You got to hand it to Marine Le Pen but she stands out by
looking good. Unlike Trump in the USA, you don’t find anyone talking about how
she’s artificially enhanced herself (Orange Tan) nor does she exaggerate things
about herself (think the hair of Trump or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands).
Every shot of Ms. Le Pen is well thought out. She looks elegant and when she
speaks, she is well spoken and on the surface sounds exceedingly reasonable.
While Ms. Le Pen is past the age of being a “sex-bomb” she could easily pass
off as someone you could consider growing old with.
Unfortunately, everything that I’ve just said is precisely
what makes her perhaps the most dangerous of all the demagogues who have risen
to prominence on the global political stage. While people like Mr. Trump in the
USA or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are larger than life characters who
make outrageously outlandish statements about this and that, Ms. Le Pen is
attractively normal and sane.
As much as I dislike Donald Trump, I give him credit for
being able to stir passions and to get people talking. Some of my blog post
have been Trump inspired and I’m not alone. While Mr. Trump may rile against
the media, his very rise to the presidency has been exceedingly good for the
media, especially the newspaper business, which has been facing something of a
decline.
Mr. Trump had a genius for saying things that upset or
emboldened people. If you consider the fact that we live in an age where people
around the world are pissed off with the way things are, Mr. Trump managed to
push all the right buttons by riling us up against the things we were pissed
off by. I like to think of voting for Mr. Trump and his policies as going for a
binge drink because you hard day. Dealing with Mr. Trump’s attempts to run the
country is the hangover that you get from binge drinking.
To be fair to Mr. Trump, he is what he is. His message is
vile and his delivery is just as bad as his message. You could call Mr. Trump a
rabid dog that you bring home just to piss off the rest of the family. A rabid
dog is obviously rabid and anyone who touches it without gloves is pretty much
responsible for whatever happens to them.
Ms. Marine Le Pen is a different kettle of fish. If Mr.
Trump is a rabid dog, Ms. Le Pen is the loveable pooch that you bring home
because you think that she’s going to make the kids happy. Then, once you’ve
brought her home, she attacks everyone who tries to visit you and pisses all
over the furniture.
This is precisely something Ms. Le Pen has devoted her
political life to doing. Her predecessor as President of the National Front,
her father John-Marie Le Pen was one of Europe’s crazy racist politicians, who
was right wing to the extreme and proudly racist (he once promised to deport
France’s winning football team because they were of Arab and Negro decent).
Le Pen senior said outrageous things and he was a rabid dog.
While he had an appeal to certain segments of society, the majority would never
have voted for him because – well would you give the car keys to a rabid dog?
The old man managed to stir strong emotions, while 22 percent of people in
France had a favourable view of him, 63 percent had an unfavorable opinion of
him. You’re talking about a man who was accused of torturing people during the
Algerian Wars and was persecuted for assaulting someone (note – Mr. Le Pen
actually got involved in the doing of awful things, unlike Mr. Trump who talks
about it).
Mr. Le Pen had one fluke back in the 2002 Presidential
Election, when he made it passed the first round, beating the Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin. The French electorate quickly came to their senses and ensured
that Jacques Chirac (Not known for being the most honest of politicians) had a
crushing victory.
Ms. Le Pen understood that the harsh far-right policies of
the National Front made them unvoteable and has devoted her life to “De-demonizing”
the party. Today’s National Front is not the “anti-Semitic” talk shop that it
used to be. The “softer” image of the National Front under Ms. Le Pen has made
it vote-able. In the 2011-2012 Presidential Election, she managed to come in
third behind Nicholas Sarkozy and Francoise Hollande and ended up with more
votes than her father did in his best showing of the 2002 election.
Today, Ms. Le Pen enters the second round of the
Presidential Election with a very realistic of becoming the next French
President. In 2002, when her father made it past the first round, it was a sign
that the election would go to Jacques Chirac. Today, Ms. Le Pen trails her
rival by a mere two percent in the polls and given that her rival is an
inexperienced outsider, her chances are realistic.
How did she do it? The English comedian John Oliver says, “She
has dangerously normalized the National Front.” People who would never have
voted for her father because they thought he was a crazy old man, have happily
voted for her. In many ways, her father was easier. He was a devil that who
looked like the devil – admitting anything positive about him was an endorsement
of being a racist thug.
Ms. Le Pen is different and more dangerous. Papa Le Pen was
obviously the worst in us and in rational moments, we would never want him
around us in a bar let alone in the seat of power in one of the world’s biggest
economies. His daughter by contrast has made it such that we find that thinking
at worst is perfectly normal.
If you look and listen carefully to Ms. Le Pen, you’ll realise
that her message is essentially the same – racist, protectionist and nasty.
Yet, its packaged better. You’ll never catch Ms. Le Pen saying revolting things
like the Holocaust is a “mere detail of history.” But she’ll convince you, a well-educated
person, that it’s perfectly normal to hate black, brown and yellow people.
The other area where Ms. Le Pen presents a danger is the
fact that she has a reasonable image of competence. Mr. Trump made his inexperience
in politics an electable strength and glossed over his business failures.
However, once in power, the Trump administration has proven to be spectacularly
incoherent.
By contrast, Ms. Le Pen has succeeded in running her party
and instead of citing mad ideologues like Steve Bannon as an inspiration, Ms.
Le Pen has paid tribute to credible people like the late 1988 Nobel Laureate,
Maurice Allais. It makes her less frightening to a rational person, which in
turn should make her terrifying.
We live in an age of instants. We like instant food, instant
gratification and instant information. On one hand, we should celebrate
technology and the way it makes life easier. On the other, we should worry that
life isn’t encouraging us to think and analyze. Anyone with a brain cell should
be able to recognize the faults of a Donald Trump. His appeal may resonate with
some. He may touch us at the right moment, when we’re feeling down. However, a right-thinking
person will see that Trump’s message is essentially faulty and in many ways,
morally wrong. He is an obvious snake oil salesman who sells by bringing out
the worst in us.
Ms. Le Pen is more frightening because she isn’t obvious.
Instead of getting us to do something for the heck of it, she slowly persuades
us to think that out worst qualities are actually perfectly normal. Whether she wins or loses this election, she
has already done damage by making the worst instincts in any society normal and
acceptable. I can only pray that the French electorate prove more sensible than
the British and American ones and reject her at the polls. A racist thug in a
pretty face is still a racist thug.
