US elections shockwaves hit Europe
DONALD TRUMP’S startling and explosive victory has not only shaken America’s oligarchy to its core, it’s also sending shock waves across Europe and scaring the top hats off plutocrats and their tame politicians.
Mark Twain wrote: “If you don’t read newspapers you are uninformed. But if you do read them, you are misinformed”. Amen.
As with the 2003 war against Iraq, the US media dropped its mask of phony impartiality and became a cheerleader for the Clintons and their financial backers.
Media was revealed as a propaganda organ for the ruling elite. No wonder its disgusted clients are decamping to online sources or just ignoring the biased media.
Amazingly, working class men and women rose up and overthrew the oligarchy, led by the corporate media and the selfenriching, war-promoting Clinton dynasty and its Davos friends. There was plenty of anguish among leftist groups and weepy young women, but America breathed a gigantic sigh of relief.
So did the stock market. So did ordinary white Americans royally fed up with the elite’s promotion of “diversity”, which they believe is a euphemism for mixing races, pushing junk popular culture, and advocating homosexuality, lesbianism, and bisexuality.
Across the Atlantic, political nerves were just as tense. Three major votes will be held in France, Germany and Italy, Europe’s core. The old order is scared to death by Trump’s crashing victory.
France holds a presidential primary in a month in which President François Hollande, is expected to be thrashed. Hollande’s public support now is struggling to reach 4%.
Former premier Nicholas Sarkozy has risen from the political dead and is preaching a farrago of populism, nationalism and Islamophobia. Many French don’t trust or like Sarko. He may face charges for accepting illegal campaign money from Muammar Gaddafi, in whose murder Sarko may be deeply implicated. Dead Libyans tell no tales.
Sarko’s rivals are former foreign minister Alain Juppé, a moderate conservative and ally of the ailing former president Jacques Chirac, who remains France’s most liked politician. Juppé, dignified, sensible, and moderate, is just what France needs after the disastrous socialist president Hollande.
But adding a wild card to the primary is the youthful exbanker and rightwing socialist Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister. He used to work for the French Rothschilds, arousing suspicions on the left and far right. Macron is expected to announce his candidacy soon.
Add in former prime minister François Fillon, a solid moderate with a reputation for strong ethics who may be able to stand up to France’s thuggish unions. Fillon, Juppé and Macron are all considered leftwing conservatives who can restore France’s staggering economy and fight the bureaucracy, teachers and the unions who can shut down key sectors of France’s economy.
Lurking in the background is the nemesis of France’s political system, Madame Marine LePen, leader of the hard right National Front. Anti-EU, antiglobalisation, and anti-Muslim. Le Pen, like her aged father Jean-Marie, is very popular and can articulate, like Trump, the anger and dismay of working whites.
She may knock the hapless Hollande out in the first round of voting in 2017. But Le Pen would then have to go on to defeat the moderates – Sarkozy, Fillon, Macron or Juppé. This will be tough because, as in previous elections, leftist and centrist voters will gang up to defeat her.
Such is conventional logic. But after Trump nothing is certain. Good! Our stagnant western economies and corrupt political systems badly need shaking up and refreshing. I say, “vive Monsieur Trump.”
On Dec 4, Italy holds an important referendum to modernise its rickety political structure. If voters reject it, Italy’s young, reformist premier, Matteo Renzi, has vowed to resign. This would likely plunge Italy into political confusion and encourage a looming banking crisis.
Finally, in Germany, Angela Merkel’s coalition government looks fragile. Many Germans are tired of the ultra-moderate Merkel and her cautious government which is often accused of being an American vassal. If Germany ever wakens from its post-1945 stupor, all Europe will shake.
So enter Donald Trump just at a time when Europe may be coming to a boil.
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