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So, How Worried Should I Be?
Sometimes when you’re far from home, it’s hard to gauge what’s really going on. I know how much the media distorts and exaggerates everything, often to the point of outright lying. I know most of what I read in the news about France is factually wrong at a minimum, hallucinatory at worst. This was true when I lived in Turkey, too, and don’t get me started on French coverage of American politics. If you only read the French newspapers, you’d believe utterly insane things about Americans. People here earnestly believe that we nourish ourselves entirely on burgers and Coca-Cola, shoot each other as a friendly way of saying hello, and are always making jokes about France like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIyEVb4vds
Announcer: We begin with Libya and this surprise: Nicholas Sarkozy wanted to take charge of the coalition, but in the end, it’s NATO that’s going to be leading this operation. Mr. Obama, why didn’t France obtain the command?
Obama: Is that a real question, dude?
Announcer: Um, yes, Nicholas Sarkozy really wanted to lead the troops.
Obama: I’m gonna tell you why that’s not possible, dude. Here are the top five reasons France can’t be in charge of the Libya operation:
Number 5: Because to lead, you need a great leader, and yours is smaller than my 12-year-old daughter, dude!
Number 4: Because the last battle you won was at Marignan in 1515, dude! And those guys were on horseback!
Number 3: Because the only place you need a Frenchman in charge is in the kitchen, man.
Number 2: Because I’m don’t feel like watching French war movies, dude. And Apocalypse Now with Clovis Cornillac would be all screwed up.
And the number one reason we can’t give the command to France? Because we want to win this friggin’ war, dude.
Yes, I know. It’s insane, but they really believe we make jokes like that about France. Nothing I say can convince them otherwise. They’ve read it in the news, so as far as they’re concerned, it’s true. They think we live on burgers, are regularly eaten by sharks, shoot each other in school for sport and relaxation, have such intense puritan hangups about unpasteurized cheese that we actually ban it, and spend all our time making fun of France. Can’t convince them otherwise.
So today I run into some French guy at the bakery who tells me all wide-eyed that people in New Hampshire — New Hampshire, like he could find it on a map — are overwhelmingly of the opinion that our next president should either be a self-declared socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union or the star of The Celebrity Apprentice.
Of course I laugh and tell him, “You can’t believe every crazy thing you hear about Americans, dude. We don’t do socialism. And that’s just a dumb TV show. We’re America. I promise.”
I walk away chuckling until ten minutes later, I’m picking up my mail, and the building manager says the same thing. Totally sure of it. A socialist, he insists, and this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt_NqIkFbK4
It’s nuts, right? But they both believe it. I’m shaking my head and thinking our public diplomacy has reached a new low. The Embassy should be countering rumors like this, why don’t they get ahead of this stuff?
Then I look at Le Monde. They’re actually reporting this. Front page.
Now I’m getting really annoyed. This is supposed to be a semi-serious newspaper, and they’re printing this? Don’t they have anyone on the staff who’s even visited the United States, just once?
Then I look at The New York Times. I know: Left wing rag. Can’t trust it.
Ricochet, just reassure me. New Hampshire. “Live Free or Die,” right? They did not just do that, did they? I can go nuts hearing these crazy rumors sometimes. Sometimes I’m almost convinced.
Published in General
How worried should you be? VERY. And that’s even if the current frontrunners lose. On the Democratic side, after a few more primaries,the socialist will be trailing the security risk in the delegate count. On the Republican side,either no one will drop out and Trump will be the nominee,or enough candidates will drop out so that the Republican establishment will fight tooth and nail to be sure that the next Republican nominee will be the one most likely to lose to the security risk.
To quote an old movie promo: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
<cynicism always on>
Claire, it’s just the second primary. I mean if you look at delegate counts for the GOP Trump has 17, Cruz 10, and Rubio 7. It’s still pretty close.
If you are worried that the Democrats are going to nominate a socialist, then have no fear because they are going to nominate a socialist–it’s just a matter of which one.
