International Revolt of Ordinary People Against Mainstream Politics

During the recent American Presidential Primaries and actual campaign, I wrote quite a few times about the dissatisfaction many Americans, Right, Left and Center, had with the establishment candidates. And that is the big reason that Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. Neither Hillary Clinton and the getting more Leftist by the second Democratic Party nor the mainstream Republican politicians, most notably the Bush dynasty attracted enough American voters in enough states to win the elections.

The Democrats, who preached their Radical Left New Morality, ended up scaring Middle America straight into the arms of Donald Trump, who, as a top marketing expert should, knew just what to say to appeal to the fears of ordinary Americans.

As I've written many times, politics can be as much fun to observe as sports. It is a sport in a sense. Like in most games, there is only one winner.

As the two candidates enter the final lap, each can reasonably claim a part in changing the face of French politics. Ms Le Pen secured 7.7m votes, 1.3m more than at the first round in 2012, and a big jump from the 4.8m her father got in 2002. When he made it into the run-off, he scored only 18%. That she might well more than double that on May 7th is a reflection of her success in turning the FN into a fixed feature of the French party system. Even if she loses, Ms Le Pen has had an outsized influence over this campaign.
As for Mr Macron, he has already pulled off a historic feat. Last summer, he was a rank outsider, whose hopes of running defied all French rules about the way presidential candidacies are slow-cooked over the years. Now, the man with a dream, a gamble and a heavy dose of luck appears well placed to become the youngest-ever president of France’s Fifth Republic. After that, the hard part begins. The Economist

CNN

politico.eu

In another week France is having run-off Presidential Elections between two non-mainstream candidates, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. Macron, like Trump, has never held elected office though he was appointed Minister of the Economy in 2014. Marine Le Pen has revamped her father's extreme Right party and may actually pull off a victory.

For the moment, surveys predict that Macron will win with a bit less than 60%, but Le Pen has been constantly rising in polls in recent days. Jerusalem Post

As "brand loyalty" is becoming a thing of the past in marketing, the same phenomenon is showing its head in politics. Nowadays, before buying a refrigerator or plane tickets, people check their options online and choose by price and servicing, rather than getting the latest model of their old fridge or sticking with "frequent flyer" options. That's why simple marketing and voicing the needs and worries of the voter is the modern way to win an election.

Le Pen, Shechita and French Jewry

Quite a number of countries around the world have banned shechita, the Jewish way of killing animals for human consumption. They claim "humanitarian" reasons, but each of them permits hunting, which is the cruelest occupation imaginable. They call it a "sport." Not only are the animals "taken by surprise," but frequently the hunter does not succeed in a quick kill, and the wounded animal suffers terribly. There's nothing more inhumane than that, especially when in many, or most, cases the animal isn't even needed for food. This is sport, remember. Sometimes the animal is left to die or its skin/fur is used or the head is stuffed and displayed to show the prowess of the hunter, etc.

Shechita on the other hand is a very controlled ritual which not only requires training to teach the shochet, slaughterer, exactly where to cut and how quickly so the animal won't suffer a slow painful death. Also the knife has to be extremely sharp to facilitate a painless kill.

kosher chicken prepared for baking

It's interesting that unlike the antisemitic hypocrites in other countries, Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader has asked French Jewry to sacrifice easily available kosher food to try to squeeze Muslims out of France. Her proposal is based on two fallacies:

• the millions of Muslims in France would emigrate if they couldn't easily get halal slaughtered (or kosher shechita which they accept) meat
• French Jewry consider making life difficult for Muslims more important than local kosher slaughter

I think Le Pen's wrong on both accounts. 

• France's Muslim population would find ways to keep themselves well fed on properly slaughtered meat and poultry.
• French Jewry doesn't trust Le Pen, whom they see as antisemitic, and also has no desire to have to import kosher meat and poultry. Also the Jewish population is shrinking, since they dono't see a future in terror-plagued France. 

I agree with the pundits that Le Pen hasn't a chance to win.

She has said during the current campaign that she would ban the wearing of kippahs in public in France in order to facilitate a ban on Muslim clothes. She has also said that she would make it illegal for French citizens to have an Israeli passport.
Le Pen has called on French Jews to make these “sacrifices” to curb radical Islam and has promised to be French Jewry’s “shield” against Islam.
French Jewish leaders have called Le Pen a “candidate of hate” and urged voters to support the leading candidate, centrist Emmanuel Macron, to keep Le Pen from winning. He won the first round with 23.7 percent of the vote. Polls from Tuesday predict he would win the second round by more than 20 points. Jerusalem Post