Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one yet has guessed multiple people, or a scholar. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
23d ago
The world is in a similar state today
Not really.
There were two main dynamics to the state of geopolitical affairs that let WW1 be WW1. One was the treaty situation, in which most involved states on both sides had staked their security policies / international prestige / credibility that they also needed for other interests into the alliance system. The second was the fact that four great powers (France, UK, Germany, Russia) were competing for influence in a very constrained geopolitical area (peninsular Europe) that they could all project power into. The later is what led to the former is what led to the domino effect.
There is no equivalent concentration of competition or overlap of treaties. As much as the Russians have tried to style a [insert term of choice for grouping] of resistance to the US amongst Iran, Russia, NK, and China, the relationship between them has been fundamentally transactional, not alliance based, and the last few years have emphasized that. The US alliance network similarly does have overlapping effects- there are very few obligations (by design) for out-of-regional issues. Relatedly, most of the non-US actors in the modern system cannot project power to each other if they wanted to, and most US allies in different regions cannot and would not project power to the other as a 'we will fight together' sort of way.
Dean
Flairless
24d ago
Gaddafi did fall to a NATO air campaign stopping and then reversing the civil war's progress, which at the time of intervention he clearly had the momentum in. Had Gaddafi had a nuclear weapon, it's extremely doubtful the NATO air campaign would have occurred, and without that, he would have been doing the butchering.
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
Sounds like a still not happy to, then.
Good faith doesn't require such petty sneers.
Dean
Flairless
24d ago
Prior to the last week, I would have assumed Iran was a hard target and thus somewhat untouchable (smaller strikes/assassinations being the limit of messing with them). It's surprising how hard they've been slapped.
This has long been an error in the Iranian model. Iran simultaneously has been persuing a near-breakout strategy, but also an asymmetric proxy war strategy, betting that the former would deter retaliation against the later.
Nuclear deterrence really doesn't work that way, for the same reason that Ukraine didn't refuse to fight Russia because of nukes, and that fears that supporting Ukraine with material to fight back would lead to WW3 were non-credible. Nukes don't really deter retaliation in principle, only the form. So your point here-
But also in some ways, they are still. No one is going to be launching a ground invasion, and the regime is not looking hot right now, but still has power.
-is absolutely correct. But also nukes weren't needed for it. Iran is a mountain fortress, and the US didn't have the stomach for the much 'easier' Iraq occupation. A conquer/displace/occupy threat was not, and still is not, going to happen, even though nukes are the solution to that level of intervention, and even though said nukes aren't present.
It blows me away that despite a close connection to Russia, and increasingly China, they had such terrible IADS. If you can't get invaded, the only way your adversary, who has one of the world's best Airforce's, can cause you serious issues is by air striking you into pieces.
They Tried (TM). It's not that Iran's IADS was terrible- they had a number of modern systems. It's just that any system can be taken apart, and Israel has done a lot of prep work.
They must have thought their missiles and proxys were a deterrent, which they were at one point. But man it kills me. In PvP video games, if things are going well/fine, you should always be asking yourself "how do I lose" and it doesn't seem like the gang in Iran did that at all.
It wasn't just the missiles and proxies, but specifically Syria. If Assad hadn't fallen, this wouldn't be happening today, because Assad wasn't just a proxy/ally, but kept the airspace closed. When Assad fell, the Israeli's bombed the old regime (technically new regime's) air defense systems, which has opened up the air corridor they're using now.
At a larger level, Iran's strategy over-estimated Assad's resilience, missing the scholerosis of how the regime military was becoming more brittle rather than more firm when the Syria civil war went long. In turn, neglecting the defense, Iran over-leveraged the offense. Whether you believe they were directly involved/aware of Hamas' October attack or not, and IIRC there were elements of the IRGC/proxy network that claimed they did, Iran via Hezbollah tried to play it to the hilt in what was probably an attempt at a broader intifada.
That strategy fell flat, in a series of events that led to here. Because the West Bank did not rise up as well, the war was focused on Gaza specifically. Because it was focused on Gaza specifically, Hezbollah was used to open a northern front via the artillery campaign. Because Hezbollah was was using so many munitions for the artillery campaign, Iran was dependent on Syria to keep the flow.
But when Israel thwacked Hezbollah via the pager campaign and follow on fighting, Hezbollah was throne into disarray. Because Hezbollah was thrown into disarray, Iran was unable to rush forces to the Syrian capital to stop the rebel offensive. Because the rebel offensive could not be stopped, the logistic chain to resupply Hezbollah was broken. And the air corridor over Syria was opened. And so on and so on and so on.
That being said. It's not hard to imagine a world in which Israel's air campaign culminates eventually as they run low on munitions and a deal of some flavor is worked out. Then Iran spends the next 5 years rebuilding and furiously fortifying. Maybe they get some tips on anti-espionage purges from the Chinese. And then in 2030 were right back to two weeks ago status quo but this time Iran has hardened everything.
This is a devastating tactical victory for the Israelis, the strategic outcomes remain to be seen...
Pretty much. There are things that could result this in being a bigger strategic and not just tactical victory, but they more or less hinge on the Iranians agreeing to some sort of international seizure of their more highly enriched Uranium, and I'm not sure I see that coming.
We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today.
?
The Iraq War coalition was framed as a pre-emptive war on the basis that Saddam did not yet have nukes (the only WMD to 'vaporize), but that he was trying to maintain the ability to create them in the future. The theory- propaganda, if you prefer- was that he was known to have pursued them in the past, there was reason to believe he was trying to maintain capabilities while actively circumventing sanctions, and that the consequences would be in the future if not acted upon now.
It was a casus belli premised on the argument that Saddam could not vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance.
Dean
Flairless
21d ago
Building on this, the 'more important' ceasefire for most of the world isn't even Israel-Iran, but US-Iran.
