Given the Choice between a Right Wing Nationalist and Someone Who Acts like a Right Wing Nationalist, People Will Vote for the Real Right Wing Nationalist All the Time

I am, of course, referring to Emmanuel Macron, who pulled off a squeaker in the French Presidential Runoff against Marine Le Pen, 57% to 43%.

Considering the fact that the match up between the two 5 years ago had a 33% margin, it appears that Macron's policies, doing the bidding of the elites and aggressively pushing Islamophobia, does not seem to be the electoral winner.

While there were slight differences in degree between Macron and Le Pen, policies, it's clear that the French public is not was not enthusiastic about the choices, particularly given the 14% spoiled ballot/abstention rate.

You see the rise of right-wing nationalists throughout the EU, and it has 90 year old echoes.

The pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron has vowed to unite a divided France after winning a second term as French president in a decisive victory against the far-right’s Marine Le Pen, who nonetheless won more than 12 million votes in a historic high for her anti-immigration party.

Macron became the first French leader to win re-election for 20 years, scoring a clear margin of 57% to 43%, with almost 95% of the votes counted on Sunday night.

………

Macron beat Le Pen with a lower margin than the 66% he won against her in 2017. Turnout was also lower than five years ago, with abstention estimated at a record 28%.

Le Pen succeeded in delivering the far right its biggest-ever score in a French presidential election, after campaigning on the cost of living crisis, and promising a ban on the Muslim headscarf in public places as well as nationalist measures to give priority to native-French people over others for jobs, housing, benefits and healthcare – policies Macron had criticised as “racist” and “divisive”. Le Pen called her score “a shining victory in itself”, adding: “The ideas we represent are reaching new heights.”

This is clearly a trend, look at Poland, and Hungary, The League in Italy, the rise of AfD in Germany, A Austria's Freedom Party, etc.  The question is, "Why this is happening?"

As longtime reader(s) of this blog are now doubt aware, my theory is that the Social Democrats in Europe have bought completely into the Neoliberal EU to the exclusion of support for a robust social safety net.

This has created a vacuum where the only alternative are right-wing nationalist parties.

A viable Euroskeptic left would be a very good thing.