism porn" that's been sweeping around - *IF* Macron can make a good effort at addressing some of the issues that lead to discontent. And I imagine any Russian infatuation is subsiding, with Putin giving Le Pen a big loan, with the purported hack attacks before the election, and with the continuing revelations in the US.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:03pm
Nothing to see here, folks, just a little populist fuss, not unexpected under the circumstances. It will all blow over in a year or two. Carry on with what you were doing.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 4:22pm
Reheated Firesign Theater? There's something real that needs to be addressed, but the Dada Poetry Night bit isn't doing it. Watched "On the Road" last night - earnest but a ness. Kinda my feeling here.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 5:55pm
LePen's strong showing (although there is some dispute over just how strong it was, see PP's comment here) and the Communist Melanchon's late surge suggest to me that the left and labor are disenchanted with the EU and neoliberalism. Edouard Louis's piece on which we are commenting supports this theory. So does the fact that neither of the finalists is a Socialist or a Republicain since those two parties are viewed as strong supporters of the EU and neoliberalism (see, e.g., Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Nicolas Sarkozy respectively).
On the other hand, although France's safety net may be fraying around the edges, it remains much stronger than ours. Likewise, the gini co-efficient is much smaller, i.e., wealth and income are more equitably distributed. Thus, while French extremists did better than they have in the past, ultimately the great majority of voters were satisfied enough that they opted for a relatively liberal former Socialist (not a socialist) rather than a neo-fascist.
To be clear, I do not believe that electing progressives means all your problems go away. The New Deal and the Great Society didn't erase our innate suspicions, warlike nature, selfishness, and willingness to succumb to mob mentality. These evolved over millions of years. Nor did they wipe out learned racism and jingoism. Still, by and large, the evidence suggests that as societies move towards a more equitable distribution of wealth, they become less angry, less prone to violent upheavals, and less inclined to embrace authoritarian demagogues.
by HSG on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 1:24pm
The US already has an authoritarian demagogue, his Party is in control, and they are moving the nation to a less equitable distribution of wealth.
This will enhance the effectiveness of the demagoguery on those who have been captivated by it.
Which is why the Dems and Bernie need to drop the purity testing for Dem candidates to get winners. Who can win by telling voters whatever messages work for their constituency. Pelosi just made this point in backing Bernies guy in Omaha.
by NCD on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 3:07pm
Again, you're missing the point. France is facing a rise of right-wing nationalism and a withering of its labor party. The Socialists got pummeled. Is it worse in the US? Who knows? It's apples and oranges, the systems are way too different to compare. But the point is that nationalism is rising in France, just as it's rising up here, which means that French policies are not an antidote to nationalism.
"evidence suggests that as societies move towards a more equitable distribution of wealth, they become less angry, less prone to violent upheavals, and less inclined to embrace authoritarian demagogues"
What evidence? Are you referring to Germany before the Nazis? Or Italy before Mussolini? Spain before Franco? The US during the McCarthy hearings? I see zero correlation. Less than zero in fact. If anything, falling income inequality correlates with more anger, violence, and authoritarianism.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 4:19pm
Actually I rrad the opposite - the stronger and more redistributive the government/society, the stronger the conservative populist movement. Resentment I guess just grows with success, and at minimum there will be a 70-30 split, tho in the US it's always closer to 50-50.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 5:59pm
I hear Andrew Jackson was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to 20th century European totalitarian regimes. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the rise of authoritarianism, you think about it, why? Nobody ever asked that question.
by Obey on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 6:11pm
Recent French Socialist leaders - Strauss-Kahn, Hollande, Macron - have not been socialist. They have been neo-liberal. Nationalism is rising in France because 1) income and wealth are increasingly skewed to the wealthy and poverty rates are rising although not nearly to the degree that they are in the United States and 2) terrorism is a real threat.
Nazi Germany - the Nazis took over during the Great Depression when both the urban working-class and rural farm workers were seeing their always fragile economic security disappear altogether. Germany's unemployment rate may have touched 30% in 1932-33. A close economic analysis of 19th and early 20th century Germany concludes that economic inequality was significantly higher during the Weimar years than either before or since. See http://www1.unisg.ch/www/edis.nsf/SysLkpByIdentifier/3961/$FILE/dis3961.pdf chart at 31.
Fascist Italy - Mussolini's took over at a time when much of country's economy was more medieval than modern. Unemployment had been rising steadily for years as had been the cost of living.
Franco's Spain - I have no familiarity with Spain before and during the Spanish Civil War.
