I don't like Mondays

 

In 1969, Combat – a journal of the left – featured a commentary on the upcoming contest between Georges Pompidou. Alain Poher of the Democratic Center, and Jacques Duclos of the French Communist Party. Combat was unenthusiastic about all three candidates. In the event, Duclos took the greatest score ever achieved by a PCF candidate – 21 percent of the vote. And of course Pompidou won over Poher.

Combat, though, was against abstention, which was a choice discussed on the left. The commentary, by Jean Rous, extensively quotes Lenin, who wrote about the two views that must be taken by a communist in relation to elections in bourgeois republics. On the abstract level, Lenin wrote, the differences between two candidates such as Lloyd George and Winston Churchill in England are “denuded of all meaning” and derisory. But from the practical aspect, the view of the masses, these differences are of extreme importance. Thus, Lenin concluded, one should not abstain or boycott the vote unless all indications show one is on the eve of a revolution.

In 1969, the “sixth power”, revolution by the proletariat, was still an actual force. We are in a reactionary era where revolution has been reduced to a slogan for fashion design. This has made the communist view more and more abstract and less and less practical – as contact with the masses has thinned to the point of evanescence. Thus, communism – or Marxism, or eco-socialism, etc. – becomes a political fantasy, and as such can be indulged to the maximum without consultation with or consideration of the masses. This leads to the unexpected merger of dandyism and leftism.

I am so repulsed by Macron, in this election, that I figured I would abstain, no matter what Lenin had to say about the matter. But I’ve been persuaded that Le Pen is enough of a danger to make that option too risky. From the polls, I’d say Macron’s strategy – which has always been to have Le Pen as his opponent in the second round – has worked. It is a strategy that allows him to operate as if he has a mandate when, in fact, his politics is approved by a minority of the population – probably around the 28 percent he got in the first round. I expect Macron in the second part of his reign to be even shittier than he was as president for the last five years. His comic proposal that his swearing in coincide with a display of military might – a truly Jupiterian and Trumpian gesture – is exactly on tone.

From the practical point of view, we can hope for a large turnout in the legislatives to bridle the man. But the system is set up in such a way that he can proceed down the autocratic path he has set for himself – a sort of centrist Orban – and at the moment, I don’t see a lot of obstacles in his path.

I don't like Mondays..