Friends, France's Fifth Republic just got a whole lot less republican and/or democratic. That's because the leading candidate in the country's next presidential election was disqualified by a judge from running for office for five years. Neat trick, that! Increasingly, as J.D. Vance warned, it looks like the Eurocrats have decided that they won't abide any popular input into who gets to lead them. On the contrary, the "experts" will curate what passes for democracy so that no one offensive to establishment/progressive values can win political office. No doubt the Dems are thinking to themselves, "Damn! We should have done that here a long, long time ago!" They tried, half-heartedly, with the attempt to exclude Trump from the presidential ballot based on his supposedly insurrectionist crimes. They tried more seriously with a series of prosecutions of Trump that were supposed to land him in the slammer for the rest of his natural life. Well, this is one arena in which the French have us at a disadvantage. They're apparently much more ruthless when it comes to crushing dissent. We, on the other hand, seem to do FREEDOM way better than them. I can live with that!
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-administration-marine-le-pen-banned/
Finally, there's unfortunately some considerable international blowback from Trumpism that's affecting how our nation is perceived and, more practically, whether anyone wants to come here as a tourist. It's inevitable that an almost uniformly hostile global press corps will vilify Trump, and it's equally inevitable that the hatred for Trump overseas will bleed over into a species of contempt for Americans as a whole. It's asinine, but it's going to be a fact of life for the next four years, and hopefully for a lot longer than that! Get used to fewer foreign visitors, and a lot of dirty looks when you travel abroad. It's the price we Americans must pay for exercising genuine sovereignty and going against the internationalist grain. So be it.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250328-the-people-boycotting-travel-to-the-us
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteMy current understanding is that Poland is still one of the most friendly countries in Europe for U.S./Americans to travel in, and one of the cheapest.
Ray, that doesn't surprise me. It might change, though, if Ukraine gets steamrolled, and Trump gets blamed. Both could easily happen.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The French manifest a great culture and civilization but their political culture has never lived up to that standard. They foisted on humanity the first of the protomodern totalitarian revolutions (this one cursed by its methods and consequences, not its motivation), during which they loaded barges with dissenters and sank them midstream. Then , Napoleon, then the unthinkable return of the Bourbons , then Napoleon the 3rd, then the Paris commune, then the Dreyfus affair which symbolized their tumultuous existential conflict between common sense and socialists and then, how many Republics? I've lost track.
ReplyDeleteTheir Soviet style judicial suppression of a leading candidate makes one wonder, has Madame LaFarge taken to knitting again and is this ominous French development a harbinger of a far left takeover of Western Europe? Trouble with Marxists is, when you give 'em a smidgen of an inch they try to take a mile. They are "progressive" alright!
RAY TO JACK
DeleteNot to mention their collaboration with the Nazis during World War 2, and aiding and abetting them in getting French Jewish Communities to Death Camps in Poland, by way of Drancy train station in France. Then after the war, every f*g French man and woman claimed to be heroic members of The French Resistance.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I THINK it was Chou En Lai, Mao's longtime Foreign Minister, who said "to make an omelet, one must break eggs". He was no paragon but the aphorism does have truth to it. Taking our country back, from both domestic and foreign adversaries (some comprehensive and some partial) isn't going to be painless.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your concluding assertion. The US is, on balance, the most benevolent mega power in the world. Frankly I think few other peoples in this hard world care whether they are liked or not. But we Americans are still naive; we are wide eyed , good natured bib overalled hayseeds in this old and cynical setting in which international relations are seldom far removed from blood sport. Its taking a gutsy NYC wiseass , who has demonstrated his love for our country by his selfless endurance of detestable excoriation, to set us straight. We elevated him just in time, we did!
Ray from Jack: France's capitulation to Germany was a lamentable shame to them; that is well documented in the film The Sorrow and the Pity. Apparently its not done in France (by some only)to acknowledge that or to be as gracious as to show gratitude to the U.S. for delivering them both from the Boche and the Red Army.
ReplyDeleteMadame DeFarge rather . . . Jack
ReplyDeleteTrue, the Frenchies have often disappointed on the political front, not to mention the battlefront, but even if this witch-hunt holds up against Le Pen I wouldn't count out the National Rally. In fact, just as lawfare backfired on the Dems, it may backfire on the French establishment too. Of course, whoever Le Pen's replacement is, he/she may be banned from running, too! Every problem has an authoritarian solution, after all.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I think the world has grown weary of wondering"well, which France is it this time?" Maybe they cannot be depended upon, other than to be emotionally mercurial.
ReplyDeleteThe problem, as always, is that it is darn hard to get a MAJORITY in any European country to embrace common sense, freedom, border security, or anything else that you and I might espouse. A plurality, maybe, but when all the establishment parties are sure to gang up on "far right" upstarts, it's awfully hard to make headway...
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