William Barr for AG: the latest in Trump nominees

The New Neo Posted on by

President Trump has chosen William Barr to be his next attorney general.

My first reaction was: Bill Barr? Is he still alive?

The answer, obviously, is “yes, very much alive”—and he’s not even all that old at 68. Barr was George H. W. Bush’s attorney general in 1991, close to thirty years ago, so he was quite a young man at the time.

Barr had been kicking around in various governmental roles till then, but afterwards he stayed mostly in the corporate world. Lo and behold, he’s back, and here’s a description of some of his current positions:

…[Barr] has previously supported Trump’s call to investigate his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, and has questioned the need for Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election…

Late last year, after Trump called on the Justice Department to investigate Clinton, Barr told The New York Times there was “nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation,” though he cautioned that an investigation “shouldn’t be launched just because a president wants it.”

But he told the Times that he saw more of a basis for investigating Clinton’s involvement in a uranium deal as secretary of state than he saw for investigating possible collusion between Trump and Russia.

“To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” Barr told the Times.

Barr supported Trump during the campaign and wrote a piece for The Washington Post days before the election saying that then-FBI Director James Comey did the right thing by disclosing that the bureau had essentially reopened the Clinton investigation. Months later, after Trump fired Comey, Barr wrote that Comey had “sandbagged” the Justice Department and usurped its authority by making the initial announcement about the Clinton probe in the summer of 2016.

Barr seems to be a somewhat interesting and unusual combination of things: an old-time establishment Republican allied with the Bushes who was an early Trump-adopter and who seems fairly conservative in his beliefs. He also has the advantage of being well-liked and well-respected by a wide variety of people—at least, till now. Now that Trump has given him the Trumpian stamp of approval, Barr may suddenly become persona non grata with people who previously admired him.

Here are some opinions:

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is said to be “elated” by the choice of Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has always held his predecessor in high regard, a source close to both men said.

If confirmed this time around, Barr will be tasked with guiding the Department through battles on multiple fronts — not only with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but potentially overseeing a politically charged investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and answering to Trump, whose presidency thus fast has been marked by attacks on the DOJ and the FBI for a perceived failure to target his former political rivals.

I’m not sure who recommended Barr—perhaps the outgoing Sessions?—but it seems like a very creative choice and might even be a good one.

In other appointments, Trump has named State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as UN ambassador. Nauert used to work for Fox News. I expect she’ll continue in the vein of Haley, although perhaps with a bit less force and eloquence, but I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

Remember Pearl Harbor: 77th anniversary

The New Neo Posted on by

Today is the seventy-sixth anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The generation that reacted to it by mobilizing and fighting World War II is on its last legs. But they were the ones we still call “the Greatest.”

I was reminded of this while watching one of those Oliver North “War Stories” TV shows, about Pearl Harbor. It featured some of the elderly participants reminiscing about that long ago day. Before each one spoke, there was a photograph of him back in 1941: young, vibrant, handsome, full of life. Now they were ancient, and most only vaguely resembled their former selves. But they still transmitted great moral strength and a kind of Gary-Cooperesque stoicism and understated bravery as they told their stories.

One year ago there were still quite a few WWII veterans alive:

The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have data on veterans of individual battles, and an alumni association for the battle disbanded in 2011, at the 70th anniversary, when it believed just 8,000 of the 84,000 uniformed Americans on Oahu during the attack remained alive. Since 2011, roughly half of veterans of World War II who were alive then have died, according to VA projections, leaving fewer than 700,000 alive today. Roughly 400 American WWII veterans die each day. The VA projects fewer than 3,000 veterans of WWII will survive to the 100th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and that may be optimistic…

That was written one year ago, and obviously the number of Pearl Harbor veterans alive has only gotten smaller—as it will every year until the number is zero. And then, we will still remember? In fact, do most of us remember Pearl Harbor now? Time marches on, and even 9/11 has faded into the background for most people.

A couple of facts: it’s become fashionable to believe that FDR knew about the attack in advance and let it happen anyway. But those 12/7-truthers are almost undoubtedly wrong. Roosevelt wanted to get us into the war, and he knew a Japanese attack was coming at some point, and informed his generals to that effect, but he knew none of the particulars in advance.

