France Has Given Up on its Politicians – and Can You Blame It? (Daniel Hannan) from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"Although the Front National fell short of expectations, the raw data are none the less striking: from 60 elected councillors in 2008, the party now has more than 12,000. ... What we are seeing is a Gallic shrug on a shuddering scale: a cynical, bitter, grumpy and yet faintly bored rejection of the entire political class. ... Can you blame them? Unemployment is over three million and there is no prospect of an economic recovery."
This story pulls together SO MANY of the trends we've been tracking here at the News Nuggets: indifference to the unemployed, getting out of the recession, the rise of the far right, and the growing resignation (and even despair) over democracy's seeming inability to deal with these crises.
I think Hannen is dead wrong on his characterization of the recent French elections as somehow a reflection of a distinctly French version of indifference or, worse, boredom with the political class in France. No. What he is describing is a Europe-wide phenomenon and even crosses the Atlantic when you consider the paralyzing impact of the Tea Party in the US.
As Today's Big Nugget suggests, Russia is also part of this larger picture of the return of hard-right political movements in some of the most important economies in the world. It's no accident that some of the biggest admirers of Putin are right-wing Tea Partiers and Neocons in the US. It is a style of anti-democratic governance that blooms when democracy fails to address fundamental needs, and it transcends national and political boundaries as they have defined the geo-political landscape for the last 20 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment