Something of a miscellany this week. Rather than focus on the latest manifestations of Trumpian idiocy (although they won’t be completely ignored), I’ve found some other stuff which I find interesting, at least.
We’ll begin in Ireland. Prime Minister Enda Kenny is very damaged goods, and Irish politics currently revolves around when he’s going to do the decent thing and step down as Taoiseach. You’ll remember that he visited the Orange House, and we had a look at the immediate reactions last week. What’s fascinated me is the second thoughts that have appeared this week.
Stephen Collins in the Irish Times has a piece lamenting the state of political journalism. Not the American press, but the Irish. I don’t pretend to understand exactly what the issues he mentions are, but I recognise the problem he complains of, and you probably will too (although you may have to flip your mindset back to its Obama-era state):
The contrast between the domestic and international media treatment of Enda Kenny’s St Patrick’s Day speech in Washington should provoke some analysis about the way politics is routinely covered in this country.
It was only the international acclaim for the Taoiseach’s speech from such highly regarded liberal voices as the New York Times and historian Simon Schama that prompted a reassessment by the Irish media about what had happened in Washington.
If Channel Four news and the New York Times had not generated a wave of positive coverage across the globe, the accepted narrative at home would have remained one of a supine Irish leader tugging the forelock to president Donald Trump.
…
A more fundamental problem may be that significant elements of the media present politics through a distorting lens that assumes the Government of the day is always acting from the basest possible motives.
Thus the efforts of mainstream politicians to wrestle with the complex problems facing Irish society are frequently misrepresented and their motives called into question when they make choices that provoke opposition from any quarter.
…
The Washington episode might serve some useful purpose if it prompts a little self-analysis on the part of the media about the dividing line between a critical approach to politics, which is entirely appropriate, and a destructive cynicism which is proving itself so dangerous to the future of parliamentary democracy.
It is a natural feature of democracy that voters are generally suspicious about what their politicians are getting up to. However, that healthy scepticism can be transformed into something sinister if people are fed a constant diet of negativity about all mainstream politicians.
It is of course fair to say that when the Government of the day is the US Republican Party, it is eminently sensible to assume that it is always acting from the basest possible motives, but the general point about political reporting is well-made.
Eoin O'Malley in the Irish Independent offers one reassessment of Kenny’s visit:
A man with one of the hardest necks in politics met the one with the thinnest skin in Washington last week, and it passed off without incident.
There were a couple of Enda Kennys that could have turned up to meet Donald Trump. Many were willing the Enda Kenny that can get the tone pitch perfect, as in his speeches on the Cloyne Report and the Tuam babies, to show up.
The audience at home wanted to see him stick it to Trump. We wanted him to raise the issue of the Muslim travel ban and America's declining standing.
Given Trump's famously thin skin and Kenny's previous comments about Trump's "racist and dangerous" language, that would have been risky. Diplomacy isn't about making yourself feel good, it's about getting something - which often means making those whom you don't like feel good.
Did the other Enda Kenny turn up? He turned the Paddywhackery level up to full volume. He didn't quite do a jig, but he looked as if he would be willing to if his "new friend" had urged him. Rather than standing tall, and looking to lure Irish emigrants home to a country that is much improved for Kenny's time in office, he looked for a deal on illegal Irish immigrants in the US, and a deal to allow 10,000 more to join them on E3 visas.
…
Kenny issued an invitation to the whole pub to go back to his house for a party, knowing that he won't be home when they get there, or have to clear up the mess in the morning. Kenny has form here. His Seanad referendum defeat was based on the need to give the press something to report at a Fine Gael dinner. He could easily have later reconsidered. It was a pointless referendum that would deliver nothing, but he went ahead with it anyway.
It is also his propensity to misspeak that is the proximate cause of his imminent resignation. He got confused about the details of what he said or didn't say, and heard or didn't hear on the Garda whistleblowers. An election loomed. Fine Gael TDs looked doomed.
This was always Kenny's problem. He could be effective in set pieces, but fail when he was forced to think on his feet. He can make the Cloyne speech well, but last week got lost down a rabbit hole of Jesuitical argument in trying to distinguish between racism and racist language.
…
So what we got last week, as we have gotten throughout his premiership, was a mix between the two Kennys. The pointed way he spoke on the benefits of Irish immigration to the US can't have been lost on Trump. Kenny wisely chose to make the message palatable by wrapping it in shillelaghs and shamrock.
He did us proud, and embarrassed us at the same time.
In the same paper, Colette Brown is much more critical:
Enda Kenny is receiving international acclaim for lecturing US President Donald Trump on the value of immigration, but his fine words ring hollow when his Government continues to warehouse asylum applicants in institutions for years.
The Taoiseach should give his speech writers a raise. Having gone to the US a busted flush, after narrowly avoiding a motion of no confidence from his own parliamentary party members, he has returned a star.
In a perfectly pitched speech, which framed St Patrick as the patron saint of immigration, Mr Kenny spoke emotively about the role of generations of Irish emigrants in making America great again.
"For decades, before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the wretched refuse on the teeming shore. We believed in the shelter of America, in the compassion of America, in the opportunity of America. We came and became Americans," he said.
It was quite the feat - managing to imbue the misty-eyed paddywhackery of the annual shamrock ceremony in Washington with some actual gravitas. An effusive piece in 'The New York Times' said Mr Kenny had "lectured" the American president on the "virtues of America's immigrant legacy and the contributions that immigrants had made to the country".
…
While Mr Kenny went to America seeking special favours for illegal Irish immigrants, thousands of people seeking asylum are languishing indefinitely in institutions in this country.
The Irish Refugee Council has condemned 'direct provision' as "an example of a government policy which has not only bred discrimination, social exclusion, enforced poverty and neglect, but has placed children at a real risk".
...
If the Department of Justice had no knowledge of this kind of behaviour, it was not because it had not been told. It was because it was not listening. As recently as last month, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan delivered a judgment in the Court of Appeal that derided the system as "dysfunctional" and said "endemic delays blight the lives of those forced to wait indefinitely in our system of direct provision".
Given all of this - the myriad reports that have highlighted the gross iniquities of our own asylum system - it really took some neck for Mr Kenny to cast himself as some kind of enlightened civil rights evangelist during his encounter with Donald Trump.
After that lengthy digression, time for some Trump in the company of Mark Steel:
There’s been so much sneering about Donald Trump’s claim that Obama was wiretapping him, it’s heartening he’s had a chance to explain himself. In an interview with Time magazine he says: “Because a wiretapping is, you know today it is different than wiretapping. It is just a good description.”
…
Once he’s allowed to make his case, it all becomes clear. For example, at one point he declared there had been an Islamist terror attack the previous night in Sweden, though no one in Sweden was aware of this. Recently he explained his statement had been accurate, because there was a riot in a small town in Sweden, only two days after he’d said there had been the terrorism the night before.
You see, give someone a chance to fill out the details and it all becomes clear.
It’s a shame the television news isn’t this careful with their reports. BBC News could start: “The Taj Mahal burned down last night, and all the rhinos have escaped from Bristol Zoo.” And even if it hadn’t happened, it would still be true because a couple of days earlier there were strong winds in Suffolk.
But while the world checks the accuracy of Trump’s announcements, he calmly pursues his main agenda. Yesterday he tried to scrap the healthcare scheme introduced by Barack Obama, and replace it with his own.
The type of changes arising from this cheery new system would be a rise in payments of 30 per cent for 64-year-olds, which makes sense because if people can’t make the effort to be 28, why should the rest of us subsidise them?
…
It’s unclear whether Trump’s changes will be passed, as even some Republicans fear this obvious transfer of wealth to the rich will dampen morale among many of Trump’s own supporters. There are a lot of arguments that could be made to try and win these people away from Trump on this issue, though it’s hard not to feel the most attractive one is: “THAT’S WHAT YOU BLOODY VOTED FOR YOU STUPID OLD TOSSPOTS. DON’T PRETEND IT’S A SURPRISE AND GO ‘OOH, WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT A BILLIONAIRE WITH A GOLDEN LIFT WHO SAID HE WAS GOING TO SCRAP OBAMACARE WOULD BRING IN A SCHEME THAT FAVOURED THE RICH’?”
But it might be more productive to ignore it altogether, and concentrate on him putting out a tweet saying: “Al Gore set fire to my tortoise. Fact.”
That last bit is slightly out of date now. I’ve not gone looking for the articles reacting to Friday night’s victory because I reckon it will be more interesting to see the comments appearing once the dust has settled a bit. I’m also not bothering with the Russian connection stuff, because I haven’t seen anything which really adds to the US coverage.
So I’m now going to take a look at the state of the French Presidential election.
We’ll ease in with a piece from Bernard Chambaz assessing the Trump effect:
I have crossed the continent several times from coast to coast and I still think that we can not understand American reality without having traveled the country, seen with our eyes seen this poor, toothless America, ravaged by this oxymoron of savage liberalism, subject to the greed of the shareholders of the financial system. When I covered the 2004 campaign, I met a New York Metro unionist who was raising bonsai trees by telling me about John Reed and Miss Texas who was patting my knee while wiping her tears of joy for the victory of her childhood friend George W., reelected more or less against all expectations and in any case against Kerry.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, American elections have impressed us with various parameters: the endless recount of 2000; The high level of abstention (over 45% in 2016 and in the same lukewarm area since the 1970s); The rising star Obama in 2008, and one can recall Laurent Wauquiez running that summer to Denver where the Democratic nomination convention was held and proudly declare: "Our future is played out in part here" ; The day of 2012 when Mitt Romney was on the verge of giving up because thirty years ago he had Seamus, his setter, traveling on the roof of his car.
2017 advances with the shadow cast of the US election of 2016 - much like the trees in Birnam Wood. There is, then, the comedy of the primary; The unexpected success of Sanders; The inaccuracy of the polls; The disintegration if not the explosion of the traditional political parties; ...The unbearable weight of religions; Trump’s victory which left everyone rather stunned; Hence the defeat of Hillary Clinton whose candidature was not impressive. If you wanted a woman, with both hands I would applaud Elizabeth Warren.
To this shadow, we must of course add the global international context. That is to say the success of the Brexit vote, whatever the reasons, but reviving the double unforgettable camouflage of the 2005 referendum; The rise of "populism" throughout Europe, a vast and complex issue; The new ascendancy taken by Russia and the presumptions of cyber attacks.
In other words, the victory of Marine Le Pen made possible by a false mirror effect; The usury of traditional political forces; The race to cynicism; The bottomless discourse of demagogy; Infantilism of the type that finds the hand caught in the cookie jar; The indecency of a transgression of the rules in good conscience; The dilution of words.
But Marine Le Pen’s chances seem to be receding. She did very poorly in the recent debate, as expertly explained by Mark Lippman a couple of days ago, and has not done herself many favors by suddenly appearing in Moscow:
his is his first official meeting with the leader of a great power. On a visit to Moscow on Friday, Marine Le Pen met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. An appointment that was not on the official agenda of the candidate frontiste: she planned a meeting with the President of the Duma, Viatcheslav Volodyne.
Announced at the last minute...it was therefore in the official residence of the Russian president that Marine Le Pen continued his Moscow day. And next to the supreme interlocutor: the television broadcast images of his very first meeting with Vladimir Putin. An interview of one and a half hours, according to the diplomatic adviser of Marine Le Pen, Ludovic de Danne.
"It is interesting to talk with you about how to develop our bilateral relations and the situation in Europe. I know that you represent a European political spectrum that develops fairly quickly, "said the Russian president, defending himself from seeking to " influence future events " : " We reserve the right to communicate with representatives of all forces as our European partners and the United States do. " For her part, Marine Le Pen praised her powerful host: " I defend a multipolar world and I defend cooperation between Free nations. I think that Vladimir Putin also represents a new vision of the world.
If this is the first official meeting of Le Pen and Putin, frontist sources have in the past evoked one or two other interviews that have taken place in recent years and remained secret. The relations between the FN and Russia are the subject of many speculations, notably about a loan of 9.4 million granted in 2014 to the party by a Russian bank. At the same time, the Lepenist movement did not spare its support for Moscow, engaged in a proxy war on Ukrainian soil. Marine Le Pen has also considered valid the disputed referendum that resulted in the connection with Russia of the Crimea, formerly Ukrainian. And demands the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia.
While in recent months François Fillon had seemed to dispute with the frontist the role of better ally in France of the Putinian regime, the meeting this Friday allows Marine Le Pen to display her privileged relationship with Russia.
Fillon is the candidate of the French Republicans, bizarrely described in one London paper as “center-right” though he’s actually very right-wing. He was thought to be the one most likely to advance to the run-off along with Le Pen, but he has suffered a lot of setbacks. The big one being that he’s under criminal investigation for paying his wife out of public funds for non-existent work.
He naturally thinks this is totally unfair and has alleged that it is the work of a “black cabinet” operated secretly by President Hollande (now where have I heard of a paranoid right-wing candidate allegedly being spied on etc by a secret group run by a President from a left-leaning party? I’m sure it will come to me sometime). So he went on Antenne 2’s “Politics Show” to defend himself. As Alain Auffray reports, it didn’t go well:
For his second participation in Politics Show, his last chance to revive a campaign engulfed in scandals, he had carefully prepared, step by step, his proclamation of innocence. It was to conclude, after having recognized "errors" , by a coup d'éclat in the form of a counter-attack: the solemn questioning of François Hollande, according to him,the man who has crated a conspiracy intended to defeat him. Relying on the revelations of the book- investigation Welcome Place Beauvau, signed (ironically) by three journalists of the Canard Enchaîné [a satirical magazine] , the candidate asked for the opening of an investigation into political espionage practices committed by François Hollande.
On this attack, the head of state replied on Thursday evening denouncing the "false allegations of the candidate" . Following him, Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas issued a statement in the middle of the night to remind that Fillon "systematically voted against all the texts reinforcing the independence of justice and promoting the freedom of information" . More boring still for Fillon, one of the authors of the book, Didier Hassoux, believes to have been misread. Interviewed by France Info , he explained that his investigation does not claim to demonstrate the existence of a "black cabinet" at the Elysee.
…
"I have dedicated myself to public affairs for thirty-six years," said Fillon, recalling his many mandates as mayor and region president, as well as his ministerial career. "Has my integrity been questioned even once? My ability to make decisions in the public interest? Never. And suddenly, two months before the presidential election, I became a sulphurous and corrupt character. " With this prologue, already recited in several of his speeches, the candidate intends to bring to light the conspiracy of which he claims to be a victim. It was thought necessary to add to this confidence: under these circumstances, he often "thought of Pierre Bérégovoy," the former prime minister who shot himself in the head on May 1, 1993.
"Because you have been tempted by suicide? " Pujadas wanted to know.
"I understood why one could be driven to that when the image that is given of you is the opposite of what you are, in any case what you believe to be."
…
Christine Angot saw the height of indecency. She told him publicly in an exchange of rare violence, "That reference to Beregovoy that you did just now. That is not acceptable sir ," she said. "Are you blackmailing us with suicide?" She added under the outraged gaze of the public who began to protest loudly against the guest, unheard of in this type of program. Always calm in appearance though obviously shaken by the violence of the charge, Fillon asked the writer if she could not "understand" that he felt "wounded by false accusations . " Far from calming things down, he drew a response in the form of a coup de grace: "oh it's sad, you make me sorry," Angot said ironically.
As in other European countries, the parties of the Left are doing abysmally, which leaves the front-runner as Emmanuel Macron. My preferred first-round candidate was Francois Bayrou, leader of the Mouvement Democratique (or MoDem) — one of that party’s candidates for an expat seat in the legislature later this year is also a member of my local Liberal Democrats — but he has pulled out and thrown his support to Macron, and enough of his voters have decided to do the same to push Macron to the number one in the charts slightly ahead of Le Pen. He’s getting support from everywhere: this graphic shows the figures from other parties who have endorsed him (putting it through GoogleTranslate, the graphic doesn't show up), and they come from both left (Partie Socialiste and others) and right (Les Républicains and others).
Here’s a lengthy interview he gave to Libération:
The lack of leadership in Europe is nothing new ...