The US during the McCarthy hearings was not a country that embraced authoritarianism or fascism. McCarthy was a demagogue but our democracy was more than powerful enough to withstand him and he was exposed relatively quickly. He then shrunk from the political scene. Moreover, America from the 50s to the mid-60s became ever more egalitarian and enjoyed its lowest crime rates of the 20th century.
In a post at my website earlier this year, that I may not have cross-posted at Dagblog, I document the correlation between increased wealth and income inequality and economic insecurity during the second half of the 19th century in France and the rise of anti-semitism that culminated in the Dreyfus Affair there.
In a post at my website that was cross-posted here, I noted that in America the number of lynchings and other brutal acts against minorities, including immigrants and people of color were especially high in the 1890s. A spikes was again seen in the early 1930s. These were eras that were characterized by large and growing economic inequality and increasing economic insecurity.
by HSG on Tue, 05/09/2017 - 9:51pm
I would just like to add to your conversation a reminder that a lot of the worldwide worker dissatisfaction is really due in the end to "automation".
And then with that, there's a related generalization I'd like to throw out there about cultural differences: "Catholic" heritage countries like France and Italy might not have as much of the "Protestant Work Ethic" factor where dignity and ego is tied to one's job.
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 2:27pm
Found these helpful on the demographics of the election results:
Five Maps That Show Why Macron Beat Le Pen
@ Bloomberg
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/08/2017 - 2:15pm
I hadn't intended to post on this thread but it kept nagging at me. This is just what many liberals want to hear, no matter how racist, antisemetic, islamophobic, and homophobic a person is the real reason people vote for Le Pen, and by implication, Trump is economics.
The author admits the vote is " tinged with racism and homophobia." Tinged? Good old dad didn't just call gays sick, or mentally ill, or immoral. The father was so antigay that " He liked to say that gay people deserved the death penalty." He was so antisemetic he looked forward to the time when we would “throw out the Arabs and the Jews.” Jews that have been French citizens for generations.
Here is a man who is such a tyrannical patriarch that he went " into the polling station with my older brothers to make sure they really were voting for the National Front." How did he accomplish that with "children" that were at least 18 years old? It wouldn't have worked with me. Were they so beaten down and cowed by years of abuse they would submit to anything? Was there some sort of economic blackmail? Were the young adults, and the " mayor and his staff members who didn’t say anything when they saw my father doing this" afraid of some brutal retribution? The article just claims " No one wanted to pick a fight with my father." WTF? All I know is my dad couldn't have looked over my shoulder while I voted. I would not have allowed it at 18 and neither of my older sisters would.
So really, the author is seriously telling us that dad voted for the National Front because France wasn't economically liberal enough? That if the liberals had paid more attention to his economic troubles this virulently racist, antisemitic, antimuslim, antigay man would have voted for them? This is the man liberals should pay attention to to win elections? I don't believe it. The whole article seems like some sort of skewed bullshit narrative designed to appeal to a certain sort of liberal. I think it's trash not really worth serious discussion.
by ocean-kat on Wed, 05/10/2017 - 1:23am
Democrats/liberals/French Socialists should focus attention on the economic needs and legitimate desires of the poor, struggling, workers, and the middle-class for the following two reasons: 1) They are human beings who, for that reason alone, deserve to enjoy a decent life. 2) By responding to the economic concerns of the 99%, Democrats/liberals/socialists will be much better positioned to implement other essential policies like social justice, environmentalism, etc.
by HSG on Wed, 05/10/2017 - 12:33pm
Thanks, ocean-kat. Racism and bigotry have to be confronted. Homophobia in the black community had to be confronted. Ignoring homophobia led to black community voting against Gay marriage in several states. Homophobia gave GW 20% of the black vote in Ohio. Open discussions about homophobia changed opinions. Al Sharptton, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West and a host of others spoke out against homophobia in the black community. President Obama changed his position on Gay marriage. The NAACP followed. There is still homophobia in the black community, but there is push back. Take the example of well-respected gospel artist Kim Burrell. Burrell called homosexuality a "perverted spirit" she got backlash from within the black community.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/04/kim-burrell-sermon-ellen-d...
Her radio show was terminated. Burrell and others are free to express their religious beliefs, but they are not free from criticism. Challenging bigotry is important.
Instead of pretending that racism and white nationalism are not important parts of the appeal of Trump and Le Pen. People need to be confronting the racism and bigotry. It angers me that so -called allies are willing to turn away from this much needed task. Blacks, Latinos, immigrants, etc. are not the problem. Health care and jobs are being stolen by the elites. Targeting minorities and Gays is misguided and evil.
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/10/2017 - 2:54pm