The US entry was limited to the bunker buster attack (which Israel could not get on its own). Iran responded with the telegraphed attack on the US base in Qatar. This was a basic tit-for-tat, and the 'cease fire' had neatly concluded that.
A lot of Iran's more major potential escalatory steps- shutting down the Straight of Hormuz, needing a nuke for regime survival- are assets more against the US than Israel. But they are also assets with higher global fallout for global energy markets / global proliferation than just the Israel-Iran conflict as is/was.
It's not that the Israel-Iran part isn't important, but even if it breaks down (and there were reportedly some late-fires already) it won't have the same implications of the US being directly involved.
I imagine that support for their nuclear program has actually increased, because it seems like the only pathway to prevent the IDF from bombing Iranian generals whenever they feel like it.
This part I'll disagree with, however. Nuclear deterrence does not work as a 'I can hit you, no hit backs' shield, which already has a good deal of precedent not only in Russia-Ukraine but also in, well, the Iran doing retaliatory missile strikes against US bases in the middle east. The precedent for this line of thought failing have already been established, notably by Iran.
As long as Iran remains wedded to its proxy war strategy against Israel (and the US), it will be subject to retaliation strikes. That Iran has reached a point where its proxy strikes lead to direct retaliations is more of a measure of strategic misplay of proxy warfare* than an issue that can be resolved by gaining nukes.
*The first rule of proxy warfare is that plausible deniability requires the opponent to variously not know, or have enough doubt, such that they prefer to avoid the consequences of direct conflict and prefer to focus on the proxy regardless. If the proxy lacks plausible deniability, then there is no meaningful difference to the receiving state, and the proxy-using state has no higher authority to appeal to if the receiving state wishes to retaliate directly.
Excellent addition. Especially as not only have the costs of war risen since then, but so have the costs of occupation post-'victory.'
AKs and RPGs were enough to break the cost-benefit logic of emperial economies, and IEDs and manpads could make even 'less total' occupations prohibitively expensive. The modern development of drones are an even greater obstacle to projecting power at a, well, global scale.
This doesn't mean a 'world war' is impossible, but it really does beg the question of who is going to be fighting where how. The US ability at power projection is absolutely going to be hemmed in in the weeks/months/years/decades to come, but so is everyone else.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
Why does it seem like so many conservatives
Glenn Greenwald is a 'conservative' in the same way that Cindy Sheehan was a conservative for running against Nancy Pelosi.
Which is to say- he was a highly acclaimed / respected public voice when he was criticizing the Bush administration and Iraq War, and then quickly lost support when his criticisms continued despite the party in power changing.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
If the Democrats were capable of that level of self-control, they would have worked with the 90s-era democrat who got elected in a repudiation to the Republican establishment a decade ago.
This, more. Seeing the Bannon position (which- to be clear- is really old) being passed / smuggled as 'Trump is seriously feuding with Musk' has put this firmly in the 'can't trust initial reporting: ignore for now and come back in a few days to see what, specifically, has changed' zone. Both Bannon and the democratic media have been trying to meme a Musk-Trump blowup into happening for some time, and the information environment is already contaminated. Maybe that's what's happening now, but then Musk has been distancing from DOGE since its disruption phase was done in the first two months, reporting already indicated his allies were/are still there, and he's been reportedly wanting to go back to focusing on his business. It's not exactly hard to think of various kayfabe reasons* for a quote-unquote 'staged' breakup fight in a way that serves both his and Trump's political interests.
Or he could be ketamine-influenced and this will spiral. Who knows. I'll wait regardless.
Key things I'll look for to validate this being a Big Deal include-
- Are Musk's allies purged from DOGE?
- Are Musk's contracts frozen / suspended?
- Any immigration-specific action against Musk.
*One amusing proposal from a friend: the Dems demanding the Epstein file log, which will be less damning to Trump than hoped, but catch some Democratic VIPs in a way that leads to inter-Democrat fratricide.
Dean
Flairless
28d ago
That's part of it. When working in lower-trust societies, people make judgements based on their personal relationships, and part of that personal relationship comes from non-textual connotations. There are some writers who can convey their own personality, but by and large its easier and quicker to do so on the basis of the factors you mention.
C.S. Lewis remains a remarkable writer of timeless trends.
I once read a comment here that said "being a doctor is one of the most prestigious things you can be". And I just thought... really? Really? I mean it's an important job, don't get me wrong. Thank you for your services. I'm happy for them that they're making a lot of money. But at the end of the day it's, from my perspective, still just another job. Doctors are, modulo individual technical skill, fungible, and fungibility is antithetical to prestige as far as I'm concerned.
There's a game I like to play whenever I go to a new country or region, and that game is 'what job does this culture value most?', as measured by 'what careers do parents, but especially mothers, try to push their children towards?' Or, more flippantly, 'where do the best and brightest get pushed towards?'
There are absolutely countries where being a doctor is uber-prestigious. Korean mothers had (still have, presumably) a reputation for pushing their children hard in that direction. By contrast, an adult who, say, stayed in the professional military beyond the conscription requirement had the stigma of 'maybe they couldn't cut it.' If they were better, they'd get a better job.
But as you note, that sort of prestige isn't a given. Doctoring doesn't get any easier, but there are places in the west where they aren't as respected / striven towards as, say, lawyers. Or financial services. And let's not get into truly different cultures. There are cultures where a military service is considered prestigious (often when access to the military is selective/limited, as opposed to 'scraping the bottom of the barrel). In parts of the middle east, a religious education / islamic religious certification is something broader families take great pride in. Etc. etc. etc.
The game I referenced before comes from how inevitably, any sort of socio-cultural 'list your top X most prestigious jobs you'd be proud of your kids having' tends to leave more than a few highly relevant jobs off for those who are not as good or gifted. It can be fun to (gently! in good faith!) tease out those gaps in social values versus social impact. Surprisingly, not as many people as you might think put 'going into politics' as 'prestigious' for their best and brightest kids... and so who can be surprised when politicians are viewed as midwits? Or 'just' government service? And so on?
If you ever need a cross-culture icebreaker conversation on a low-key social drinking, that's a good one. It's a good way to get your counterpart to open up about their background, why they are in the job they are in, and even what they feel about it- all of which are good for your personal/professional relationship. It's also an opportunity for some comradery, since no matter where they are in their own country's relative preference stack, there's usually another culture where their job would be in as high or even higher esteem (and thus you can signal recognition/respect that their culture may not ascribe to them). Alternatively, if they are highly placed and they know it, you can get them out of their normal headspace by inviting them to wonder what other jobs they might have had in a different context- something which gets them outside of their familiar context of knowing all the things they need to know.
Dean
Flairless
21d ago
There is also a point of comparing Gaza to other cases of dense urban warfighting where the millions-scale civilian population is stuck in the dense urban area. There aren't many other examples, but in the closest analogs (such as the fall of the ISIS caliphate), the casualties are pretty analogous when controlled for time.
Turns out, urban fighting is dangerous for attacker, defender, and bystander alike. Who would have guessed?
The Great Le Pen Conviction Saga
Yesterday, Marine Le Pen, a French politician sometimes called a (female) French Trump and once called the Devil's daughter, was convicted in France of embezzling EU funds in the early 2000s. She is to be sentenced to house arrest for two years, and barred from politics for five.
The significance? That takes her out of the next presidential election, in 2027, where she is the current front runner.
The other problem?
When the original sentencing judge says Le Pen and other co-defendants didn't enrich themselves personally, 'embezzling' may have the wrong connotations. The judge who made the ruling preferred a 'democratic bypass that deceived parliament and voters.'
How does this lead to a leading political candidate getting imprisoned and disqualified in a leading western democracy?
Oh boy. This is a long one.
TL;DR: Banal political corruption insinuations ahead. And more. And more. Bless your innocent hearts if you have high trust in government, and don't be surprised if what follows starts to echo in your culture war interpretations in the months and years to come.
Disclaimer: What follows is a mix of plentiful citations, and some things that can only be noted with an eyebrow. Which is to say- some pretty hefty suspicion of impropriety, in ways that aren't exactly public record. However, if you want to believe that all governments are innocent unless proven guilty, by all means. Be ye warned.
What is this scandal?
It's more of a funding-code issue that results when you deliberately overlap organizational interests but establish conditionals that can be used as gotchas depending on whether the anti-fraud office wants to pursue.
EU funding for european political parties is normal. The overlap between national parties and EU political parties (Members of European Parliament, or MEP) is normal. The transition between national parties and nominally distinct EU parties is normal. Money is fungible. Even political aids are fungible- an aid who helps in one respect of a politician's work load enables the politician to work on others.
What Le Pen is charged / guilty of is that EU MEP party-member funds were used for someone who was working for Le Pen, the National Party leader, rather than Le Pen, the MEP party leader. Part of the basis of this claim is where there aid worked from- MEP assistants getting EU funds are supposed to work from / near the EU parliament, but around 20 of Le Pen's aides worked from France. As a result, they did not qualify for the funds they drew for being an aid to MEP-Le Pen, since Le Pen's MEP-aids are supposed to be geographically bounded.
Hence, embezzlement. Did the aids help with MEP work from France? Not actually relevant. Did the aids enable Le Pen to better focus on her MEP duties, as was the purpose of the money-for-aides? Also not particularly relevant.
What gives the saga more backstory, and scandal potential for those who think it's a gotcha, is that it's part of a much, much longer multi-decade saga.
Who is Le Pen?
Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean Le Pen, her father who founded the party. In short, he was the political outsider / far rightist / probable fascist sympathizer / possible nazi sympathizer, or at least dismisser, who was absolutely hated by the French political establishment. He's the guy who's synonymous with the National Front, unrepentant French far-right of the post-WW2 variety .
One of the key notes of Le Pen is that he ran the National Front like a family business... not successfully. Whether by purely coincidental mismanagement, personal bilateral animosity with French industry, or possibly indirect state pressures after the National Front's surprise and embarrassing showing in the 2002 presidential election, the National Front had some troubled finances.
And by troubled finances, I mean that by 2010 the French Government was progressively revoking the government's political party stipend that made up a plurality of its funding, even as Jean Le Pen was unable to get bank loans from French banks and unable to find a buyer for the 10-to-15 million Paris HQ to raise funds in 2008.
Where does the money come in?
The financial situation is where Marine Le Pen really enters in earnest. Marine Le Pen was given control of the party by her father in 2010. This was notably after she had already entered the European Parliament for over a half decade. Marine Le Pen was a MEP from 2004 to 2017, which is to say she inherited the National Front- and its financial issues- when she was already a MEP with no particular issue.
Marine's political priorities in the early 2010s was the rehabilitation of the National Front as a party. In 2013, she was still being called the Devil's Daughter by publications by the Atlantic. In 2018, this was when the National Front became the National Rally.
But the other part of Le Pen's job was to right the fiscal ship to keep the party viable. This is why across the 2010s Marine Le Pen was seeking foreign bank loans from abroad, including from US banks. This was where the Russia bank loan line of attack starts, since it was a Russian bank in 2014 that ultimately ended the credit embargo, but also saw Le Pen adopt a more pro-Russia rhetorical position. This challenge / options for loans has endured, and is why Le Pen more recently got a loan from Hungary in 2022.
So, to restate- Marine Le Pen was a reasonably-long-standing MEP in the 2000s with no major alleged issues at the time. In 2010, she took control over the national front. At this time, the NF was in financial distress.
This is the context where the misuse of European funds arose.
The Start of the Scandal
The Marine Le Pen allegations arose in Feb 2015, when European Parliament President Martin Shulz, a German MEP, raised complaints against her. Le Pen's party promptly counter-accused one of Shulz's own aids of a similar not-in-the-right-location violation. This didn't exactly get anywhere, because as noted at the time-
Machmer explained that one of Schulz’s assistants organizes study trips for a local branch of the SPD, but said this was “in his spare time, for free, because it is his hobby.”
Remember: it's embezzlement if you take EU money and work for the party. It's not embezzlement if you voluntarily do national party work for free as a hobby.
Who was Martin Schulz?
Well, in 2014, the year before he initiated the Le Pen allegations were made, Schulz was generally considered a bit... lacking in ethical enforcement. He was one of the European leaders who may / may not have turned a bit of a blind eye to notorious Malta corruption. After his time in the EU parliament, he made a brief but ambitious play in german power politics as the actual head of the German SDP in the 2017 German election. He lost to Merkel, of course, but so do they all. But he had the ambition to try, and had a history of building favors and friends.
But back to the earlier 2010s for a moment. Besides being President of the European Parliament at the time, he was a member of the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament. He was also a (clearly important) member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Germany, i.e. part of the key governing coalition which itself is part of the Franco-German alliance that is the heart of the EU. Schulz was in the running for being the German foreign minister following the 2017 German election,, which might have some relevance to foreign relation implications with France.
Why does Martin Schulz matter?
Why does this party orientation possibly matter?
Because in 2015, the President of France, Francoise Hollande, was a French Socialist. Unsurprisingly, French Socialists tend to caucus well with the European socialists in the European parliament, though party politics being what it is I'll just ask you believe me on that.
Did they get alone? It's hard to say. But in May 2015, just a few months after the le Pen allegations were leveraged, Hollande was among the heads of state awarding Schulz the Charlemagne prize 2015. The Charlemagne prize is bestowed to those who have advanced european unification, which means as much or as little as you think it means. Typically it's an insider's appreciation award for strengthening European Union politics, which is to say strengthening the Franco-German influence on the continent because that is, in most practical respects, what EU centralization entails.
More relevant was that Schulz's very diplomatic interest in working with French rose above partisan politics, such as his notably high-profile willingness in 2017 to work with Macron, the current (but currently troubled) French president whose political fortunes have gotten a bit better with Le Pen's disqualification.
Would a German politician-
- with a spotty ethical record
- who stood to personally benefit
- from a political favor
- to the ideologically-aligned current French president
- or the subsequent french president
- who they might closely work with in their post-EU political career
-ever leverage a politically motivated ethics complaint against a MEP with a decade of non-complaints, over an issue that they themselves might be guilty of?
Heavens no, that's absurd.
Ahem. Sorry. Back to 2017 for a minute?
2017: Enter Macron
2017 is when Macron enters the Le Pen tale, since the 2017 election is what established them as rivals.
The 2017 French elections were notable for that they benefited both Macron and Le Pen as anti-establishment candidates. The election saw the collapse of the French establish right and left, and while that left a vacuum for Macron, it also benefited Le Pen. Macron ultimately won by the French firewall when the French socialist-left voted for him and against Le Pen, but it was historically remarkably close.
What was also remarkable is that Macron's party position has gotten worse over time. His party did very poorly in the 2020 municiple elections, though this was more a collapse of his left than a rise to Le Pen on the right. Macron pulled out another win in the 2022 election, where Le Pen, again, made it to the final round after a stronger-than-most showing.
This creates a certain... shall we say complication for the 2027 election, because Macron can't run for re-election in 2027, and he's known to not like that. Macron managed to beat Le Pen twice- was arguably the only person who could have- but the 2027 election would see him leave the stage and Le Pen be... well, a clear leading candidate, if by no means a guarantee.
Unless, of course, the judicial block-out is coincidentally underway even before the 2022 election is over.
And starting in a way that is- coincidentally- convenient for Macron's re-election.
2022: The Year the Scandal Returns In A Most Convenient Way
Five years after Macron takes the presidency, and nearly 7 after the Le Pen EU funding scandal starts, it returns in ways whose implications to the surrounding context become a bit clearer if you lay out relative dates of events. (Most of these dates are in the above al jazeera link.)
11 March 2022: The European Anti-Fraud Office provides the French prosecutor's office it's report on Le Pen.
Clearly the French government was taken by total surprise, and had no hand or insight into this EU process delivering this package.
12 March - 9 April 2022: No mention of or publicity is given to this report in most media. As such, no voters are aware of the duplicitious deception of French voters by a former MEP for whom this is an old scandal, forgotten scandal from over half a decade prior.
Which might have been slightly topical, given that...
10 April 2022: The first round of the French Presidential Election occurs.
After the French government sits on the report for a month, Le Pen places strong but somewhat distant second place, out-performing some expectations and underperforming others. 28% Macron, 23% Le Pen. The third-place runner up, and thus the potential second-round candidate party is a leftist party that garnered... 22%.
Which is to say, the French Prosectors really did Le Pen a favor by keeping that potentially embarrassing and undemocratic revelation a secret! Why, if she hadn't made it to the second round, Macron would have faced a broadly united left against him rather than for him in the name of the anti-le pen firewall!
It's a good thing that this virtuous adherence to principle applied for the rest of the campa-
17 April 2022: French prosecutors announce the new (actually old) Le Pen fund appropriation report
Coincidentally, 17 April 2022 was a Sunday, meaning this would be one of the opening media report for the next week's media cycle.
24 April 2022: The second round of the French Presidential Election occurs. Macron wins, 58% to 42%.
Fortunately, Macron's presidential margins are great! Any effects from the timing of the report probably had no result on a 16% gap.
June 2022: Unfortunately, Macron's parliamentary margins in the June 2022 elections are dismal, as his party loses control of the parliament and Le Pen's party gains 81 seats to become a key power player in government (in)stability for the next year and a half.
July 2022-February 2023: No particular action or movement is made on the Le Pen case. Nominally this is when the French prosecutors are developing their case, but given the substantial prior awareness in practice the case remains where it was since between rounds 1 of the election: available as a basis of future prosecution if and when desired.