Yes, but today there is an emergency. In recent months, the world has become much more uncertain and dangerous. For the first time, many foreign leaders openly wished for the weakening of Europe: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, as well as the great authoritarian leaders of the Near and Middle East. The Heads of State and Government of the founding countries of the Union, Germany and France in the first place, today have a historic role to play: to rebuild Europe and to hold positions on Security and immigration issues. It is also a German priority. If the Chancellor received me in Berlin last week, it is because she is worried about the French situation and thinks that France is the country with which she can build. And what is true of Angela Merkel is also true of Martin Schulz.
Is Germany less fascinated by what is happening in the East?
For two years, she has changed her strategy. Before, she was looking towards Russia and China. At that time, more than half of its foreign trade was outside the euro zone, which never happened in our common history. Germany had turned away from us. The Chinese slowdown, the Russian crisis on values, as well as the Polish authoritarian drift, have reoriented it. Angela Merkel has returned to France: she has taken the side of Europe, the defense of democracy and our common principles. This is one of my great disagreements with Mrs Le Pen, Mr Fillon and Mr Melenchon: their fascination for Putin's Russia is deleterious. It is certainly necessary to discuss with Russia to ensure the stability of the Middle East. But let us not forget who they are, what they do, and the nature of their regime.
Does not your defense at all costs of Europe open the way to the rise of nationalism? With a choice between a "Frexit" way Le Pen, and a more integrated Europe, which you advocate?
We can not be timidly European, otherwise we have already lost. The violence of the anti-European is such that it is necessary to hammer what Europe has brought us and can still bring us if we involve ourselves in changing it. Its destruction is nationalism, it is war. I come from an area where there are only military cemeteries. What Marine Le Pen proposes is to recreate conflict in Europe. If the party of reason yields to the tyranny of impatience, we are dead.
What mistakes have the pro-European committed?
First, to have left criticism of Europe to the anti-European. We must be able to criticize European political orientations or bureaucracy without being Europhobic. If we believe in politics, the alternative is not between Europe as it is and the return to the past. I am a European convinced and even enthusiastic, but lucid and without complacency.
Not only! Europhiles, NGOs and environmentalists have warned that the free trade agreements signed or under negotiation with Canada or the United States were devastating for cohesion, fair trade, Food, agriculture or the environment ...
Completely. I will ratify the Ceta, while taking measures for destabilized sectors. Otherwise, we kill European trade policy. But we need to change the procedures so that there is a genuine, transparent decision by the European Parliament. On the other hand, it is impossible to revive discussions around the Tafta. We do not have the same conception of regulation as the Trump administration, we do not have the same societal priorities.
This draft treaty is stillborn: Donald Trump has campaigned against and does not want to ...
However, Europe is the right level to pursue a trade policy that protects. Otherwise, we deconstruct our anti-dumping policy, with China, India or Russia. I would add that the second mistake of the pro-European is that of being afraid of democracy. France committed a mistake: to circumvent the "no" vote in the 2005 referendum via a parliamentary vote. Le Pen, like Mélenchon, feeds on this denial: Europe can not be advanced against the people.
I can certainly see why Bayrou has dropped out in his favor: I don’t think there’s a word of what Macron says that I would disagree with.
But assuming things turn out as people now expect and he becomes President, it will be interesting to see what happens in the elections to the legislature, because Macron doesn’t have much of a party of his own — not for nothing is his movement called En Marche!, which can be abbreviated to EM, just like the candidate.
Anyway, let’s have a look at what’s going on with the wall and immigration.
La Razon has a piece reporting from Mexico:
It is difficult to find someone in Mexico City who does not have family "with the gringos." Mario works in a successful chain of Mexican restaurants, specifically in the franchise in the luxurious neighborhood of Polanco, a few meters from a Bentley dealership. "The emigration is not going to stop because of any wall. There have been many walls already and they have not served anything, "he says. He is more concerned that Trump cuts the wings to NAFTA - the free trade treaty between Canada, the US and Mexico - than that the "gringos" will spend billions of dollars to build a wall that will not serve anything. "People in rural areas will continue to emigrate. Here in the capital one lives more or less well, but in the rural areas of Jalisco, Guadalajara ... They will continue to go there to have their opportunity, "he says. And what do you think Trump wants to charge the wall to the Government of Mexico? The smile instantly vanishes. "That's a joke."
