In the US Presidential election, 3 candidates stood out above all others in popularity: Clinton, Trump and Sanders. Very early on, it became clear that the election would be Clinton versus Trump. But, for months after it was clear that he was beaten, Sanders continued to campaign. He said, over and over and over, that his #1 priority was to ensure that Trump was not elected President. But there was one way, one way only, to ensure that, and that was to support Clinton, to do it as early and as enthusiastically as possible, therefore ensuring that the greatest possible number of his supporters voted for Hillary. Not only did Sanders continue a farcical campaign for months after he had lost; when he did finally endorse Hillary, he did it very feebly. Saying that she was not as bad a Trump: that's not a great endorsement. Continuing to talk mostly about himself and his unsuccessful campaign: that wasn't endorsing Hillary at all.
And so, in the election which Trump barely won, with Hillary receiving 3 million more votes than Trump, about 1 million voters wrote in Bernie. And about 100 million people who were eligible to vote, didn't. How many of those 100 million were Bernie supporters who picked up his bitterness against Hillary and lack of enthusiasm for her? We'll probably never know. Anyway, in case it wasn't already entirely clear to you, I blame Bernie Sanders, that egotistical, selfish jackass, for Trump being elected.
And the reason I'm writing about this again today is that something very similar might happen in the French Presidential election, which will be decided this Saturday and Sunday: a fascist could become President in France because of pettiness and sheer stupidity on the Left. The decision will come down to Emmanuel Macron, a centrist with severe charisma deficiencies who led the first round of voting with 24%, against Marine Le Pen, the aforementioned fascist, who got 21.3% in the first round.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who got 19.6% in the first round, claims that his top priority is to defeat the fascist Le Pen. Well, there's one thing he can do now to defeat Le Pen: endorse Macron. But Mélenchon says he will not endorse Macron. Mélenchon is either outright lying when he says he will do everything in his power to defeat Le Pen, or he's simply too stupid to see that to ensure that Le Pen is defeated, he must endorse Macron.
A poll of those who voted for Mélenchon in the first round showed that 40% intend to vote for Macron, 15% for Le Pen, and 45% intend not to vote.
Let's just leave those 15% aside, they're obviously hopelessly confused.
Let's look at the 45% who intend not to vote. Those are about 9% of the French electorate which Mélenchon could be urging, begging, pleading to vote for Macron, but he's either to stupid or to petty to do so, and so he's not doing everything he can to defeat Le Pen, not by miles and miles.
Remind you a whole lot of Bernie Sanders? It should.
This is one of those things which make me feel very helpless, because I don't know how to urge people to behave sensibly, not because the issue is complicated and difficult, but because it is so simple and clear that I can't understand how people are not understanding it.
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