This idea of a government in cahoots with the enemy, willing to let innocent Americans die, keeps coming up again and again. A certain not insignificant segment of the population appears to favor such conspiracy theories, probably because we don’t like feeling vulnerable to sudden attack.

Here’s a post I published ten years ago on Pearl Harbor Day. It focuses on FDR’s famous speech afterward, and the will and resolve he amply demonstrated. Will and resolve in war remain extremely relevant these days.

Here is just a little bit of Roosevelt’s post-Pearl Harbor speech, in case we need reminding of what American resolve used to sound like:

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

Here’s the speech itself:

The memorable phrase that began FDR’s address, “a date which will live in infamy,” wasn’t in Roosevelt’s earlier draft. It reads “a date which will live in world history.” That sounds like a high school essay; Roosevelt crossed out “world history” and added “infamy” in his own hand. He also changed “simultaneously and deliberately attacked” to “suddenly and deliberately attacked.”

Wise choices.

[NOTE: This is a somewhat updated version of a previous post.]

[ADDENDUM: Somewhere, somehow, I lost a year. I originally labeled this day as being the 76th anniversary, which of course is incorrect.]

Stocks…

The New Neo Posted on by

…have been skittish lately:

Stocks initially fell sharply as continuing fears over U.S.-China trade relations and concern over a possible economic slowdown kept investors on edge.

“There’s concern that the trade deal is not as good as [President Donald] Trump said it was,” said Mark Esposito, CEO of Esposito Securities. “Recession fears are also settling into the market.”

“It’s definitely safer to be in cash right now,” Esposito said. “I don’t think the fall is over.”

But isn’t it usually safer to be in cash, except for the possibilities of theft and fire and flood? The reason people ordinarily invest money, though, isn’t for safety, it’s about growing their money. The possibility of growth always involves the possibility of risk. The greatest growth possibilities often involve the greatest risk.

When I was married I let my husband do whatever investing we did. He was more interested in it and also more knowledgeable, and he had a greater tolerance for risk. We made some money and lost it and made it and lost it and I have to say that was one thing we never argued about. I just assumed the whole endeavor was risky; it made me nervous, but if I’d been in charge we never would have grown our money at all.

I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if the stock market were about to, as they say, “correct.”

Wisconsin Republicans in legislature vote to limit power of incoming Democratic governor

The New Neo Posted on by

This development is interesting on a lot of levels:

Wisconsin’s incoming Democratic governor is condemning moves by Republicans legislators to weaken his power.

Gov.-elect Tony Evers said Wednesday that Republicans have overridden the will of voters who chose Democrats in last month’s election. He says a handful of people desperately want to “cling to power.”

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved sweeping changes early Wednesday that weaken the governor’s ability to make rules that enact laws. The legislation also shields the state jobs agency from his control until September and cuts into the powers of the incoming Democratic attorney general.

What’s interesting about this is that it’s an example of Republicans doing what Republicans so seldom do: playing hardball. It’s also an example of Republicans doing what Democrats would do if they were in the same position—the position being that Republicans control the legislature and a Democrat is about to be sworn in as governor.

But is it right to do it? And is “right” even a consideration anymore, now that politics has become an almost completely non-cooperative and partisan affair?

Here’s what Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has to say about it:

Republicans have controlled both branches for eight years. Their concern about constitutional balance seems at the very least tardy. If that’s the reason, why not take it up before the election — or earlier, when it would have limited Scott Walker’s authority?

There are all sorts of outcome-based reasons for doing this, of course. Republicans will insist that Democrats wouldn’t have played fair with executive authority without those restrictions. As Evers notes, both he and incoming AG Josh Kaul ran on a platform of activism, so the impulse behind this effort may well be understandable. There is a need to protect a lot of good work done over the last eight years, especially from the GOP’s perspective.

That still doesn’t make this the right method, unless we’re now fully embracing a means-justifying-ends philosophy.