The key point of 2022 is that the Le Pen scandal resurfaced coincidentally in time to shape the 2022 Presidential Election, where it was sat on when it might have hindered Le Pen's ability to get to the second round, but publicized right at a time to maximize Macron's electoral margins. Afterwards, it was further sat on until future timeliness.
2023 - 2024: A series of Correlating Progressions
March 2023: After Macron does the eternally popular thing of cutting welfare in the name of reform, the Macron government (in the legislature) comes less than a dozen votes from falling in a no confidence vote after Le Pen's party largely votes for no confidence.
June 2023: After about a year of political paralysis and parliamentary instability, a Macron ally who totally likes him for real guys raises the prospect of amending French constitution to give Macron third term. This totally-not-a-trial-balloon proposal flops like something that has no life.
October 2023: Just kidding about before, Macron makes a personal call for constitutional amendment for a third term.
8 December 2023: The French government announces Le Pen's trial will start in March 2024.](https://www.france24.com/en/france/20231208-french-prosecutores-order-le-pen-to-stand-trial-in-eu-funding-scandal)
20 December 2023: Le Pen does the unforgivable, and gives Macron a 'kiss of death' by forcing him to compromise on immigration legislation in return for support. This actually triggers an internal party rebellion for Macron. Unrelated, establishment French media wonder how Macron will manage Le Pen's ever-rising rise.
The 20 December events aren't particularly causal in the process, but are amusing context.
The more relevant point of 2023 is that Macron's decision to prosecute Le Pen, an act which would bring favor from the French establishment, comes amidst his very unpopular bid to extend his time in office, which would require support from the French establishment. At this time, the Macron administration adopts a Tough-on-Le Pen position of 10 years- a period of time that would easily take her out of two elections- that will later be taken down to two years out of [insert choice here].
Also notable in the August 2023 initiation of prosecution of that it is both a starting block for the timer, and all future events. Whether there needed to be a 7-month gap between the announced intent to prosecute and the trial or not, had the prosecution train been started seven months earlier- during the large gap after the 2022 elections- then the future 2-year house arrest would have by consequence ended before, rather than probably after, the 2027 election. An 18-month bar, for other cases, would have been even less likely have a presidential election impact... had that been desirable.
2024: The Trial of Political Opponents with Absolutely No Political Parallels Or Impacts Elsewhere
March 2024: The Trial of Le Pen starts, about 24 months after the French government received an EU report of the 2015 report nearly 108 months prior. Truly the gears of French justice turned as fast as they could.
These are completely unrelated. Just because three major democracies of mutually-sympathetic ruling parties had parallel legal cases against leading opposition parties that threatened incumbent interests, and just because they did so on similar narrative themes/justification sof protecting democracy and rule of law themes, does not mean there was any sort of wink or nod or feeling emboldened by the example of others. Every case was independently moved forward on its own merits, with monetary judgements appropriate to the severity, and the mutual commentary by the states on the other's prosecutions was exactly what you would expect.
Also also coincidentally, this happened to be timed to roughly the same time that a UK court not only rejected a Trump lawsuit over the Steele dossier that was the root of the Russiagate hoax, but ordered Trump to pay 6-figures in legal fees, which was helpfully noted as adding to the half-billion in legal fees Trump had accrued so far that year and not at all contributing to pressures or efforts to drive Trump into bankruptcy analogous to the Le Pen experience earlier in the experience. Note that was before the historically unprecedented further half-billion fine from the New York judgement.
Now, admittedly, the Trump fiscal correlation must be a total distraction. Reputable democracies do not try to bankrupt their oppositions out of politics, and France failed to force Le Pen into fiscal insolvency years ago. The French government would only seek a 300,000 euro fine against Le Pen. And a 2 million euro fine against her party. And opened up a new case in September 2024 alleging illegal financing of the 2022 election.
This, clearly, is utterly unrelated to any other aspect of handling the Le Pen case, and not the initiation for a future basis to further fine and disqualify Le Pen from politics in the future after the current judgement runs its course.
And returning to the only relevant case itself, Le Pen trial that began in March in turn would certainly have no impact on...
June 2024: Surprise! Macron triggers snap elections in effort to overturn political gridlock and break his dependence on Le Pen. Perhaps the ongoing Le Pen trial will at last get rid of this troublesome opposition party?
July 2024: It, uh, doesn't work. Le Pen's party gets about 1/3 of all votes, and about 13% more than Macron's party.
The snap elections are generally considered a strategic mistake for Macron, doubling-down on his issues.
They also, coincidentally, totally kill any talk of Macron's constitutional reform for a third term candidacy.
A candidacy that- remembering previous elections- would have been substantially improved with a Le Pen in the field to rally a resentful Left to his side.
But now that Macron's political hopes for a third election are dead and buried...
November 2024: The French Government announces it seeks 5 years in jail, on top of the political bar, for Le Pen. However, conflicting reports say 2 years., with judgement expected in march 2025
Notably- even a 2 year sentence from vaguely April 2025 to April 2027 would release Le Pen right on / after the 2027 election, and thus totally unable to compete. And, depending on the terms of the house arrest, unable to speak or influence.
31 March 2025 (Yesterday): Le Pen is sentenced to 4-but-2-if-she-behaves years of prison, 2 of them under house arrest and 2 suspended, and a five year bar from political office. She is allowed to appeal but...
Even if she does appeal the ban on public office, only an appellate ruling could overturn it and restore her hopes of running, although time is running out for that to happen before the election as appeals in France can take several years to conclude.
Gallic shrug
I am sure the French government that took a decade to bring this conviction about will speedily process the appeal of the Le Pen who recent French polling suggested was somewhere in the 40% voting range for the first round. (Usual French first round poling disclaimers abound.)
Functionally, this ruling conveniently clears the deck for France's nominal establishment left and rights to make a return, without Le Pen in the way.
Call it Macron's farewell gift to French democracy. It's not like he disqualified his own presidential election opponent...
