So French voters did that thing they do periodically, usually in a presidential election, and rejected fascism decisively in the second round of the snap legislative election. Somewhat grudgingly—they don't want the candidates they voted for to think they're impressed, but they know their duty.
As did the parties, which showed commendable discipline in carrying out the program of dropping out candidates to turn every race into the two-person race in which they had the best chance of defeating the Rassemblement Nationale. But it was the massive turnout that completed the job and defeated not just the fascists but the pollsters as well, who kept predicting a majority for the Rassemblement well into yesterday afternoon, even as they noticed an unexpectedly large number of voters.
I couldn't help thinking I was seeing a repetition of a pattern we've been
seeing a lot of lately, of voters breaking the poll predictions when they're
voting to say there's a degree of authoritarianism they can't tolerate, in
Brazil and in Poland, Spain and Iran, even when it's not enough to really
change anything, as in the losses endured by authoritarian rulers of India and
Turkey, and Hungary (in June's EU election), and of course in the United
States of America in elections going back to 2018 reacting against the chaos
of Trumpery, the terror of the incompetent COVID response and the racist
violence of police forces, the overturning of Roe and rush to
outlaw abortion.
I mean, it's not just heartening, but it's also interesting that the polls keep erring in that direction, with authoritarians underperforming. It doesn't happen when authoritarianism isn't a primary issue, like in Germany in June (where the appeal of the fascistoid Alternativ für Deutschland is still only in the former East Germany, while voters in the former West were punishing the sort-of leftist government by voting for the normie conservatives). Though in Britain one survey had Nigel Farage's "Reform Party" winning 18 seats in Thursday's general election (they won four).
