EverythingVille
Now.
We've talked a lot about strategic 'voting' around here in the past and whether or not it is effective.
But the apparently stunning effectiveness of strategic 'candidating'?
The New Popular Front (NFP), a four-party left-green alliance, was the shock winner of Sunday’s French parliamentary election, returning 182 deputies to a 577-seat assembly now split between three large opposing blocs, none with a majority...
Now.
Leaving aside all the hung/not hung parliament business to come for the moment...
How did the NFP actually do it?
How did the NFP actually do it?
...The NFP was cobbled together in haste after President Macron decided to dissolve parliament last month following his camp’s heavy defeat in the European elections, with the far-right National Rally (RN) polling at more than 30%.{snip}...So as not to split the anti-RN vote in potential three-way runoffs, the NFP stood down 132 mainly third-placed candidates. But more than 80 centrists also pulled out in favour of NFP candidates, and many centrist and centre-right supporters then voted left to block the RN...
We've talked a lot about strategic 'voting' around here in the past and whether or not it is effective.
But the apparently stunning effectiveness of strategic 'candidating'?
That's a new one!
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4 comments:
The French seem better at politics but of course their curriculum for schools is based on logic. By teaching logic and basing your education system on logic, they came up with a way to logically defeat the far right.
In BC we don't even come close in teaching logic or even critical thinking, just follow the politically correct doctrine, don't ask questions and you will graduate.
This is exactly what has happened in the USA, as the states dumbed down education to make sure they have a docile population.
In Canada the same is happening and our kids are ill equipped to face the real world, with all the problems happening.
Our kids are whizzes with computer games, but they couldn't tell you where France is.
Yes E.E. they actually teach critical thinking in French schools, what a concept. There was also some football guys speaking out too, which helped alot https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cw44m9pgmpro?trk=public_post_comment-text
Thanks for that link GF - I'd missed that story. Really interesting.
btw - checked with the fire person in the family...He knew of your dad but started at the hall just after your dad retired.
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Somewhat apples-to-oranges: France is a unitary state, not a federation, so voters there are less-accustomed to divided loyalties like we have. The big one is their majoritarian run-off system wherein it might be said that “strategic candidacy” is practiced practically every election. Socio-politically, migration and immigration are experienced and perceived much differently than here in North America—and that exacerbates similar xenophobias that we also have but, for Europeans, to much more intense levels, which explains the intensity of far-right partisanship. But, for whatever reasons, French voters prove themselves much more alert, ready and sophisticated than North American voters —with the possible exception of Quebecois.
The better term is ‘tactical voting’ (since the strategy of ALL voting is to elect representatives). The concept became powder for the proportional-representation drive: ‘strategic [tactical] voting is a necessary evil of single-member-plurality [First-Past-the-Post] which should be replaced with pro-rep [so’s to make evil tactical voting unnecessary].’
However, now relieved of hyperbolic electoral-change rhetoric, it should be accepted that there is absolutely nothing wrong with tactical voting—I mean, once one gets past the notion that one’s vote is equivalent to representation of one’s personal, individual position, or “voice”; then, a Green supporter can rationalize voting tactically for another party candidate so’s not to split the progressive vote and inadvertently elect an environmentally-unfriendly candidate—and still remain an active Green supporter otherwise, helping to develop Green policies and, perhaps, sending dollars to ridings where the Green candidate has a good shot at winning—or at least doesn't threaten to split the environmentally friendly vote.
(Heh, a buddy who considers the NDP too socialism-lite says he’s voting Green—in our solid Dipper riding—as a protest, acknowledging that “Greens are just old fashioned conservatives who compost.” I’m not sure that ‘tactic’ really comes to grips with anything—I mean, he’s known to pace the back of Dipper-riding meetings and scowl…)
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