...though that's more because he failed to get the constitutional change he wanted that would have allowed him to run again...
...in which case, perhaps prosecutorial discretion might have leaned another way.
Summing It All Up
Le Pen (Senior) was an all-around tosser and more or less enemy of the French establishment, if not the French State per see
- Le Pen (Senior) embarrassed the French Establishment in the early 2002 election where he made the second round of the presidential election
- Le Pen (Senior) thereafter suffered years of unfortunate financial prospects that would have driven the Le Pen party out of politics
- Misfortune including perfectly neutral reductions in state stipends for political parties, a bank blockade, and an inability to sell a multi-million dollar property in Paris
- Le Pen (Senior) is politically toxic, and fiscally insolvent, before his daughter takes over the party
Le Pen (Marine) is Le Pen's daughter who inherited his mess, and his enemies
- Le Pen was an unexceptional MEP for over a decade with no notable scandals or accusations of fraud of this sort at the time
- In 2011, Le Pen inherits the party, and its finances, from her father. Money is tight.
- During this time, and probably before, Le Pen deals in the technically-illegal-but-totally-not-widely-practiced practice of paying national party members with EU funds.
- No one cares.
- Le Pen spends the next years working to rebuild fiscal solvency, including taking foreign loans to break the Parisian bank blockade
- The foreign loan most in question is Russian, marking a turn towards a more Russian-friendly narrative line, and increased institutional and international suspicion
President of European Parliament Shulz was a totally-not-corrupt German politician who totally didn't do a political hit job on the rival of an ally in furtherance of his own political ambitions
- Schulz had a notable, internationally-reported reputation for corruption, including on a similar issue
- The issue that will be the basis of the scandal is, uh, not unknown in his circles
- Schulz takes a particular stab at the political rival of a major political partner
- and potential future diplomatic partner who could help Schulz's ambitions come true
- Schulz definitely doesn't get awarded for services rendered for French-appreciated interests
- Or eagerly try to sustain the relationship with surprise arrival Macron
- But Schulz is not the villain
- Merely the tool providing the French establishment their means to prosecute Le Pen when desired
President Macron was totally not letting Le Pen stay in politics as a foil to bolster his personal electoral prospects against the French left
- It's not like Le Pen automatically invoked the support of the French left in every second round election
- Or bolstered his parliamentary prospects against the left that would, absent her, happily no-confidence him
- Or that his administration hid scandalous information that might have let her fail to be the foil when his left flank was weak
- It just takes an additional half-decade to complete investigations to find prosecutable evidence of something that was recorded and reported on more than half a decade prior
- You know, to develop the case until the time is right
Macron was totally not prolonging the case management by months or years in parallel to anticipation of extending his own political career
- Extending his jupiter-style presidency to a third term would have been more unpopular than he was
- In which case a free Le Pen sure would have been useful for those second-round elections
- But keep her and her party in a slow boil post-2022 with unclear intentions or scope
- As insurance policy, or leverage on the parliamentary politics
But Macron's efforts to garner support for a constitutional amendment failed
- And Macron's snap election gambit to regain control of government failed
- And when it failed, so did his prospects at constitutional change
- And if he's not running again, there's no electoral advantage in Le Pen to run again
Which makes it naturally the best time to announce the intent to jail and disqualify the clear frontrunner
- A merciful 'mere' 2 years house arrest just coincidentally scheduled to time to the next election cycle
- It certainly could not have occurred earlier, and thus mitigated the perception of intentional procedural manipulation
- This is justified because embezzlement of EU funds is a critical subversion of democracy the voters should know about
- Just not when it might have harmed Macron's electoral prospects
- Or by letting voters vote accordingly against Le Pen with the knowledge
In Conclusion
Is there a 'benign' explanation for all this? Sure, if you want.
Is this a sketchy-but-will-be-claimed-above-reapproach series of events? Also yes.
The Le Pen saga doesn't actually require some all-encompassing conspiracy. La Pen (Senior) can have his own political feuds with the French establishment separate from La Pen (Marine). Schulz was a means, but hardly the start or the end of the Le Pen family feud with the French establishment. Macron was (probably) never involved in the early phases of whatever French state pressures may or may not have been used to try to bankrupt the Le Pen party.
But unless you believe the French prosecutor's office is completely independent of Macron and only coincidentally schedules things to align with electoral milestones and key dates to Macron's benefit, the Macron-era Le Pen saga has plenty of its own implications of, shall we say, politically considerate handling.
And those Macron handlings were built on a history of the Marine Le Pen handlings. And the Marine Le Pen handlings were built on the Le Pen (Senior) handlings. This has been a political fight for longer than some of the posters on this forum have been alive.
None of this means that Le Pen didn't actually 'defraud' the EU of however many manhours of political aid hours she charged the EU. If that's all you care about, this can be 'just,' sure. Let justice be done though the heavens fall, and all that.
But the other part of 'just' is if this is handled the same as other cases. And to an extent this is impossible, because no one else in France gets handled like Le Pen, because no one else represents what the Le Pen family represents, or threatens, to the French establishment.
What Next?
Don't be surprised if this becomes a significant reoccurring propaganda / european culture war theme for the anti-establishment skeptics, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Establishment European media are already signaling an expectation of further political chaos in France, and trying to coax/signal Le Pen to 'help her party' over 'seek revenge.' (Politico) The National Rally remains in position to topple the government by contributing to a no-confidence vote if the other parties oppose Macron.
The New York Times, which is broadly sympathetic to the French government effort and hostile towards Le Pen with the NYT's characteristic framing devices, concedes that-
Ms. Le Pen, like it or not, may now become another element in the Vance-Musk case for European democratic failure.
This is surrounded by all the appropriate signals that this is bad thought, of course, but it is unlikely to be solely an American critique. Various right-of-center politicians across Europe were quick to condemn, and the culture war lines will write themselves.