I still think that Trump is going to have issues once we get into the Southeast. I am not totally convinced that his supporters are the types to go out and vote in a primary–particularly if they are closed like the next few coming are. We have to let this process play out. So have your cafe de leche (sorry I know that is Spanish but I don’t speak Frog) and sit back and just enjoy the ride. Oh, I love French cheeses.
I wish I could reassure you, Claire. And since NH did not do us the favor of knocking out all the govs, we’re in for more Trump wins, I greatly fear. If we could get rid of most of these candidates, it would consolidate the majority of voters who hate him and he would lose handily, as he so richly deserves to do.
On the plus side, the tone of sorrow and incredulity in the BBC’s coverage of Hillary’s dire performance in New Hampshire was a delight to behold … I haven’t heard so much outraged disbelief since, well since the Tories won the UK general election last year…
I don’t understand why they would be upset. After all, even though she lost, she did lose to a socialist.
Well, they do have the living example of the ongoing and farcical slow implosion of the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn to show what happens to the “progressive” party’s electability when a septuagenarian unreconstructed marxist and his pals take the helm…
The Federalist Radio Hour discussed yesterday the unique appeal of Kasich to the NH voter. And, being related to two NH voters who pulled the lever for Kasich, there was a lot of “Cruz is a crazy Texan” and “Rubio is just a kid” feedback that we heard. Jeb also appealed to people as he was very good at the town halls, but even these Kasich voters thought the country had had enough of the Bush clan.
The fact that Cruz did “well” is interesting, as all our non NH Northeastern relatives are very down on him and would not be enthused about supporting him if he ended up with the nomination.
I can see a Dem campaign of “Support the crook/socialist/pervy VP/nanny state guy” over the crazy Texan and the Media stoking that fire like Casey Jones.
Worried? Why would you be worried. President Trump will be great he will hire the best people, and we are going to win! Win trade, win war, win diplomacy, win immigration. What? You don’t want to win?
Yes, I’m enjoying that, too. And The New York Times is having considerable trouble pulling itself together today as well.
I don’t understand the alarm.
Following a Bush admin that pushed the Patriot act, auto bailouts, TARP, and laid the ground for stimulus we responded by inaugurating a Muslim sympathizing marxist, all of which was known, and he promptly signed the takeover of the biggest portion of our economy.
The grassroots frustration with the Bush admin sowed the seeds of the Tea Party and they sprouted in 2009. A grassroots movement delivered the House of Representatives in 2010 to stop the Obama agenda.
We chose to send a guy with limp wrists that authored a state government healthcare to go against a street fighting thug that commissioned national healthcare. We then feigned shock that we lost.
The grassroots rose up and delivered the Senate and bolstered the House in 2014 to again stop the Obama agenda. Those we trusted spit in our face, funded the entirety of the Obama agenda, while our betters told us to shut up. Heck, they couldn’t even leave the Ex-Im bank in the crypt.
And now there is shock and awe that we’ve gone full leftist in the Democrat party and the leading candidate in the Republican party is a boisterous old man with early stage dementia/Alzheimers and limited grasp on our founding principles and Constitution?
You have to be kidding. Do you or anyone think that elections do not have consequences or that promises are not remembered? Hah. The only thing surprising is it is not worse. Yet.
I thought the last debate boiled down to “Win With Trump!”.
Yes, but he’s up against Cameron, not Bernie Ecclestone.
I know it’s a joke, but I do feel a bit sorry for the French. In the Anglo-Saxon mind the Sedan, 1940 and Dien Bien Phu always seem to trump Austerlitz, Verdun and Bir-Hakim…
Only a bit sorry mind you – given the UK’s own stellar record…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html
Not to worry, Claire. While the solutions may seem different, the problem seen by both the supporters of Bernie and The Donald is the same: the current system is not working for them they way they ‘feel’ it should work based on political promises old and new and on under-learned civics lessons in high school. Never fear. Post South Carolina, these seekers of a political revolution will again be stiffed by the ‘realpolitik’ of party machines and the American Experiment will roll on. A lot like Dr. Frankenstein’s.
