I very very selfishly want people to be fed, educated and given all their basic needs. So the people I interact with are healthy, happier, and smart enough to be reasonable to deal with.
It's far and away the better outcome and it it's purely self and for my benefit only.
Yes, but you were probably born into a world where you actually have to interact with the peasants... If you hadn't been, then it's unlikely you've ever really had to come into contact with them in any way other than being their boss or hero. In that case, everyone you know and actually interact with (and consider to be a real person) already has all their needs met. And if you ever choose to lower yourself to work at all, it's just for the friendly competition with your economic peers to see who can hoard the most.
Honestly, most rich people are nepo rich, and probably have no idea how the majority of people live because they've literally never had a real interaction with anyone who's not also a nepo baby.
Macron's first and second presidential elections were second round left-centre team ups, right? Is there a reason to think it wouldn't happen this time?
Same as all liberals they rather protect capital and work together extreme right parties. Then giving some crumbs to the left.
Same happened in the Netherlands with the vvd and nsc. They are now in a cabinet with extreem right(wich the media isn't called extreme right any more but radical right) and in the senaat they will be working together with the FvD (a (proto) fascist party) and the sgp a extreme christian party.
He now hopes the left voters are so scared they vote for him and when he doesn't get a majority his party will work together with extreme right.
Edit: but not French, however we in the Netherlands already had this happen. Same is happening all over the western world and outside of it.
He believes that the majority hate racism more than him, it's a close run thing as he's been a right cunt as far as the far left and anybody fucked over by his reforms has been concerned.
He wants a fresh mandate to continue fucking over the electorate, that's his goal here and he thinks he can play chicken with fascists to get it, especially when fascists will promise any old shit that they have no intention of delivering.
He can't push through his reforms without support from parliament and the people, this his cack handed way of trying to get that. The president is not a god who can just do whatever he wants here, the french have repeatedly shown what will happen if he does try.
He's trying to get the people to fall in line behind him using the boogyman of Le Penn's mob so he can finish his reforms, it's way he's still doing regular press about this election despite him not being directly involved and him actually having a negative drag on the perception of the centre.
Since 1945, Germany’s parliamentary parties have refused all alliances with the far right. That changed yesterday in Thuringia, when liberals and Christian Democrats teamed up with neofascists to throw the Left out of office.
[...]
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party never managed to win a majority in a national election; instead, it was helped into office by conservatives who were more terrified of real socialism than they were of Hitler’s “national socialism.” Surely none of them could have anticipated the depths of cruelty to which the Nazis would eventually stoop, but they had little problem with curtailing democracy and repressing the Left if it guaranteed their hold on economic power.
Historical analogies are necessarily oversimplified, and the AfD in 2020 is light-years away from the Nazi Party in 1930. Nevertheless, with Germany’s parties of the Left declining in the polls and the AfD currently doing an excellent job portraying itself as the true party of the opposition, yesterday marked a worrying omen of what could become the new normal in Germany in the years to come.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party never managed to win a majority in a national election; instead, it was helped into office by conservatives who were more terrified of real socialism than they were of Hitler’s “national socialism.”
Are the social democrats the "conservatives" in this scenario? If so, was it really the social democrats who refused to work with the communists, or was it the communists who refused to work with the social democrats? The communists had no love for the SPD after they helped put down the Spartacist uprising in 1919, and many communists, even today, blame the SPD for the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. So, I don't think there's much validity to the implication that the social democrats and the communists could have formed a coalition if only the social democrats hadn't been so terrified of "real socialism." Also, not everyone sees Marxism-Leninism as "real socialism." I'm not sure there is consensus on what constitutes "real socialism," with every socialist faction believing only their socialism is the real socialism.
There were a number of objectively conservative parties that backed Hindenburg: Catholic Centre Party, BVP, DVP, and DStP. Hindenburg chose to support Hitler because of the threat posed by the left to the bourgeois interests he represented and because Hitler didn't really challenge said interests.
The SPD also chose Hindenburg over Thälmann, and if they knew he was going to support Hitler, then maybe they would've acted differently. But either way they weren't Hindenburg's core base of conservative support.
There were a number of objectively conservative parties that backed Hindenburg: Catholic Centre Party, BVP, DVP, and DStP.