My questions would be the following:

What powers does the Wisconsin constitution give the legislature vis a vis the executive branch? Is this action by the legislature within their constitutional powers? Then they can do it. It does set a bad precedent, but it’s been a long time since Wisconsin Democrats have observed any niceties of the sort, particularly in their long and bitter fight against Scott Walker.

I also would like to know whether the powers they are limiting are powers that Scott Walker actively exercised as governor.

By the way, although this is technically a lame duck legislature, it’s not effectively so because after January the Republicans in Wisconsin will continue to be in the majority in the legislature and will continue to control it.

Macron’s still in trouble

The New Neo Posted on by

This article in The Sun has the following headline: “Beleaguered Emmanuel Macron predicts ‘major violence’ across France this weekend as approval rating crashes to record low of 18 per cent.”

That’s about as low as the approval for the MSM in this country.

And this is the sub-headline: “Protesters across France are set to take to the streets again on Saturday despite the government caving in over the controversial fuel price hike.” I would say that there’s no “despite” about it, since the protestors are protesting much more than the fuel price hike, and they intend to go on protesting until there is some sort of more fundamental change—although there may not be a lot of agreement among them as to what the change might be.

In addition, Macron’s caving in to the protestors isn’t going to make anyone respect him more; it’s more likely to make them respect him less. Weak horse and all that.

I’ve already written about the protestors and who they might be and what they might want, here and here. The Sun article mentions “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” as being involved, which is in agreement with what I’d learned earlier.

I don’t know whether this has any relevance at all, but the last time I can recall “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” uniting in huge protests, the result was the Iranian Revolution and the ascendance of the mullahs.

France is certainly not Iran. But I recall being puzzled by those Iranian demonstrations close to forty years ago, wondering how that alliance of Left and Right was going to play out. Now we know.

George H. W. Bush is laid to rest…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and “was celebrated with high praise and loving humor.” It’s no surprise that his former enemies on the left are saying nice things about him now, because as Michael Goodwin points out, the only good Republican is a dead one, especially if he was against Trump in life, and in death can be used as a cudgel with which to beat Trump.

We saw it with McCain and now with Bush the Elder. But even before Trump, we saw it with Reagan, who was in some sense the Trump of his time and who the MSM excoriated while alive but loved when dead. What’s more, his death occurred during the Bush II era, and therefore could be used as a cudgel which which to beat Bush the Younger.

Gender studies wars

The New Neo Posted on by

In Europe there’s a trend to criticize or even in some cases do away with the field of gender studies. Naturally, this makes the gender studies professors very very nervous:

The attacks take many different forms, including blacklists and harassment of individual scholars, the proposal of legislative measures to police classroom speech, and attempts to censor academic events. In Brazil the pioneering gender studies scholar Judith Butler was burned in effigy and accosted by protestors at the airport last year after far-right Christian groups objected to her visit to the country for a conference she’d helped to organize. As Butler told Inside Higher Ed in an interview at the time, her sense was that the protesters “who engaged this frenzy of effigy burning, stalking and harassment want to defend ‘Brazil’ as a place where LGBTQ people are not welcome, where the family remains heterosexual (so no gay marriage), where abortion is illegal and reproductive freedom does not exist. They want boys to be boys, and girls to be girls, and for there to be no complexity in questions such as these.”

David Paternotte, an associate professor in sociology at the Free University of Brussels and co-editor of the book Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), said less extreme attacks on gender studies often take the form of press articles criticizing the discipline. “People saying it’s ideological, it’s not scientific. This is what we hear the most — that it’s a waste of public money, it shouldn’t be a part of what is taught at universities.”

This reached a head recently in Hungary, a phenomenon I’ve written about previously. From that post of mine:

It does indeed appear, however, as though a sort of reverse cultural revolution might be taking place in Hungary, a campaign by Orban’s party to restore the older ways and stamp out some of the leftist/progressive cultural agenda…

Orban wants the Granscian march to go in the other direction for a change.