What Brent said. I see posts and comments around this site lamenting that Trump is not conservative, etc. That’s like “Islam means peace” — it may be true and it may not, but it’s not the point in contention.
Anyway, is the crudity of the French humor somehow highbrow? Is it ironic? Is it hip?
Looks like MAD Magazine stuff to me. Put that in votre Fonque et Voigniole.
New Hampshire you had ONE JOB! ONE JOB!
In this economy, that job went away years ago.
I’m sure there’s a different Guatemalan willing to do the job each day of the week.
Live free or die: you chose poorly!
Well, the current Democrat office-holder is a Socialist, so why shouldn’t the next one be too?
Put it this way. My current nightmare is that I’ll wind up having to say stuff like, “Vote for the insulting buffoon: it’s important.”
In the last 48hrs I’ve had one lefty and one righty say to me of sanders and trump respectively, “how much worse could he be than Obama?” Heck of a standard. I guess we should get back to our burgers and guns.
Not to take this too far off the original post but the next Republican primary isn’t closed. Here in South Carolina there is no such thing as registration by party. You’re either a registered voter or you aren’t. On election day the poll worker asks you which ballot you want.
This year Republicans are holding their primary on Saturday, Feb 20th and Democrats on the 27th. You can’t vote in both and, yes, they check. Plus, we have had voter ID for a few cycles now and every precinct in the state uses the same touch screen machines.
It’s true, and what’s interesting about it is most Americans who’ve picked this up have just done it by osmosis, through the English language. It’s rarely because they’ve really thought about the French military record. France is actually pretty patient about this, all things considered. You probably saw that Fabius resigned this morning after taking one last shot at us for our Syria policy.
I’d worry less about the specific candidates and worry that the size of the government has metastasized to such a degree that it is no longer recoverable, and all the borrowing is just kicking the can down the road to an inevitable economic implosion.
Want to know why the Fed keeps rates down? Because if they tick up, debt service will start to consume such a big part of federal expenditures that the whole jig might finally unravel.
It seems that no candidate, ever, can shrink government spending. It’s a one-way street. That’s what should concern us, not which clown is taking his or her turn at the helm.
Highbrow? Ironic? Hip? Don’t tell me you don’t get these jokes.
Generations of the ‘conservative’ ‘establishment’ have told the populace that the reason to vote for them is that they’ll run the administrative state more competently than the other guys (who went to the same fancy colleges and will retire to indistinguishable lobbying firms or consulting positions). The other guys have told the populace for generation after generation that the ‘conservatives’ are evil incarnate. Both agree that whatever is wrong with your life is the fault of the opposition, and if you’ll only donate, volunteer and vote for X rather than Y, heaven is at hand.
Now we have a contest between someone who promises to bring in ‘top people’ to run the administrative state, and someone who’s core belief is that anyone to the right of him – which is most people – is evil incarnate. Quel, as they say, surprise.
That’s what I’m worried about. As of now, looks to me as if both frontrunning candidates from both major parties have never once thought about this problem. And both promising, explicitly or just as good, to flatline economic growth.
Man, I do hope we get our heads screwed on right, and fast.
Respectfully, I think Obama adheres more to Marxism.
The #Bern is real, and his campaign staffers will go on to take over the Democratic party, though I stand by the prediction that the candidate himself won’t win any other contests.
The Trump phenomenon is also real. I agree with Kevin D. Williamson’s analysis over at NR that it’s the re-emergence of the Perot-Buchanan voters.
Indeed; and spats about the EU notwithstanding, the revival of bilateral Franco-British military co-operation has been a significant, and largely unnoticed in the US, side-effect of Obama’s disengagement…
(Expect this budding romance to flower into a full-on marriage in the Sanders’ or Trump Presidencies)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/12143482/Sacre-Bleu-French-general-to-join-British-Army.html