Not all are unhappy or afraid, though.
In Paris’ Republic Plaza, where public demonstrations often unfold, Le Pen detractors punched the air in celebration.
“We were here in this square to celebrate the death of her father,” said Jean Dupont, 45, a schoolteacher. “And this is now the death of Le Pen’s presidential ambitions.”
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front and a figure long associated with racism and Holocaust denial, died earlier this year at age 96.
Sophie Martin, 34, a graphic designer, was among those in a celebratory mood. “I had to check the date — I thought it was April Fool’s Day,” she said. “But it’s not. She’s finally been knocked down. We’ve lived with her poison in our politics for too long.”
Dean
Flairless
2mo ago
It’s the same problem that’s occurred since time immemorial and is the reason why (as I understand it) Republican politicians were discouraged from spending too much time in Washington.
That was part of the 1994 Republican Revolution under Newt Gingrich. It wasn't just 'discouragement' either- it was a organizational-restructuring, as the rules of Congress were changed to facilitate frequent travel out of DC. Most notably, Congressional business workflows were centered on the mid-week, so that key votes were Tuesday-Thursday, to make Monday/Friday travel days more viable.
It was part of 'proving independence from Washington' and 'staying in touch with your constituents.' It is the oft-forgotten root of regular complaints that Congress spends too little time in Washington compared to the past, and the associated complaints that Congress gets less done (because they are present less) and don't know eachother as well. On the other hand, it arguably contributes to the dynamic of voters loving their congressperson but hating congress.
It was also, critically, a period where Republicans were also incentivized to not bring their families to D.C., which in turns means the wives and children who stay behind aren't culturally socialized into the blue-tribe-dominated national capital region. But it also means, by extension, that Democratic representative families under the same dynamics aren't socializing with more red-leaning counterparts, and are free to be even bluer influences on their Congressional-spouses.
This is an oft-forgotten / underappreciated rules-level dynamic of national-level political centralization and elite-consensus.
Keeping key elites spending time together and away from their own power-bases that could foster a sense of disconnect from the central authority has been a national cohesion strategy since before Louis XIV and Versailles. This helped political centralization by giving the monarch an easier time keeping an eye on everyone if they were in one part. But it also allowed for political homogenization/consensus-building/shared-identity cultivation of a common French identity amongst elites, as the French nobility were forced by proximity (and tactical political interests) to get along and socialize. Court politics is infamous in fiction for political infighting and drama, but it does create paradigms for collective understandings, interests, and identities, hence the divide of the french estates leading to the French revolution. Nobles infight against eachother, but unite in common cause against challenges to their collective interests and privileges.
Congressional committee placement politics isn't an exact analog to the French Monarchy making appointments dependent on remaining at court, but there are more than a few parallels. If you're not missing key votes because you're spending time with constituents- because Congressional workflows are focused on Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday execution- then you're not losing your chance at valuable appointments to powerful Congressional committees. The lower the opportunity cost of not-being in the capital, the greater the opportunity-gains of being elsewhere for fundraising / political events / etc. And, again, you're away from your family less if you're free to return to them more often.
These are changes that the Congressional Democrats have kept even when they recaptured Congress. They get many of the same benefits as well. And as the D.C. area is something like 90% Democratic for a variety of reasons, it's hard to see them convincing (or, frankly, forcing) the Republicans to revert to the pre-Gingrich status quo in the name of homogenizing them in an expected blue direction.
Interestingly, it's also a dynamic being actively pursued in the reverse by the movement of property, and not just people.
You can arguably see an implicit effort-to-reverse Federal consensus-centralization ongoing right now, as Trump attempts to push the federal bureaucracy away from the capital region.
One of the less-commented efforts the Trump administration is pursuing is moving federal agencies outside of the DC area and to other states. This has been overshadowed by the media coverage of the personnel management, but the property management is (almost) as important.
Among the earliest executive orders was a direction for agencies to propose relocations away from DC and to other states. This purportedly on cost-reasons. DC property is expensive to maintain, employee allowances are higher to make up for the regional cost of living, etc. The actual cost of moving has to be balanced against savings are likely to provide, but states have an incentive to take some of that cost for their own long-term gain in getting the relocated agencies.
Almost as importantly, Congress persons have an incentive to approve federal agency relocations to the benefit of their own state. Even Democratic politicians who might personally hate Trump. Which is to say, Federal government divestment from DC offers bargaining chips / horses to trade in the upcoming year(s) of budget negotiations.
That this is also is likely to have an employee-composition impact, as the hyper-blue DC environment those agencies recruit and socialize and network within get replaced with more purple environments that are geographically dispersed, is probably not going to be a publicized or recognized until it's as locked-in as the Gingrich Congressional travel changes.
As has been seen with some shutdowns like the USAID shutdown, DC-based federal employees have often indicated they want to stay in the DC area. This is natural. Even if they were offered an opportunity to keep their jobs if agencies were relocated instead of shutdown, some percent would refuse and seek other employment in DC. This is just a matter of statistics. It is also an area of precedent. In the Trump 1 administration, nearly 90% of DC-based Bureau of Land Management employees retired or quit rather than relocated to Grand Junction, Colorado.
That's bad if you think an equivalent dynamic to, say, the DC Headquarters of the Justice Department would lose vital experience and expertise and informal coordination with other agencies. On the other hand, if you don't think the headquarters of the US Justice Department should be rooted in the swamp that is 90% blue, and less than a mile from where a 'Black Live Matter' mural used to be maintained on the street...
And once departments are separated, the sort of informal coordination that can occur if you and a friend/ally you know in another part of the government can meet in the same town also goes away. Inter-government lobbying is a lot harder if you are cities apart. Inter-department coordination is also, and almost as importantly, a lot harder to do without a document trail.
