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Post by Moose on May 7, 2017 21:18:40 GMT
I am relieved that Le Pen did not get in but there's still the unfortunate fact that nearly a third of the French electorate chose to vote for a candidate who is an open fascist. Everyone - including me - was congratulating the French on the results on facebook and yes, it's good that they do not have a far right leader but the results still indicate that there is a great deal of racism present in France. And I have no doubt that a large number of people would have voted for Le Pen had she been standing here, as well.
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Post by tangent on May 7, 2017 21:54:40 GMT
... but there's still the unfortunate fact that nearly a third of the French electorate chose to vote for a candidate who is an open fascist. Most of France didn't vote. Only 10% voted for Le Pen, the rest voted for la plume de ma tante.
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Post by JoeP on May 7, 2017 22:08:09 GMT
And that's the main thing wrong with elections and democracies these days - with Brexit and Trumpit and so on - people don't vote. It's just luck that enough people voted against Le Pen.
Partly it could be because people and parties in power focus too much on what will keep them in power, including cosying up to banks and big business and other donors, and don't appear to care very much about actually representing people.
But partly - and I think this is definitely happening - the right wing are getting very good at persuading centrist and left wing voters to stay at home and not vote, thereby swinging the outcomes in their favour. Without this, I doubt there would have been a Brexit majority or a Trump electoral college majority - still a sizeable number in favour, of course, but not a majority.
And this isn't just Russian hackers (being paid by these right-wing groups), it's highly sophisticated big data firms, in particular an outfit called Cambridge Analytica.
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Post by Moose on May 7, 2017 23:34:39 GMT
In what way are they persuading left wingers to stay at home?
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Post by JoeP on May 8, 2017 11:11:32 GMT
Think of pretty much anything the Daily Fail prints - Corbyn is a loser, etc. They don't need to convert people into right-wing voters, they just need to stop them voting for alternatives. Lots of people abstained in the French election rather than vote for Macron. And lots of the abstainers aren't abstaining because they don't like the policies and have thought it through - they've just been blinded by the press, and social media campaigns, etc. Read this - scary stuff The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked | Technology | The Guardian
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Post by tangent on May 8, 2017 13:55:13 GMT
Do you have a {tl;dr} version?
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Post by Mari on May 8, 2017 16:15:44 GMT
That's a very incoherently written story, but its points are seriously chilling.
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Post by Moose on May 8, 2017 19:18:32 GMT
I second the tldr version
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2017 1:34:33 GMT
Do you have a {tl;dr} version? what's {tl;dr}?
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Post by tangent on May 9, 2017 6:10:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2017 8:30:48 GMT
I should have known that but I'm not so familiar with this newfangled internet thingy
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Post by spaceflower on May 11, 2017 1:08:21 GMT
There were many who did not want to vote for either fascist and xenophobic National Front or for liberal En marche and Macron. Macron is also someone from the establishment. He went to the elite school ENA and worked at a bank (Rotchild).
A 2/3 society. 1/3 are the losers of globalization; they are unemployed or risk unemployment. They feel forgotten and invisible. The left has abandoned them. So they vote for National Front.
There is parlialment election in June. Will people vote for En marche then?
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Post by Moose on May 11, 2017 19:56:49 GMT
I wouldn't vote for the NF ever, no matter how abandoned I felt
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