Reason Won in France

I WISH ALL IN AMERICA COULD READ THIS… but alas, we are still in the grip (stranglehold) of the Republican Party who will stop at nothing to reap power… and I mean NOTHING! (Even to allowing a proven enemy to interfere in our elections)thinkingblue
NOTES & ERRATA BY MARK MORFORD
It’s OK to admit it: France just gave the world hope
Excerpt: Everything Trump is not
And lo, the world did exhale. Just a little.
French media handled it all better. They did not bleat out endless fake news or tweet blatant misinformation – even merely to debunk it. They did not swarm all over the “scandalous” 9GB email dump that happened a hugely suspicious handful of hours before the election, the result of a coordinated (probably Russian) hack that targeted Emmanuel Macron.

They respected the traditional pre-election media blackout. They heeded the national rule not to publish false news. In short: The French media didn’t succumb to mania, the racist candidate didn’t encourage her followers to beat people up, the voters weren’t fazed, the polls proved accurate and the far better, more calmly intelligent candidate won.

And for a moment, all felt right in the world.

The best news of all? Despite months of icy dread, Marine Le Pen’s xenophobic, Trump-stabbed populism was crushed, quite overwhelmingly, by a 2-1 margin – though as many have pointed out, she can still claim that her party doubled its turnout percentage from when her father, another racist xenophobe, led the party. Translation: The far-right Nationalist Front is stronger than ever. So, you know, ne pas être complaisant.

There are other factors to consider. There is no Fox News equivalent in France. There are no extremist, fake-news tabloids of hate and fear, like Breitbart or Drudge, to bash lesser-educated voters into panicky compliance. There is no vicious gerrymandering of voting districts by the conservative party to give themselves easy wins, no attempts by the far-right to prevent minorities from getting to the polls or block the poor from voting.

More of this
Also, French elections are held on weekends, thus guaranteeing far stronger turnouts. In sum: France ain’t the U.S. More Here: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2017/05/08/its-ok-to-admit-it-france-just-gave-the-world-hope/