And this is where one could infer a non-stated motive for the resistance-shy Trump. One of the only reasons the US electorate learned that the Biden administration white house was coordinating with the Georgia anti-Trump case despite denials was because one of the Georgia prosecutor assistances invoiced the White House for the travel expenses for in-person engagements. In-person meetings, in turn, are one of the ways to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests or Congressional subpoenas for communications over government systems.
This is where the Versailles metaphor comes back, but as an inverse of sorts. It was easier for Louis the XIVth to keep an eye on and manage the nobility when they were in one place. They were scheming, sure, but he could keep watch of them in a single physical location where he controlled the coordination contexts. Trump / the Republicans do not control the coordination context of DC. They can, however, increase political control over the bureaucracy by physically separating it across multiple physical locations, where they have easier means to monitor inter-node coordination.
It is also an effort that will be exceptionally hard for the Democrats to reverse, if they try to. It is a lot easier to divest and reorganize government institutions when you have a trifecta than when you don't. It is also much easier to give up federal property in DC to the benefit of states than it is to get state Congressional representatives to vote to strip their states of jobs and inflows for the sake of DC.
Which means that federal agencies that depart DC will probably not return in the near future. And the longer they stay away, the longer that local employment hiring filters into organizational cultures at the lowest levels. The more that Federal employees have their spouses and children shaped by the less-blue-than-DC environments, and thus shape them in turn. The less engaged, and involved, they can be in the beltway culture.
The Trump administration DC divestment are arguably going to have long-term effects on affected parts of the federal bureaucracy on par with Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution affects on Congress in the 90's. Affected agencies will be less compositionally composed of, less socially exposed to, and less culturally aligned to Blue-dominated DC in ways that will only become apparent decades from now.
Dean
Flairless
23d ago
...until you get outside of the cities with the infrastructure to support a constant surveillance system. Which is to say, most of any given country, including China.
Smart city technologies are indeed a significant counter-insurgency technology. They are not, however, the end-all-be-all, particularly if you have to fight your way into a country to install your own. 'I won't have this problem if I set up a nation-wide panopticon' still requires you to set up a nation-wide panopticon, and those are expensive even without active local and regional resistance, let alone global support flows from cyber attacks / satellite communication support / sanctuary and safezone logistics / etc.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
Are there enough Dems who genuinely want infrastructure / railroad / whatever funding to pass a bipartisan budget?
My recollection of the last decades was that the Democratic Congressionals were more than happy to raze the commons they might have shared with Trump, and that this inclination has only gotten stronger.
Dean
Flairless
26d ago
You're probably thinking of the time Justice Jackson claimed that black children are nearly twice as likely to survive if they have a black physician. This was part of her dissent in the Harvard admissions case, in which her dissent was in favor of Harvard's racial discrimination practices.
She was making an argument that racial admissions are a matter of life and death, because the lives of black children hinge on racial preferences getting black doctors into schools like Harvard, with the proof being the (bad) study.
Dean
Flairless
23d ago
It wasn't chuck Norris - you would only need 1 plane, not 6.
Well, clearly the other stealth bombers are diversions to disguise Chuck Norris's actual entry point for as long as possible.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
I had to get this done a day early, or it wouldn't get done until several days late.
Thank you for doing so. The 1st of the month roundup is, well, a highlight of the month. The new month wouldn't start off right without it.
Dean
Flairless
23d ago
Pretty much. People radically overestimate how hard it would have been for the Ukrainians to disassemble the Soviet nukes and make their own triggering device.
Which is what most of nuclear arms security comes down to. When nuclear munitions have unlock codes in the first place, the 'failsafe' mechanisms are failsafes in the sense of 'this trigger device will be borked.' They are not failsafes in terms of rendering the underlying material unable to be used, only unable to be used by the specific device.
Replace the device, and you have a possibly less efficient, but still effective, nuclear device. Which is among the less challenging parts of the nuclear problem.
'Follow the money' has been sound advice for generations for deciphering contexts for a reason.
Media controls, which really means internet controls, which really means social media control.
When states turn to disappearance campaigns, one of the key points is that people, well, disappear. Lose track of them. No one can find them for long, long periods of time. And part of this is that you prevent media from being to follow up- and that the media that try, also disappear. No official, reputable media reports on them, and the absence is what is conspicuous. You can't hide that people disappear, and to a degree you don't want to, but the tactice works by the ambiguity. The ambiguity is provided by the media not providing answers.
The current administration has been more notable for reducing the levers of influence over media reporting than in building the influence apparatus. When Trump feuded with Reuters (or was it AP) over the Gulf of America renaming, his retaliation was to... kick the reporting organization out of the press pool. Access is what is typically used as the influence vector of a government over a reporter / organization, since access in controlled circumstances is what gives the ability to build ties / leverage over others. Separation is distance is a decrease in influence.
Similarly, the Trump administration very quickly took direct steps to dismantle the sort of media-influence apparatus that the Biden administration supported. Trump and Rubio very, very quickly distanced the US- and by distanced I mean shut down the parts of the State Department participating in it- government-supported-by-proxy media-rating and fact-checker-black-lists that were used to support, and penalize, media groups based on their reliability.
If the end was to take over and disappear Americans, this is the sort of institutional capacity you would want to coopt, not dismantle.
You would use the government hand to apply aggressive fact checking to purge the political hyperbolics as misinformation, purge the old regime's supporters from the institution, and then use the misinformation pretext to aggressively go after anyone claiming the government was disappearing Americans. Part of this would be by staging a few false positives- for example, conduct to prompt a social media storm that could be proven false- and then use the false-coverage to start administering sanctions/punishments on misinformation grounds.
Dismantling a tool that could be used for a nefarious purpose isn't proof that a nefarious purpose won't occur, but it's about as good as one can get from inference. Especially given the rather elaborate preparation kabuki sets the Trump administration has demonstrated to date, such as the whole DOGE saga and how it started with the USAID takedown. There was a heck of a lot of choreographing in that, which is about as good an indication of prepatory planning, and the sort of policy-cognizant planning that would recognize tools for a crackdown campaign.
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