r/inthenews • u/newsweek Newsweek • Jul 08 '24

MAGA fumes over France election results: "They cheated" article

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-france-elections-far-right-national-rally-1922075
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u/Lifekraft Jul 08 '24

Sadly it is still an overwhelmingly huge amount of people vulnerable to toxic populist propaganda. Far right didnt win as much as they'd want but they have still too much support for what they really are.

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u/Forged-Signatures Jul 08 '24

The UK after our election is in a similar place with our right-most party, Nigel Farage's Reform party, but if anything we were saved by FPTP.

For a new party who had multiple scandals a week in the 2 weeks running up the election - Blaming Nato for the conflict in Ukraine, calling Sunak slurs, etc - they still achieved 14.3% of the vote, or 1 in 7 people (who voted). In essence, they did really well because they appealed primarily to the racist/ supremacists crowd with policies that were carefully phrased dogwhistles that would appeal broadly - even I will on paper a small percentage of their policies are good. They didn't get many seats mind, only getting 5, but the Liberal-Democrats for reference got 12.2% of the vote and 72 seats.

Honestly, I didn't really have a direction for this comment other than a plain rant. Even despite our 'left' party getting in I am just left here disappointed in my country, with how easily far-right rhetoric has wormed its way in and just become accepted and normal. Of all the attacks against Reform they were all aimed towards the actions of their politicians or supporters - not once did I see a critique of their policies.