That first article I linked in this post—the one from Inside Higher Ed—is rather long. But I found it fascinating for several reasons, chief among them the condescending holier-than-thou tone of the gender studies professors cited. The gist of what they were saying was that the troglodyte right-wingers are politically motivated in their fight against gender studies, but there is absolutely zero acknowledgement of the gender studies profs’ own political perspective, a point of view that informs their every study and every utterance. “You’re political, but I’m just an objective, enlightened researcher” is the basic message, and it’s a false one.

And in fact, what a nation decides to teach is very often a political decision, particularly in its state-funded schools, as opposed to its private schools—with the possible exception of math and science, although, as the Soviets taught us, instructive in this area as in so many others, math and science can be made to be political as well. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

But some areas of study, especially those with “studies” in their name and which tended to spring up post-1960s, are more political and more deeply political than others. Not only that, but their science is shakier and more politically driven. Gender studies is one of those fields, although it’s not the only one.

That doesn’t mean it should be banned. Perhaps states are within their rights refusing to fund disciplines such as gender studies in state-funded schools, which preserves the right of private schools to offer courses. That’s highly unlikely to happen in the US at this point, anyway, because most state university systems are wholly dominated by the left, which champions gender studies. But in Europe things seem different, particularly in Hungary.

In Allan Bloom’s great work The Closing of the American Mind he dealt with the political aspects of education:

Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being…In some nations the goal was the pious person, in others the warlike, in others the industrious…Aristocracies want gentlemen, oligarchies men who respect and pursue money, and democracies lovers of equality. Democratic education, whether it admits it or not, wants and needs to produce men and women who have the tastes, knowledge, and character supportive of a democratic regime. Over the history of our republic, there have obviously been changes of opinion as to what kind of man is best for our regime. We began with the model of the rational and industrious man, who was honest, respected the laws, and was dedicated to the family (his own family—what has in its decay been dubbed the nuclear family). Above all he was to know the rights doctrine; the Constitution, which embodied it; and American history, which presented and celebrated the founding of a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”…

But openness…eventually won out over natural rights, partly through a theoretical critique, partly because of a political rebellion against nature’s last constraints. Civic education turned away from concentrating on the Founding to concentrating on openness based on history and social science.

Although that was written some time during the 1980s (his book was published in 1987 but it was based at least in part on lectures Bloom had given earlier), you can see that the foundation for the current situation (including that involving gender studies) had been laid by that time. Bloom’s book also contains a lengthy description of a late-1960s fight at Cornell over (among other things) the establishment of an Afro-American Studies department and who would control it. If you haven’t read Bloom’s work, you might want to look at Thomas Sowell’s rather brief account here.

Here’s some background of how Cornell 1969 was a sort of ground zero for the special “studies” departments and their spread throughout academia:

Only days before the Straight takeover, on April 10, 1969, the Cornell administration had approved $240,000 to create an Afro-American Studies Center and a director, James Turner, had been identified months earlier. “The students wanted an autonomous program; they wanted the center to have control of its own destiny,” said Eric Acree, librarian at the Africana Studies and Research Center.

But change did come even more quickly after the takeover. “You now have recognition that other people need to be studied — women, gays and lesbians, Latinos, Asian Americans — and all of that is an outgrowth of the black studies movement,” said Acree.

According to Robert L. Harris, professor of Africana studies, entire scholarly fields had been ignored. “The seriousness of Africana studies as an academic endeavor had been questioned, simply because the breadth and depth of existing scholarship was not widely known,” he said. “In the decades since, the field has been the source of vast quantities of indisputably serious, relevant, compelling work.”

Actually, I think that black studies and gender studies and all the rest are very legitimate fields to ponder and learn about—in other words, they are legitimate areas of study if those studies could be objective and present all sides of the questions involved.

The real problem is the extreme leftist slant that seems inherent in those departments, baked in the cake. There is also the question of whether separate departments are necessary or whether courses in these areas could be taught within existing generalized departments such as history. However, I wonder whether there’s any turning back at this point, at least in the US.

A magic bullet for obesity?

The New Neo Posted on by

But be careful what you wish for.

