this week

[flake_sake]

I continue to be horrified by Trump. He really is the fascist he has claimed to be. This guy needs to go down. Fast and by any means necessary. He is a threat to the free world

Comments

[frenchani]

In a real State under the rule of law, Fillon's scandal(S) should drag him down...

Hamon is not Bernie Sanders but he is probably the closest thing to a socialist that the so-called Socialist Party still has, but the PS is already too compromised to have any of his candidates go into the run off anyway.

The only left-wing option would be that either Mélenchon or Hamon would give up in favour of one another. Actually, the only hope would be that Hamon withdrew and supported Mélenchon. Then there would be a left-wing candidate facing either Fillon or LePen at the second ballot.

It won't happen because Hamon wants to run the PS, over any idea of common good, so he has to be candidate, and Mélenchon can't back-up a PS's candidate.

So I am not optimistic, but at least the likes of Sarkozy and Valls are both out now.

And I don't believe that LePen will win, whoever is facing her eventually, and even though there's a large abstention.

[flake_sake]

Thank you very much for your analysis! I wish, they would go for Melenchon then. It seems that the more leftwing candidates have a better chance than the centrists these days to beat the extreme right, likely because they are more believable.

I doubt any of the centrists party candidates could have turned around things in Austria like Van der Bellen did and in the USA Clinton was a centrist candidate and lost.

I really hope you are right and you are going to save us all from LePen. I honestly think she is the biggest threat for European democracy at the moment.

[beer_good_foamy]

This Twitter thread by author Cat Valente is sounding creepily correct right now.

I'm also very anxious about the French election.

And the upcoming German one, which Trump is already working to influence. Unless something changes very quickly, I think a lot of Western European nations (and yes, Ms May, that includes the UK) are going to have to realise that it's not a law of nature that the US government is a friendly nation. Trump and Putin both want the EU gone, preferably the entire concept of liberal democracy with it, and we have plenty of populist idiots who are only too happy to help...

And I think it was wrong to try and "understand" or "educate" the people who voted for him and who vote for his ilk in Europe.Case in point, our tories just invited our local fascists to discuss supporting them to form a majority after next election. Why? Because it would be, and I quote, "IMPOLITE" not to include the fascists. They acknowledge that they're racist, they just don't see why that should be a problem. After all, the only thing

[shapinglight]

Case in point, our tories just invited our local fascists to discuss supporting them to form a majority after next election. Why? Because it would be, and I quote, "IMPOLITE" not to include the fascists. They acknowledge that they're racist, they just don't see why that should be a problem. After all, the only thing that matters is a nominal majority and you can do whateverthefuck you want...

Is there any point at all in telling them that 'being polite to nazis' is the equivalent of handing them the noose with which to hang you? To paraphrase Milo Yiannopoulos as recently stated in a Channel 4 interview here in the UK, they don't care about your 'feelings.' The only defence against them is to not care about theirs right back at them.

[beer_good_foamy]

Is there any point at all in telling them that 'being polite to nazis' is the equivalent of handing them the noose with which to hang you?

Nope, according to their party leader, that sort of talk fosters division and hatred, and she won't stand for that.

[flake_sake]

Cat Valente is very correct there and I really hope that the US democracy is strong enough to get rid of Trump. They might be. In Europe I have way more doubts. I'm an old lefty, so I am in favour of a good social system and a strong state, but that can very quickly turn on us, once the fascists take over.

And the upcoming German one, which Trump is already working to influence.
Yeah, that one too, although I think Merkel and Schulz are both rather strong candidates. And in the end, Germany is postioned extremely good economically, it is much harder for the AfD to conjure up an impeding apocalyse in Germany than it would be in other European countries. But yeah, Putin and Trump are going to do their best to push the AfD.

Why? Because it would be, and I quote, "IMPOLITE" not to include the fascists.I'm so sick of that. They have to realize that the time to convince the fascists not to be fascist anymore is over. They need to fight them with all they have. Our Socialists plan to do the same thing. Kern wants to pull a Schüssel on

[shapinglight]

There was something on the news just now about a left-leaning populist candidate in France called Macron. I don't know if he has any chance at all in the French elections, but the BBC seemed to think he was gathering some kind of momentum. While the piece about him was airing, I found myself thinking that I wished we had someone like that in the UK.

And you're right about the people who voted for Trump etc. There is no point in trying to understand them. Why?Because they don't want to understand us. In fact, they want to kill us, pure and simple.

[flake_sake]

I hope the far left candidate makes it but it seems like the conservative has better chances. We'll see, so far the real left politicians had far better luck against the nazis than the corrupt centrists.

Why?Because they don't want to understand us. In fact, they want to kill us, pure and simple.

I agree. I keep thinking that I need to use the time to put saveguards in place in case things turn really dark in a few years.

[goldenusagi]

It really is horribly depressing, not to mention scary.

[flake_sake]

It is. There is no good news from the White House anymore. His actions look just insane. Replacing the joined chiefs with Bannon? Why? Why, if not to do something batshit crazy with the military.