One of the blogs I read regularly is “the issue” written by Umair Haque. Umair Haque is a British economist, consultant, and author. His latest post is “How France Saved Its Democracy, Why it Matters, and What to Learn from It.”
The United States could lose its democracy if the Trumpist far-right demagogues gain the White House. As Umair points out in his post, Emanuel Macron, president of France, warned the French people that France’s democracy could die and said it depends entirely on the choices made now. The United States is in the same situation France faced until last Sunday. The center and left of France came together and formed a Republican Front. In French politics, the “republican front” describes a combined effort of several mainstream political parties and their voters to minimize the changes of the far right winning elections.
The Far-right in the United States is the “new” Republican party defined as Trumpism. But unlocked from the Heritage Foundation is a blueprint to destroy liberal democracy. The blueprint is contained in the Heritage document, Project 2025. This ultra-conservative think-tank has brought together hundreds of conservative individuals, some of whom were in Trump’s 2016 administration, as well as many conservative organizations. Project 2025 is a 900+ page document that will mandate a right-wing government led by a Republican president. Donald Trump says he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025. He posted this on his blog. However, I found his name in the 2025 document in 312 locations.
Project 2025 is a dangerous and comprehensive right-wing plan. It is cruel and nightmarish. It takes away all rights for women’s reproductive rights. It aims to fire thousands of government workers and replace them with Trump loyalists. You can even go to the 2025 website, and apply for a job in the next Republican government, if you pass the loyalty test.
There is no question that the only way to prevent Project 2025 from becoming a reality is to make the choice now that Joe Biden is the right choice and that we need to unite to create a “front” like the French did to cast aside the right-wing party in France.
Umair Haque’s Blog Post on the French Election
As I said above, I read Umair’s blog whenever he posts.
I’m posting the first part of his post, which he splits into three parts: The Warning, Front by Front, and The Surge; you can read his complete post here. What he has to say is relevant to our presidential election. Read what he has to say, and think about how what the French did, and especially President Macron. The Democrats need to realize the reality of what the right wing in our country is planning if they gain the White House. It’s incredibly dire, given the Supreme Court voting to give the president immunity from criminal prosecution for acts that are part of the president’s job.
Hi! How’s everyone. It’s been an amazing few days, hasn’t it? Today we’re going to talk about…what just happened in France, and the lessons it holds for us all.
So. How did the French save their democracy? It was a huge shock, an upset, a genuine surprise. The polls were all turned upside down. How did all that come to pass?
I think it happened in three key steps. The first one?
The Warning
A while back, seeing the writing on the wall, about a month ago now, Emanuel Macron did something remarkable, special, and brave. He talked to the French people in frank, open, and stark terms, giving one of the most powerful and important speeches of the 21st century, as I put it then.
Let me quote from it, because it begins with something you’ll almost never hear a politician do: he admitted he failed.
Here we are. And we must be clear-sighted: we have not succeeded everywhere, particularly when it has come to making our Europe more democratic. It is clear that progress has been limited on this point, sometimes out of timorousness…
We have responded swiftly to the crises we have faced, and united, which means today we can stand together and be here.
But is that enough? Can I stand before you and deliver a satisfied speech, saying “We have done everything well, it’s wonderful, Europe is strong. Let us continue as we have done”? Clear-sightedness and honesty command me to recognize that the battle is not yet won, far from it, and that as the next decade approaches – for that is the horizon we must look to – there is an immense risk that we might be undermined or relegated. Because we are at an unprecedented time of global upheaval, and great transformations are accelerating.
And then he says something even more remarkable and important.
My message today is simple. Paul Valéry said, at the end of the First World War, that we now know that our civilizations are mortal. We must be clear on the fact that our Europe, today, is mortal. It can die. It can die, and that depends entirely on our choices. But these choices must be made now.
So there’s the French President, warning his entire country that…it’s mortal. That these things called civilizations can die. He’s speaking brutally, openly, and absolutely to the point.
And he’s the only leader on the side of democracy to have done that so far. The point I made when we discussed this speech was that so far, we all feel this way—civilization’s at risk—and yet it’s only the right who openly discusses it. The side of democracy shies away from it. It doesn’t like admitting just what Macron did, that he failed, democracy’s side is failing, and “civilizations are mortal”, in this speech, which will go down in history…
Because now we know what happened next. Macron’s speech appears to have registered. It’s not that it alone changed the election. It didn’t. But it certainly played a crucial role. It was a warning.
Suddenly, Macron sounded like one of us…”alarmists”…not a standard establishment neoliberal politician trumpeting the same old BS the world’s been hearing for decades now, even as things fall apart.
Then he does something even more astonishing. Check this out:
“We have always chosen to place humankind, in the broadest sense of the word, above all else. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and the end of totalitarian regimes, that is what has defined Europe.
It’s the choice we have made time and again and it’s what has set us apart from others. It’s not some naïve choice where we delegate our lives to industrial heavyweights on the grounds that they’re too powerful. That doesn’t align with Europe’s choices and humanism. It’s the choice not to delegate our lives to powers of state control, which have no respect for the freedom of rational individuals. It means believing in individuals who are free and endowed with reason. It means believing in knowledge, freedom, and culture. It means the constant tension between tradition and permanence and modernity. Being European involves an imbalance, and that is what we must defend. This humanism is very fragile but it is what sets us apart from others. And I’m here to argue that that’s what is at stake right now. We must defend it because, as I was saying, liberal democracy is not a given. I’m saying this today, on a very important day, and I’m thinking of our Portuguese friends, 50 years to the day after the Carnation Revolution.”
In other words, he reminds the French, Europe, and all of us, of the power of democracy. In particular, of France’s beautiful and sophisticated conception of it, which is the most intellectually advanced in the world, humanist, existentialist, universalist democracy.
Politicians don’t give speeches like this. But they should. I said at the time it was an incredibly powerful moment, and I think I was right, because it sort of began to crack open people’s minds a little bit, reminding them how grave and momentous the choices that were before them really were.
If you doubt how powerful that is, imagine Biden, or any American politician, saying similar things. They don’t, from humanism to enlightenment to all of humanity and so on. They barely have the courage to talk about fascism. They’ll never admit they failed. Macron did all that, and it changed France’s national discourse, immediately.
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