Comment by jahaja
5 years ago
> And Macron is the left candidate—his far-right opponent is now receiving 45% of the support in polls.
A centre-right candidate doesn't become "left" just because there's a far-right candidate. Maybe in the US that rhetoric works, but not in the EU.
What poll are you referring to where Macron's far-right opponent received 45%? Le Pen has 26% - less than Macron - from what I can see [0].
> A centre-right candidate doesn't become "left" just because there's a far-right candidate.
He's the more left candidate for purposes of this comparison, which is to compare where the U.S. is relative to France. So if Macron is to the right of Trump on muslim immigrants (and I think it's fair to say he is), and 45% of French support a candidate that is even further right, I think it's fair to say the U.S. is well to the left of France on the issue.
I was citing a head-to-head matchup in the second round: https://www.ft.com/content/6d8b9c7a-412c-11ea-a047-eae9bd51c...
> A recent Ifop opinion poll put Ms Le Pen narrowly ahead of Mr Macron for an assumed first round of the 2022 election, and within a few percentage points of victory in the second round (45 per cent to his 55 per cent)
Sigh, that's just so blatant cherry-picking. Macron is deeply unpopular for his neo-liberal "reforms" that caused the yellow vests protests, a head-to-head polling against other candidates would likely render similar results.
It’s not cherry picking. An American candidate that had said the things Le Pen has said would be completely unviable. There is a reason that Trump—who is concerned outside the American norms even among many Republicans—is always accused of using “coded language” and “dog whistles.” That’s because in the US, even the “right wing fascist” candidate can’t get away with saying the overtly racist things that European right-wing people can get away with.
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>He's the more left candidate for purposes of this comparison, which is to compare where the U.S. is relative to France.
IMHO, the Democratic Party to En Marche is a fair comparison, but Our Revolution to En Marche is just silly. At that point, at least compare Our Revolution to the Parti Socialiste (a conventional European social-democratic party) and DSA to La France Insoumise (ie: the democratic socialist party founded by a former leader of the French Communists).
A centre-right candidate doesn't become "left" just because there's a far-right candidate.
Biden faces that. He's not a classic leftist, like Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, Gene McCarthy, or Hubert Humphrey, all of whom were presidential candidates. To today's GOP, Eisenhower and Reagan would be considered too far left.