There may have been a genius somewhere who accurately predicted the results of the November 5 presidential election, but I was not that genius. The most prudent position to have taken ahead of the final voting seemed to have been to call it a new referendum on Donald Trump. But so many high stakes were in the balance—abortion and the cost of living played disproportionate roles—that I was loath to join the chorus that summed up Trump as simply a cult leader. Followers of this cult no doubt voted for him. But even a madman sometimes knows where his own interests lie.
Pollsters in 2016 made the mistake of underestimating the anger workers felt over losing their factory jobs, especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where Bill Clinton-inspired NAFTA (and later Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China) did immense damage. These states tilted the Electoral College against the Clinton clan and its representative, Hillary. Trump again benefited from this rational rage, despite the fact that his administration’s 2020 replacement for NAFTA, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), helped Mexican workers more than their American counterparts, though only slightly. The sad reality is that remaining American factories continue to close regularly and fly off to the promised land of low salaries: Mexico and China.
The shock of Trump’s 2016 victory remains etched in the psyche of right-minded people. While Trumpists this time expected a new electoral “steal,” Democrats feared a repeat of January 6, 2021, with hordes of white rioters setting fire to government buildings. I had my own nightmare: Harris getting a greater share of the popular vote than Clinton did in 2016, while Trump remained victorious anyway thanks to the Electoral College. That might have led to leftist riots.
Nevertheless, as degraded and vulgar as the 74,200,000 votes for Trump in 2020 may appear, there are other unhealthy political tendencies we should examine in the United States, as well as in France, our supposedly more civilized and educated sister republic. The ancient Greeks passed down to us not only the concept of demos (self-government) but also that of oligarchy, a system of government in which a shadowy elite can dictate all the rules.
Today, France and the United States are best described in terms of this classic financial-business-political oligarchy. The current French government makes a mockery of the people’s will. After dissolving parliament in June, President Emmanuel Macron brushed aside the results of the legislative elections—which favored the left—and installed a right-wing government. In so doing, he imitated former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who, most notably, circumvented a 2005 national referendum rejecting the European Constitution without consulting the French people.
Only a sophisticated oligarchy can invalidate democracy that easily. I’ve never seen it play out as clearly as in Le Monde on September 24, in an article on the inner workings of a tight-knit political circle almost invisible to the general public. According to the paper, on March 6, a year after Macron’s government barely survived a vote of no confidence, Macron summoned his predecessor, former president François Hollande, a socialist, to talk about the war in Ukraine. At that meeting, the “troubled head of state” told Hollande that he was “desperately trying to expand his relative majority in Parliament.”
Hollande, a supposed leftist, reportedly responded that “You’re conducting right-wing politics. You have to make an alliance with the right.” Macron responded by saying, “I didn’t do all this to end up there.” But apparently he did. On September 21, with the support of enough deputies (and the key backing of far-right Marine Le Pen), he appointed “a government of thirty-nine ministers mixing a young Macronist guard with a dozen elected officials from the conservative right.”
Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, denounced the “reactionary government that had given the finger to democracy” and defied the “victory” of the leftist alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), which won a relative majority in the June legislative elections with 182 seats. Significantly, however, there is a new socialist deputy from Corrèze in the NFP caucus…and it’s François Hollande!
Faure initially refused to meet Michel Barnier to protest Macron’s choice of the new center-right prime minister. But Hollande was friendlier, telling the media, “We must always talk. When you’re invited, go where you’re wanted. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say what you think, or that you shouldn’t express it even when leaving the meeting.” The words of a purebred oligarch. Perhaps Hollande was trying to slip Barnier some advice? Lean further right to better rule on the right?
People say Trump is a monster and that we must save democracy. But let’s not forget that Bill and Hillary Clinton (with a front-row seat for Hillary) attended Donald and Melania Trump’s wedding in Palm Beach in 2005. Rightly so. When you’re invited, you must go where you’re wanted.