…
However, nobody, not even Trump, believes that this type of maneuver will remain unanswered by Mexico and some of these possible reprisals are already beginning to be taken. Mexico could shake off its current dependence on US corn by cutting its purchases drastically in three years and buying this basic component of its diet in Canada, Brazil or Argentina. The proposal was launched by Rios Peter, the soul of Operation Monarch, a program launched shortly after Trump's victory aimed at helping undocumented migrants. Diego Preciado, a member of the PAN and therefore an opponent of Peña Nieto, wants to raise the tax burden on Mexican subsidiaries of US banks that agree to raise the costs of sending money to Mexico.
But undoubtedly the most controversial initiative in the media has been that of Senator Patricio Martinez, Peña Nieto's party colleague, who coordinated a topographical study of the US-Mexico border and dusted old bilateral treaties between the two powers Conclude that more than 268 miles of this imaginary dividing line are farther south than they should be. "We must proceed to demand that the border return to its proper place and that the territory be returned to us," Martinez demanded.
…
Eduardo runs a bookstore 300 meters from the Zócalo square. He spent 20 years in Pennsylvania and has returned to his hometown to spend with his sick parents their remaining years of life. ... his experience of two decades in the USA leads him to think that, despite its economic strength, the American is a sick society. "And the proof of this is that they have elected Trump," he says. Eduardo goes even further, believes that the wall will be beneficial for Mexico because it will decrease the dependence on the American economy. "In the long run it's going to be better because we're going to trade more with Europe and other regions of the world," he argues.
Sacha Batthyany visits Hyattsville, MD. The piece is long and fairly distressing:
Earlier, they were the invisible, says Fatima Correas. The ones who made the beds in the hotels and rinsed the plates in the kitchens of the restaurants; Who carried the cement bags on the construction sites and mowed the lawn in the suburbs. "Today, however, we are no longer invisible. Today we are hunted. "
It's as fast as that. One president goes, another comes, and they're all pointing their finger at you, "says Correas. "For us it is as if we were living in a new country."
…
Hyattsville is a place such as you find only in America. No-one goes here, here one remains hanging. There is no core, only four-lane streets, where a few houses are scattered, petrol stations, fast-food establishments and shops selling discounted lawn mowers or used jacuzzis. And between the camps, in low apartment blocks, thousands of Latinos, more than half of them without papers, like Fatima Correas and their parents; The father is a gardener, the mother's assistant cook in a Mexican snackbar. They do not speak a single word of English, "because they do not have to," says Correas, and do not take part in life in the USA, but they had no more in Chapeltique, the Kaff in El Salvador, where they emigrated from years ago. "I think they call Hyattsville their new home," says her daughter.
Is this a good life? "You know no other," says Correas.
…
Rodríguez is a good-looking, slender man. He is wearing a leather jacket, a pair of pilot shades in his hair. He worked for a trade union whose name he was not allowed to betray, and went from building site to construction site, talking to the workers, listening to them, trying to intervene if there were problems with the pay, the bosses or racist remarks. In all these years he had seen a single white construction worker, "from Ukraine”. Otherwise, it was only Latinos who had been as badly treated as ever since Donald Trump had been president. He recently heard that men who had to remove asbestos slabs from government buildings were threatened with having to leave the country because they complained about the wage. Trump would make sure they were called to them. "But who cares for asbestos mining?" Rodriguez asks. Then he has to go. Building site inspection. "The workers want a wage increase, nine dollars an hour instead of eight."
Outside, he turns round again. It was no longer the country he once revered as he came from Mexico to participate in the American dream. He is now part of the American nightmare, says Rodríguez, getting into his pick-up and driving away.
Here’s another not-so-cheery piece from Peter Winkler in the NZZ, looking at research which shows that Trumpcare would have been especially effective at killing off Trump’s voters:
What makes the results of research so disturbing is the fact that all other population groups in the United States (Blacks, Latinos) and the exact same demographic of the white, moderately educated underclass in other Western industrial countries follow a contrary trend. In 1999, for example, the mortality rate of the most affected white people in the middle age was 30 percent lower than those of African Americans of the same age (45 to 54). In 2015, the ratio was exactly the opposite. Similar contrasting developments took place in all age groups between 25 and 64 years. Even whites with a university degree defy the negative trend. Their mortality rates have remained the same since the turn of the century.