At least in mice, researchers have had some success in targeting a gene for obesity:

…[S]cientists are working toward a drug that would allow patients to lose weight without exercising or making any changes to their diet.

Led by Prof. Damien Keating, researchers at Australia’s Flinders University started by identifying an obesity-related gene in rodents, known as RCAN1. The team then genetically altered a batch of mice, in order to remove that gene. Those animals were subsequently put on a variety of diets over time periods ranging from eight weeks to six months. In all cases, even when being fed high-fat foods, none of the mice gained weight.

It was found that with the RCAN1 out of the way, the animals’ bodies were much better at converting “unhealthy” energy-storing white fat into healthy energy-burning brown fat. This occurred even as the mice were resting.

Not all phenomena that occur in rodents are transferable to humans, of course, but some are. However, the article also states something extremely interesting:

[Scientists] will additionally have to take potential side effects into account, as the gene protects cells against stressors that can lead to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

That’s why the first sentence of this post is, “Be careful what you wish for.” I’ve noticed it’s often the case that something noxious, or seemingly noxious, in the natural world has unacknowledged benefits, and eradicating that thing (whatever it may be) can have unintended negative consequences.

For example, that’s true with predators or insects that are eliminated and then something else (often the thing they preyed on) grows out of control. Or drugs are invented that deal with one physical problem successfully, but the overall death rate of the population taking it doesn’t go down.

Curious, no?

On asylum

The New Neo Posted on by

Asylum has a specific purpose and rules that govern its granting, and the vast majority of the caravaners’ claims wouldn’t fit asylum’s definition.

But that may be somewhat moot, because (at least in the past) many asylum seekers haven’t shown up for their hearings (see this for the war of statistics on this matter).

Who suffers from this state of affairs? Why, the bona fide asylum seekers,, that’s who:

…[U]nless those looking for a better life have either suffered or have legitimate reason to believe they will suffer persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions, they do not meet the legal baseline for refuge or asylum. Period.

Second, there is reason to believe that a majority of those claiming asylum from Central America do so with no intention of following through. According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security regarding the migrant caravan:

“The low statutory requirements and legal loopholes in our laws encourage aliens to claim credible fear at our Southern border knowing they will be promptly released into the interior with work permits pending the determination of their full claim.”…

It’s a simple fact…that resources are finite, and when government agents spend time sorting out frivolous asylum claims from economic migrants at the border, it takes up time and resources that could be otherwise applied to other applicants who don’t have the geographic advantage of being able to form a caravan and travel over land.

I doubt very much that those championing the “migrants” in the caravan care very much if at all about bona fide asylum seekers or about the distinction between those who simply want to come here for economic reasons and those who are actually fleeing “persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions.”

Asylum is a sort of fast-track system to accommodate those in special situations. For those who simply want to better their lives—a laudable and understandable goal—and who think America would be just the place to do it, then get in line and come in via the legal immigration route.

[ADDENDUM: Some “migrants” are impatient with the process.]

Macron postpones gas tax for 6 months

The New Neo Posted on by

Macron gives in to the protestors—sort of, kind of, a little bit:

Faced with another weekend of destructive protests by the “gilets jaunes”—or yellow vests—Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told a news conference Tuesday the tax hike would be pushed back six months. The worst riots to hit Paris in decades erupted during antigovernment protests Saturday, leaving the city’s shopping and tourist center dotted with burning cars and broken storefronts. Protesters vandalized the Arc de Triomphe, rattling Mr. Macron’s administration and the nation.

“No tax is worth threatening the unity of the nation,” Mr. Philippe said.

I don’t have my finger on the pulse of France, but I would venture to say that the “unity of the nation” is threatened by more than just this tax, and a delay will not change that fact.

I also think that the French want to have their cake and eat it too. In this respect they are hardly unique; it’s a common human desire, and welfare states give people the illusion of being able to accomplish it—for a while, that is, until (as Margaret Thatcher remarked about socialism) they run out of other people’s money.

From the WSJ [emphasis mine]:

The [gas tax hike] approach, however, alienated swaths of French people who live in rural areas and rely on their cars to reach their jobs in urban areas. It also compounded the public’s perception that rural France has borne the brunt of globalism’s impact, as forces such as e-commerce and big box retail have left villages and towns hollowed out.

