Absolutely. But of course, this isn’t a normal election or normal times (“normal” being the state of things from approx. 1945-2007 – an anomaly in the context of most of human history). Right-wing populism, authoritarianism and nationalism have once again crawled out from under the rocks in the West. The priority of progressives, liberals, and centrists is now to beat the fascists back.
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The curse of the neologisms.
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How is he corrupt?
I mean, French government is rife with corruption to the point of absurdity (from a US perspective… well before Trump and his nepotism). If this guy is corrupt, he must be pretty darn bad.
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First, let’s deal with the fascists, then we can deal with the plutocrats. There are many levels of heinousness in this world.
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Mea culpa; I was conflating him with Fillon and the scandal re: family jobs.
(got whacked by venomous buggers at work today, currently stoned on antihistamines while I wait for sensation to return to my extremities; I’m choosing to blame that…)
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The difficulty there is that the fascists are, in part, a reaction to the bastardry of the plutocrats. And there is substantial crossover between the camps.
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Again, all true. Still, what we don’t need is the plutocrats coming to the conclusion that making an alliance with a far-right movement they think they can control and co-opt is the way to defend themselves against left-wing demands for change. A significant part of the American plutocratic/neoliberal establishment (namely the GOP) is already succumbing to that temptation, blithely ignorant as usual to what happened in much of Europe in the 1930s and what almost happened in the U.S. during the same period.
Better that the French – including the corrupt, the neoliberal, and the plutocrats – first agree that right-wing populism should be a non-starter. If Macron wins the second round I guarantee that the parties will go back to fighting amongst themselves without as strong a pull to the right.
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First, let’s deal with the fascists, then we can deal with the plutocrats.
You can cut a deal with plutocrats. If that doesn’t work you can frighten them into behaving.(Something the public tends to forget)
When it comes to fascists the only thing you can do is clean up after they break everything.
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fascism conceives of itself as antithetical to various species of liberalism. The fact that we are lumped together as “liberal” scum is irksome, particularly because social liberals and neoliberals disagree profoundly on the role of the state.
The most expansionistic definitions of liberalism emphasize formal processes for acting as a government (trials, hearings, open discussion), the “rule of law”, and the primacy of individuals.
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You make a fair point, but if the right-wing autocrats (aka fascists) get their way for a moment too long, then they will succeed in destroying the system. Maybe the system needs to be destroyed before it can be rebuilt, but they should not be the ones to do it. No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.
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Emmanuel Macron will be the next president of France, that is a foregone conclusion. By what margin? Probably not as much as Jacques Chirac’s in 2002 against Marine Le Pen’s father, alas.
But that’s not the only thing that is at play here. The presidential election, despite looking like the alpha and omega of French politics, is far from being the whole of it. The legislative elections, that will determine the composition of the National Assembly, French Parliament’s lower house, will follow, and things look now more open than ever since 2002, when the President’s term of office was reduced from seven to five years, synching the presidential election to the legislative ones. More than anything Macron put in his platform, it will determine policy for the next years. It’s dubious that he’ll be able to get a majority to call his own, and France doesn’t have a tradition of broad parliamentary coalitions (unlike, say, Germany). So, things are becoming interesting.
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Fillon and Harmon already endorsed Macron. Melenchon seems to want to sit it out.
I’m getting flashbacks to the 90s (edit: 2002? woops), when Chirac faced off against Le Pen the elder. Chirac wasn’t all that popular, but the choice between moderately evil and batshit insane is pretty easy.
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2002, actually.
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I probably mixed it up because I went to high school in the 90s, and it was all the rage to write “Fuck Chirac” on our pencil bags (whatever those are called), mostly because of his nuclear weapon tests. But when the choice was him or Le Pen, the sentiment did an immediate 180.
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Don’t tell me, I actually cried in 2002 when I realized I had to vote for him.
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You mean like the Brexiteers failing and Trump sinking the GOP’s electoral chances?
After Rob Ford, Brexit, and Trump, I trust nothing until the votes are counted.
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I get your point, but we should acknowledge that the french polls were spot-on this time around.
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Just read this piece on VOX: http://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/23/15401832/european-leaders-react-french-election-results
@realDonaldTrump
New polls out today are very good considering that much of the media is FAKE and almost always negative. Would still beat Hillary in …
…popular vote. ABC News/Washington Post Poll (wrong big on election) said almost all stand by their vote on me & 53% said strong leader.
I mean, I know that this guy is an evil piece of shit, but is he, frankly, insane? What did you DO to us, american friends 
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which of the nine knocked out candidates augured a better future for them?
With so many candidates this doesn’t look like a very fair election. Several other candidates could have collected enough second preferences to push them over the line, in an instant runoff scenario.
Do you remember the 2002 French Election when it was Chirac versus Le Pen. Chirac was trying to hang on to power partially because the French President cannot be taken to court and he was facing corruption charges if he lost. Posters were put up supporting Chirac with the slogan (in French, of course), “Vote for the Crook, not the Fascist”. 
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