Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
This is another item we've held off on, although not for the same reasons as the previous one. Everyone reading this knows by now that France has been gripped by rioting, primarily at the hands of young people who are angry about the condition of their schools, and about the general economic hopelessness they feel.
The reason we did not write about it was that it was hard to see exactly how to connect it to American politics. The political culture of France is pretty different from the political culture of America. As a colleague remarked to (Z) yesterday, when discussing this item, "In America, people fear the government. In France, the government fears the people." There's a lot of truth to that. And though Americans, including younger Americans, are being buffeted by many of the same forces (thanks in no small part to the Iran War), we just did not (and do not) foresee mass uprisings in America in the immediate future.
But now, we have something to write about. As it turns out, in an odd kind of way, the news out of France is something of a political litmus test. When (Z) heard about the news, his thought was, "Well, this is kinda what you're risking in a society when you allow too much wealth to accumulate in too few hands, and you allow too many people to live without hope of a stable and secure future." That may have been political bias speaking. Or it may have been the training as a historian speaking. Or it may have been (Z)'s students speaking, since that is their take on the situation (at least, that's the take of the students who stayed after class to discuss it).
This is not, as it turns out, the instinctive right-wing assessment. We could have guessed that if we'd paused to consider it, but it just didn't occur to us to do so. Anyhow, French far-right nutter Marine Le Pen, who aspires to be the next leader of her nation, has been leveraging this for all it's worth. To her, the lesson is not "this is the price of economic inequality." No, the lesson is, "this is what happens when you let immigrants into your country, and also when your police force isn't quite fascist enough."
And in the last few days, right-wingers in the United States have taken the cue. They tend to agree about the evils of immigrants, but think the other culprit here is actually socialism. Here are a few examples, all of them from the various social media platforms:
Donald Trump: The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST! President DJT
J.D. Vance: Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion. They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility. They were told it would lead to this and they didn't listen.
I pray that France, a beautiful country of amazing people, will stop this madness before more of its landmarks burn.
And I hope Americans are paying attention. This is the future congressional Democrats seek for your country.Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA): France is descending into chaos because they wanted OPEN BORDERS—just like the socialist Democrats in America.
What we are witnessing is a chilling warning for all Americans of what happens if the radical Marxist insurgent left gets their way.
America is not merely in a battle of political ideologies—it's a battle for the preservation of our civilization, our freedoms, and our way of life.
If Democrats take back control, it will be open borders and criminal illegals overrunning our country, many of whom want to destroy it.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): We are witnessing Islamists right now burning Paris because Europe has committed cultural suicide.
We should look to France as foreshadowing for what America faces if we don't stop this here.
We are fighting to save our nation.Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): What you're seeing in France is the natural and eventual consequence of the Suicidal Empathy so many in The West have adopted. It's tragic.
It's one of the reasons I fight so hard on the mass migration issue here in our homeland—America.
It's not too late but we must take illegal immigration, problems with legal immigration seriously and not flinch on deportations.
Let us pause here to take note of two things. First, these messages use a lot of the same rhetoric, and were posted around the same time. Clearly, there's some coordination going on here. Second, J.D. Vance is so unbelievably bad at this. Actually, what we should really say is that he's sofa king bad at this. Either way, he can't rabble rouse to save his life.
We've had a few readers write in to ask if we think this will work. And our very strong gut feel is: "no." Part of that is that Trump & Co. are sending up so many Hail Mary passes right now, our instinctive response is to assume that they'll all drop without being caught. As readers can see, that theme will continue through the rest of this posting.
The other part of it, however, is that we think there are just too many moving parts here. You have to start with the view that Americans are well aware of what's going on in France (not usually a great assumption) and, critically, they are outraged by it. Then they have to accept that the villains here are immigrants and/or socialists, and that immigrants and/or Democratic Socialists in America are champing at the bit to do the same thing, if only given the chance. Finally, they have to believe that the only thing holding back the barbarians at the gate is the Republican Party. We don't doubt that there are people out there who can accept all the links in the chain, but we suspect those folks are already voting GOP.
Compare this to Laken Riley, whose death was weaponized by Trump and his party with some degree of success. She was American (so, not French), she was attractive and white, she was murdered, and it was an immigrant who did it. There are many fewer steps there for those who want to do a little scapegoating. Basically, it was brown non-American --> dead white cute American. Very simple, even if the claims about how immigrants commit a vast number of crimes, far disproportionate to their numbers, were utter nonsense.
So no, we don't think this will change the calculus. And we don't think the other two Hail Mary passes we're writing about today will, either. (Z)