Marine Le Pen, Beppe Grillo, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry: has their big moment arrived?

[amw]

Dogged by the migration crisis and the traumatic business of Brexit - to name just two current, existential challenges to their project - those who run the European Union felt they had enough on their plates before Donald Trump seized the White House

Comments

[yamamanama]

With Le Pen, there will be a second round where the center-left and the center-right unite against the far-right and then the center-right moves further right anyway, like with Sarkozy.

[amw]

The scary thing is that these assholes are shamelessly constructing an international hate machine. For instance, Farage just went to visit Trump, ahead of any other British politician. Le Pen was the first European to congratulate him on the win. Wilders was at the RNC. Oh, did I mention Breitbart is opening a French branch and a German branch? These brazen links between white nationalist demagogues and the alt-right media all over the world are a slap in the face to those who still believe that sovereign nations should not interfere with each other's democratic process

[yamamanama]

It's not "links between white nationalist demagogues and alt-right media." The alt-right is white nationalist.

[amw]

Yeah I didn't really express myself well there. What I meant was that this tight relationship between politicians and media is taking propaganda to the next level. The Trump/Breitbart/Wikileaks coordination is like something out of a fascist dictatorship. Only upside is that the alt-right media is still somewhat on the fringe... for now.

[ladycyndra]

In reply to your note. It is absolutely AMAZING to me that people are sheep and willing to follow an idiot off a cliff. They don't think for themselves and that's fucking scary.

[sabrinita]

If all of this happens I'm with Cher. Hope she has some extra room in her rocket cause I'm gonna head with her to Jupiter

[donaldjdrumpf]

Hopefully now the age of political correctness is coming to an end, so I can finally say what I want to say to the people of this great nation, without having to couch my language about important topics... like Bette Midler

[honorh]

You're not funny anymore.

[donaldjdrumpf]

Tbh I get that since it's no longer a joke, but like it's actually totally happening and a thing that people are worried about for real. Didn't think Hillary would actually lose, but here we are.

[fka]

that tweet!

[ioplokon]

I do think (hope) that if Le Pen makes it past the 1er tour, that most people will come together & pick the other candidate, like the last time the FN made it through. However, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. Besides, even if she loses the election, the prominence of the extreme right is dangerous. I was living in central France when all the manif pour tous/jour de colère stuff was going on, and it's really worrying.

Plus, I'm not optimistic about the socialists getting elected again (tho I haven't been keeping up that much, it's not seeming very enthusiastic? idk, i guess maybe stuff will pick up for them after the primaries?), & having the UMP (sorry - Republicans now, isn't it? -_-) back in isn't exactly something that fills me w/ joy. Especially if they know they've got backing from an extreme-right block.