The result: hundreds-of-thousands of people flocked to Paris and other cities around France, blocking roads, clashing with police and demanding the resignation of Mr. Macron.

The Macron government hopes that in the next six months the opposition will enter into negotiations with them on this, which so far the opposition has refused to do. My guess is that the opposition’s leaders have a much bigger agenda than this tax, and that the rank and file may not be aware of that agenda.

What that agenda might be I’m not sure, but as I wrote yesterday there are whiffs of both left and right in this movement. Once people become dependent on certain perks of the welfare state they are loathe to give them up, and they often just want those “other people” (the ones with the money) to be further tapped in order to pay for those things.

In Europe (as in the US, but it may be more acute in Europe), elements of French society (particularly, as the article indicates, those living in more rural areas) also feel that “immigrants” have been given things at their expense. This may indeed be correct, and it’s potentially a much greater threat to “the unity of the nation” than a gas tax would ever be.

Ballot harvesting, the wave of the future?

The New Neo Posted on by

The new technique of “ballot harvesting” in California may account for why Orange Country turned blue in the 2018 election.

On election night six Republicans were ahead in their House districts in Orange County, but when the late votes came in—many cast by the newly-legal method of “ballot harvesting”—the Democrats had won all six.

Here’s an example of how it worked:

In California’s 39th Congressional District, Republican candidate Young Kim was widely anticipated to snag an electoral victory and fill outgoing Rep. Ed Royce’s shoes, becoming the first Korean-American woman to serve in Congress. On election night and the next day, she held a wide lead ahead of Democrat Gil Cisneros. While waiting for the official ballot tally, Kim flew to Washington D.C. to attend orientation events for freshmen members of Congress, including the class photo op, but as ballots continued to pour in up to a week after the election, the results flipped and she ultimately lost…

A new state law allows third parties to pick up ballots and drop them off at polling locations on behalf of that person, a practice known as “ballot harvesting.”

In video footage that surfaced last month, a woman who identifies herself to a California resident as Lulu is seen knocking on someone’s door and offering to deliver their absentee ballot, but “only to, like, people who are supporting the Democratic Party.”…

Mailing a ballot to every voter in the county, allowing these ballots to arrive up to a week after Election Day, and allowing individuals to register to vote and cast a ballot on the day of an election give ample opportunity for an individual intent on committing voter fraud to do so.

I’m pretty sure it isn’t illegal to go door to door and only “help” those who want to vote Democratic. If that’s true, it’s pretty obvious to me that the California Democrats would be much more active in this way than the Republicans in that state, who were almost undoubtedly caught flat-footed. So this could have greatly benefited the Democrats in Orange County without actual fraud being committed.

Or it certainly could have included fraud.

The entire situation is worrisome, and I’m fairly sure this is something more and more states will be instituting. Those who object will be accused of racism and vote suppression.

Democrats are intent on creating a set of large one-party states so dominant that winning them will be a foregone conclusion, and winning them will be enough to win every national election. The Republicans don’t seem to have a clue what to do about it.

Trying to get a sense of what’s really happening in France…

The New Neo Posted on by

…isn’t easy.

There are widespread riots. But exactly who is rioting and why they’re rioting isn’t completely clear, although they certainly seem to be anti-Macron. But there are plenty of reasons to be anti-Macron, some emanating from the left and some from the right or from some other impulse or belief system.

The MSM so far seems to be saying the riots are “anti-elitist,” and that they began with people angry at a fuel tax increase. This article purports to get to the bottom of things, but I don’t think it sheds all that much light:

The protests were initially described as a largely working-class, grass roots movement with many among the demonstrators saying their livelihoods will be threatened by higher fuel prices.

However, the protests have now morphed into wider discontent at the high cost of living in France and dissatisfaction with Macron, whose popularity continues to fall. A poll by Kantar Public in late October showed that 71 percent of 1,000 respondents in the poll had no confidence in Macron.

