My Trump-hating friends are delighted about the French Trump?

by philg

My Facebook friends are excited about the election of a new leader in a country with the same level of manufacturing output as one city in China.

France rejects extremism: a proud day for France and for Europe.

Here’s to you and the election in France. Listen to macron’s speech, got about 90 percent of it despite my really broken French… and started crying… Vive Le France

Congrats to France. I love your country and can’t wait to return.

Merci, la France. Grateful for the French nation’s collective sanity. A potential refuge for expat Americans should things go even more sour here? [what better lifestyle than gringo in Bordeaux? (“Gringeaux”?) Note that this move would likely be unwise for a potential American divorce, alimony, or child support plaintiff (French family law is a whole different animal)]

Obviously in style this Macron guy is different from King Donald I. What about substance? Trump proposes cutting the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15 percent. Add in a state tax, e.g., California’s of 8.84 percent, and a company would be paying close to 25 percent. Trump says that the government has too many employees and could function as well or better with a smaller headcount.

How does that compare to Macron? TIME says the following:

his campaign promises, which include cutting 160,000 positions in France’s mammoth public-service sector, cutting corporate taxes from 33% to 25%, and cutting the huge payroll taxes, which economists (like Macron) believe keep companies from hiring more people.

Readers: if we strip away empty rhetoric, are Macron and Trump actually proposing the same changes? If so, and Facebookers love Macron and hate Trump, does that prove that empty rhetoric is all that matters for political success?

9 thoughts on “My Trump-hating friends are delighted about the French Trump?”

  1. “Vive Le France”

    France, I believe, is currently identified as a feminine.

  2. What is the evidence that Trumps stated goals to deport illegal/undocumented people are empty rhetoric?

  3. Macron is willing to sell out the country to favor the international bankers. Trump is not.

  4. >if we strip away empty rhetoric

    Surely an engineer understands the problem with cherry picking source data.

    >If so, and Facebookers love
    >Macron and hate Trump,
    >does that prove that empty
    >rhetoric is all that matters
    >for political success?

    No, it is possible to “love Macron” because his election represents a repudiation of his opponent.

  5. Geeez… Picking two measures that can be similar does not make two individuals or political programs the same (and arguably, the proportional amount of civil servants in France is much higher than in the US).

    If you see whom he opposed, that person was much more Trump-like, sharing many of his ideas (granted, sometimes even more outlandish) regarding:
    – immigration, namely, the closing of borders and restrictions on muslims – in some cases, the appeal explicit or not, to racism. Note that muslims make up a much higher percentage of the population in France than in the USA.
    – opposition to globalism, namely, bringing back “old industries”, and the promotion of “economic nationalism”
    – rejection of European Union – Trump encouraged Brexit and asked “who’s next” (even though later he said he “loves” the EU) , le Pen wants to leave the Euro, perhaps EU
    – national exceptionalism, and the exacerbation of patriotism – America First, France First
    – relationship with Russia: Macron opposes any rapprochement with Russia, le Pen shakes hands with Putin
    – rejection of NATO – Trump called it obsolete, as did le Pen.

    Furthermore, even if not in contradiction with Mme. le Pen, many of his positions just oppose Trump “own ideas” themselves:
    – rejection of environmentalism/global warming – Macron argued for pushing for EU sanctions on countries who pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
    – affinity for fossil fuels – Macron said “We’ll close coal powered stations in five years” and pledged to ban all shale gas exploration. We know Trump’s positions.
    – science budget cuts – although he now did a U-turn, he previously called for a $1.2 billion reduction in the NIH’s budget for the remainder of the fiscal year
    – rejection of universal healthcare – ditto
    – reduction of abortion rights – Trump is “pro-life”, Macron said “I will never stop defending the right to abortion”

    We could go on. So no, it’s not just empty rhetoric – there are concrete measures and options at stake (if they do act on them or not, that’s a different question).

  6. “Vive Le France”, AFAIK, is the slogan of the FN – should be “Vive le Ue”?

  7. Macron is quite different than Trump on immigration. Macron’s Wikileak’d emails show plans for: citizenship to all asylum seekers, teaching schools in the Arabic language, facilitating mosque construction with easier financing, and reserving muslim areas in municipal cemeteries. Macron also seems quite weak on the 900+ deaths from jihad attacks in France since 2015, calling them an “imponderable” threat that “will be a fact of daily life in the coming years.”

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