The fascist threat is global. France stopped them yesterday. Will we?
In the first round of the French snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron last month, the far right came in first, scaring les pantalons off of everyone in Europe. Not since the Vichy government in the 1940s had France been led by the authoritarian far right. But it looked very possible, especially considering the right wing surge in the European Union elections in the country, which precipitated Macron’s call for elections in the first place. As recently as three days ago, polls showed that the second round would likely lead to such an outcome.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that run-off. The parties of the left formed a National Popular Front party and they joined with the center to block the right. Many of the candidates in each district had to make the hard choice to leave the race so that the stronger member of the opposition could defeat the right.
This incumbent, had to take that gut check and she dropped out saying, “defeats happen, but you can never recover from dishonor.”
It worked and a major upset happened yesterday as the Popular Front and Macron’s centrist party defied the polls coming in first and second, respectively, with the far right National Rally coming in third. It was a strong repudiation of the authoritarian right, defying all predictions going into the election on Sunday. The moment the announcement was made, great throngs in the streets were cheering:
This sweep by the left and center came on the heels of a historic victory by labor in the UK last week, turning out the Tories after 14 years in the majority. That result wasn’t much of a surprise but the scope of it was impressive and the message was clear. With the spectre of far right movements across Europe, the British people said no. Last fall Poland had a similar electoral result. Even Iran elected a reformist president last week over a hard-liner, although the Ayatollah Khamenei still reigns supreme.
All of these elections, including the aforementioned European Union vote last month which showed growth of the far right in Germany and France, ended up with mixed results for governance. Each country is different and has a unique set of issues and the coalitions that were formed are not necessarily ideologically coherent. But the one thing they all have in common is a desire by a majority of voters to repudiate the far right.
As we recently witnessed in the big D-Day celebrations in June, the memory of World War II is much more vivid in Europe than it is for most Americans. I would imagine that the new rise of fascism is something they feel most acutely as well. Certainly, I suspect the history of Nazism is something they are more aware of. That was made clear by the left’s decision in France to form a coalition named after the antifascist Popular Front in 1936. Instead of allowing the right to exploit divisions on the left and co-opt the center as the Nazis did in Germany,despite being in the minority, they put aside their differences and unified to stand against them.
It was around eight years ago at this time that Americans were watching the UK make a momentous decision, driven by xenophobia and an ascendant right, to leave the European Union, about which they now have major regrets and which has failed to deliver on virtually all of its promises. Here in the U.S. we were also in the midst of one of the weirdest presidential campaigns in our history with the businessman and demagogue Donald Trump having secured the Republican nomination running a populist, anti-immigrant campaign. Trump didn’t even know what Brexit was when he was first asked about it, but he was riding the same wave and a few months later he won as well.
Eight years later there’s still plenty of white, rural rage and generalized discontent in Europe and the U.S. But authoritarian right wing politics can’t seem to gain a majority and unless it’s able to exploit divisions among the opposition or a flaw in the system like the electoral college in the U.S. they can’t successfully seize power. I don’t know if the U.S. will follow the U.K. this time but it’s clear that we’re all in the same boat.
We’re in the midst of a crisis right now with the intense scrutiny of 81 year old President Joe Biden and the doubts about his ability to successfully win the re-match against the 78 year old Donald Trump. As of this moment we have no idea if he will even be in the race a week from now. It’s dominated the news cycle for the past 10 days but as my colleague Amanda Marcotte pointed out, something else has suddenly gained the attention of the public despite all the noise about Biden’s age: the MAGA Manifesto, Project 2025.
It took people outside of the regular news media to make that happen. HBO’s John Oliver did a program on it and the actress Taraji P Henson hosting the BET Awards last week called it out — and they both went viral:
People are becoming alarmed and the Republicans know it which is why Donald Trump tried to distance himself from it. I don’t think anyone believes that he’s read any of the 900 pages of MAGA Kampf but he is the leader of the movement that’s behind it and everyone in the country knows it. Like the neo-fascist movements it is a minority faction and it’s up to the people to vote in large enough numbers to ensure that he cannot win again through the electoral college loophole (something which had only happened once before the year 2000.)
All of this is to say that for all the sturm und drang over Biden’s age and even Trump massive character and intellectual flaws, this election is really about something bigger than both of them. There is a potent far right movement that’s threatening democratic government all over the world and the election is about repelling this authoritarian surge once again. France managed to do it this weekend by forming a popular front and setting their differences and their competing interests aside. America needs to do the same.
Salon