The higher fuel prices were “part of the government’s proposed carbon tax designed to improve its environmental credentials” with the Greens, prior to the next elections. But many demonstrators feel it’s a hardship that will hurt those who are already struggling (unemployment is around 10% in France).

It could spread:

The French protests seem to be inspiring others in Europe with copycat riots in Belgium this weekend. Famke Krumbmuller, partner and head of political risk at OpenCitiz, told CNBC that the disgruntlement of protesters in France could be felt elsewhere in Europe.

“I guess what’s specific to this movement is that it is relatively apolitical, so they (the protesters) are not from just one party on the left or right. They’re white, middle-class people that are squeezed by the welfare state. They pay a lot of taxes but they don’t get a lot of benefits in return,” she told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum in Paris.

Although I certainly don’t generally trust the NY Times’ take on things, sometimes they write straight news and do it well. That article describes something that sounds a bit like a protest from what in this country would be called the Trump voters.

Finally I turned to a blog I used to read regularly. It’s by a Frenchman and is called No Pasaran. He writes:

There is nary a single media report about the Yellow Vest demonstrations in Paris and France that I’ve read or watched that has not been slanted by Fake News.

It has (usually) not been deliberate, I gather, and nobody has said anything factually wrong; what is the problem is the fact that (very) important stuff has been omitted.

Fancy that.

It is not wrong to say that the demonstrations were caused by the government’s decision to raise gas prices. What is missing is that this is just one of several draconian measures dating back half a year, i.e., ‘tis the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

For the past four to five months, the French government has done nothing but double down on bringing more and more gratuitous oppression and more and more unwarranted persecution measures down on the necks the nation’s drivers and motorcycle riders.

In fact, the imposition of ever harsher rules has been going on for the past decade and a half or so — whether the government was on the right or on the left …/…

Well, that didn’t quite give me the information I wanted.

And this is curious—student rioting that seems to be piggy-backing on the other riots but as far as I can tell has different motivations:

At the moment, all high school students who pass their final exams have the right to study any course at their local public university, for a nominal tuition fee.

This has led to some popular courses being oversubscribed and some 60 per cent of French university students do not finish their first year.

President Macron’s government wants universities to be able to apply admissions criteria and select students on merits such as exam results or entrance exams for some oversubscribed degrees.

That’s what the students are rioting over—the imposition of some form of merit system in a situation in which taking all comers has overburdened the resources available. I suppose you could call that “anti-elitist” as well, but it’s an anti-elitism that seems to be coming from the left, whereas the other rioters seem (accent on the word “seem”) to be coming more from the right.

Meanwhile, the so-called “far right” in Spain has made gains in recent elections. What does this far-right party advocate? Well, here’s one description:

A far-right party won seats in a Spanish regional parliament for the first time since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Vox, which opposes illegal immigration and Catalan independence, won 12 seats in the Andalusia parliamentary elections, bringing an end to three decades of socialist rule in the southern Spanish region.

Vox did better than predicted.

“The Andalusians have made history… and got rid of 36 years of socialist rule,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal said…

Spain’s Socialist Workers’ Party suffered their worst result in history, picking up 33 seats, while its potential left-wing ally Adelante Andalusia (Forward Andalusia) won 17 seats…

Next year Spain will have municipal, regional and European elections which could be an even tougher test for the ruling Socialists.

Indeed.

I wonder about the permanence and meaning of all these moves to the right, or to populism, or rejections of socialism, or however one might want to characterize them. To me they seem—much like the Trump movement here—to not be deeply rooted but to instead be frustrated reactions to something else. That “something else” is loosely called “elitism,” but I actually think it’s many things: a combination of not wanting Big Government to dictate so much and take so much money from people to do things most people really don’t want it to do, a rejection of illegal immigration and open borders (a rejection that used to be a mainstream position but is now considered to be a “far right” position), and a feeling that much of life has gotten out of control in a way that feels ominous and threatening.

The impulse could go right or left, as the recent midterms in the US seem to indicate. I sense that it may be an impulse away from rather than towards, a deep frustration with the status quo.