The authors summarize the factors that contribute to this ominous trend in the white sublime, "death through despair". Its frequency increased almost throughout the country. Towards the turn of the century the phenomenon was noticeable only in the southwest of the USA. Five years later, it had spread to Florida, the West Coast and the Appalachians. Today it is widespread throughout the country.
And the health insurance?
The results of Case and Deaton's research also radiate into the violent dispute over health insurance, which is currently raging in Washington. The particularly affected population group of the white underclass is considered the electorate which was decisive for President Trump’s victory. The image of "death by despair" shows that they especially need medical care.
It is hard to believe that this real anxiety is purely economic, as some would have us believe. One can understand how making America great again would appeal to such people as a slogan. What a pity they were fed it by a lying conman who can’t deliver on it.
I’m going to finish with yet another piece from Liberation about a European election which I’m sure has passed you by. Today is polling day in Bulgaria’s general election, about which I know precisely as much as is in this piece:
There were many subjects to be addressed during the legislative campaign held this Sunday in Bulgaria, the poorest country in the European Union: purchasing power at half-mast, endemic corruption, mass economic emigration, inefficiency of services But it was the foreign policy issues that dominated the debate.
Moscow, the unmissable guest
By virtue of a trend now established, present and future relations with Moscow have occupied an important place in the discussions between candidates in this Eastern European country which has very close historical, economic and cultural ties with Russia. Member of the EU since 2007, the country remains economically very dependent on the Slavic big brother: 22% of its GDP is based on companies related to Russia, which also has the near monopoly of gas supply. The only Bulgarian nuclear power plant is Russian-made and the refinery belongs to Lukoil, a Russian oil giant. And no less than 320,000 Russians have properties in Bulgaria.
The main parties want to renew cooperation with Russia, notably in the energy field (the projects of a second nuclear power plant and South Stream have been abandoned under pressure from the United States and the EU). The general mood is therefore in favor of the relationship, but it is on the degree of proximity that the positions of the candidates diverge. The Socialist Party (PSB), the heir of the communist party and traditionally close to Moscow, which has been in full swing since the election in November of its candidate Roumen Radev to the presidency of the country, is campaigning for a lifting of European sanctions against Russia . Its leader, Kornelia Ninova, was even the subject of a caricature in which she is depicted sitting on a wooden frame in front of the EU fortress, while Vladimir Putin sneaks into the interior Of the Trojan horse. The conservative Gerb party of the former prime minister Boiko Borissov, in a neck-and-neck with the Socialists, intends to strengthen Bulgaria's European anchorage, while at the same time sparing Russian susceptibilities . "I like Russia, but it is from the EU that the billions of euros come from subsidies," summarizes Borissov, quoted by AFP. The nationalist coalition Patriotes United, third in the polls, is openly pro-Russian.
However, there is no reason to fear that Bulgaria will leave NATO (entry in 2004) or the EU, as Bulgarians remain predominantly Euro-optimistic, experts warn.
A powerful partner of Bulgaria, Turkey is accused of interference in internal affairs. As a vestige of Ottoman domination of the Balkans, Bulgaria still has a Turkish minority of 700,000 (out of 7.4 million inhabitants), while 60,000 Turkish citizens have Bulgarian citizenship and the right to vote. Historically, they are represented by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, chaired by Mustafa Karadayi, rather critical of President Recep Erdogan, who claims his loyalty to Bulgarian national values. But a new formation, Dost, has recently gained popularity. The authorities and major Bulgarian political forces accuse Ankara of openly supporting this pro-Turkish party.
Nationalist militants have decided to block three border posts with Turkey, to limit the influx of Turkish voters for Sunday's vote. "Some 6-7,000 people have already arrived from Turkey by free transport with the instructions to vote for one of the two" parties of the Turkish minority ". We will stop this electoral tourism , "said one of the leaders of the nationalist coalition Patriotes, Valeri Simeonov. The role of the far right is likely to be decisive in the ballot, whose candidate, Krassimir Karakatchanov, who is third in the presidential election, intends to play the arbiter between the Socialists and the Conservatives.
I know you’ll all be waiting for the results with bated breath all day. Chin up, we won something this week.