That's true, which means there was no possibility of a coalition being formed that involved the KPD, regardless of SPD's feelings about the KPD. Believe me, I'm not denying that the SPD hated the KPD. I'm certain of it, and it looks like so did every other party. My point is that the KPD hated the SPD, and all those other parties, at least as much. That's the thing about Marxist-Leninists, they excel at making people hate them, and they're perfectly content to be completely on their own, politically and ideologically isolated from everyone else. A plurality of German voters literally chose Nazis over the MLs. Even today, I think there are more people who hate MLs than hate Nazis, and that's saying something because A LOT of people really hate Nazis, rightfully so.
Yes, after the SPD unequivocally supported a pointless war that got millions killed, crushed leftist opposition, and teamed up with the conservatives to enact austerity, they did kind of burn their bridges with the KPD. And yes, the bourgeois parties hated the Marxist-Leninists much more than the Nazis who they collaborated with. The results of both of those sets of actions were disastrous.
If only the KPD had been more powerful, not only could WWII have been prevented, but WWI might have been cut short too.
And yes, the bourgeois parties hated the Marxist-Leninists much more than the Nazis who they collaborated with.
You say "the bourgeois parties," but that's all the parties besides the KPD. That's more than 80% of German voters in 1932. After the depression, the war, the austerity, more people still voted for the SPD, and all the other parties, than the KPD. Those voters couldn't all be members of the capitalist class. In fact, I'm pretty darn certain they were mostly working class people.
First off, no, I'm referring to (at least some of) the parties I listed earlier as Hindenburg's base as bourgeois parties. I suppose you could include the Nazis and the SPD, but that's not how I'm using the term, note that I said "the bourgeois parties... [and] the Nazis who they collaborated with," implying a distinction.
Second, a bourgeois party is a party representing bourgeois interests and receiving bourgeois support. Working class people can and did support bourgeois parties, though as history showed, they shouldn't have.
"the bourgeois parties... [and] the Nazis who they collaborated with," implying a distinction.
A distinction without a difference. Whether explicitly bourgeois parties or not, the Nazis and SPD were both vehemently opposed to the ideology of the KPD, and those two parties received a majority of the votes in the 1932 election.
Working class people can and did support bourgeois parties...
And do, still. By the millions, in every election. Or, at least, if not explicitly bourgeois parties, parties that are based on some form is liberal ideology, not necessarily in opposition to bourgeois interests, and that often are aggressively opposed to Marxism-Leninism.
A distinction without a difference. Whether explicitly bourgeois parties or not, the Nazis and SPD were both vehemently opposed to the ideology of the KPD, and those two parties received a majority of the votes in the 1932 election.
Yes, and that's why Hindenburg won and appointed Hitler.
And do, still. By the millions, in every election. Or, at least, if not explicitly bourgeois parties, parties that are based on some form is liberal ideology, not necessarily in opposition to bourgeois interests, and that often are aggressively opposed to Marxism-Leninism.
Yes, which is unfortunate and concerning, especially as the bourgeoisie tend to ally with the far-right to stop the left, which brought Hitler to power which is happening now with the CDU and the AfD, as pointed out in the article linked at the start of the conversation.
Macron doesn't hate the far right because he shares quite a lot of ideas with them. His career is over, he doesn't care what people think now. He is with them
He thinks he's a genius. In his own words, this early election was a grenade thrown into the legs of his opponents.
It was supposed to fracture the left, traditionally unable to agree on a common program. And it was supposed to kill the right, which is struggling to find political space between his party (authoritarian center-right) and the far right.
He thought that only his party would have the time to organize itself to campaign and present itself as the savior against the far right, which would have restored his legitimacy, which had just been called into question by the European elections.
I would be astounded at his complete failure to accurately assess the political landscape, but I’ve seen some shit so I’m just annoyed about it and a bit suspicious that it was his intention all along to work with the far right.
Not French but heard he wants to let the right win to show how crazy they are in power and to discredit them while he still controls the presidency and blocks anything too crazy, ushering in an easy presidential bid for his successor. Apparently he doesn't see the left the same and thinks them being in power would help them/ hurt him more.
He's playing with fire like Hindenburg in the 30s, and we saw how that went.
