On Sunday evening, more than a few netizens have correctly observed that in choosing Emmanuel Macron, the French electorate proved definitively that voters in France are more resilient than their American counterparts when faced with an existential threat to their democracy.
Even with a little last minute help from Moscow and the alt-Right blogosphere, Marine Le Pen was unable to overcome Macron’s sizable lead. And indeed, her showing wasn’t as impressive as it appeared on the surface.
That said, it’s astonishing that she made it as far as she did. Sure, the very real threat of terror attacks and the EU’s refugee crisis helped FN’s xenophobic message resonate with voters, but as we documented in “The World Is Going Batshit Crazy — Thoughts Ahead Of A Big Weekend,” Le Pen stands for something so abhorrent and her name is so tarnished by the shameful legacy of her father, that she should have never been on the ballot in the first place. Or, more simply…
https://twitter.com/stuheritage/status/861282175827759104
In the end, French voters put their reservations about electing an establishment-friendly candidate aside in the interest of not tying their fate to the demagoguery of a bigot with ties to Nazi-sympathizers.
Risking “more of the same” was preferable to writing the first words of what might very well have been another dark chapter in the country’s political history.
Being effectively governed by Germany’s current head of state (as Le Pen framed a Macron presidency) was the obvious choice when the alternative was being effectively governed by Germany’s former head of state.
What all of this means for The New Yorker’s satirist Andy Borowitz is that “the French have annoyingly retained their right to claim intellectual superiority over Americans.”
Read below for Borowitz’s satirical take on Macron’s win…
PARIS (The Borowitz Report)–On Sunday, the people of France annoyingly retained their traditional right to claim intellectual superiority over Americans, as millions of French citizens paused to enjoy just how much smarter they were than their allies across the Atlantic.
In bars and cafés across France, voters breathed a sigh of relief in the knowledge that arrogantly comparing themselves to the U.S. population, a longtime favorite pastime of the French people, would remain viable for the foreseeable future.
Pierre Grimange, a Parisian café-goer, sipped on a glass of Bordeaux and toasted his nation “for not being so dumb as the United States after all.”
“A lot was at stake today: the future of our liberal traditions and our democracy itself,” he said. “But by far the greatest loss of all would have been our right to look down on Americans.”
“Grâce à Dieu, that has been secured!” Grimange exclaimed.
But, sitting a few tables away, Helene Commonceau, another Parisian, admitted that she did not understand what all of the celebrating was about. “We are smarter than the Americans, true, but they have set the bar very low, no?” she said.
