Thursday, October 21, 2010

Democtatorship: "As Expected From France's Newspaper of Reference, a Damning Article on the Tea Party Replete With Pejoratives and Caricatures"

A hand-wringing full-page article in Le Monde speaks with ill of Hungary because following the latest elections, a Hungarian rightist party has won commanding control over the nation. Asks Marion Van Renterghem:
Should we be afraid of Viktor Orban? … Triumphantly elected in April, the conservative prime minister and nationalist, 47, is no longer the man who led the country from 1998 to 2002. For the first time ever, he has full power in his hands. His party, Fidesz, has an overwhelming majority and municipal elections on October 3 confirmed its grip. … The writer [György Konrad] has his definition of the new regime: a "democtatorship" — something between democracy and dictatorship.
Le Monde regrets that
the Prime Minister [commands] a two-thirds majority in Parliament and total control of the legislative and executive branches. Facing him ... no powerful opposition force.
So far, so good.

The problem is that in another full-page article in Le Monde, on America's Tea Parties, Denis Lacorne multiplies caricatures of Republicans, ridicule of conservatives, and demonization of America's democracy ("une émeute", "rappel farfelu", "ses incohérences", les "plus extrémistes", "un chacun pour soi généralisé", "sans la moindre considération", "la hantise", "des amateurs", "une néophyte de la politique", "la risée des médias", "de façon hystérique", "des opinions aussi délirantes", "parodie du mouvement des droits civiques", "un discours insipide", "travestir la pensée de Martin Luther King", "partisans de l'ultralibéralisme", "un discours répressif", "cette maladie infantile de l'ultraconservatisme")…

After reading about the "supporters of ultra-liberalism", and about the "delusional" opinions among those "hysterically" opposed to Washington (and to the ruling party), and about the danger of "a comprehensive legislative paralysis" — if by (the largest of) misfortune(s), the opposition were to win too many seats — one gets the distinct impression that nothing would please France's newspaper of reference and the French élite more than if the U.S. were to become a "democtatorship" (just like, indeed, few things would seem to please the American left more)…

Nothing would be more wonderful than if Barack Obama commanded "full powers." Nothing would be more wonderful than if "his party," the Democratic Party, "had an overwhelming majority." Nothing would be more wonderful than if the One commanded a "two-thirds majority in Parliament, along with total control of the legislative and executive branches." And nothing would be more wonderful than if "Facing him, [there was] no powerful opposition force."

Ultimately, nothing would be more wonderful than a "democtatorship" when this democtatorship is a leftist democtatorship, and in the hands of an Great Helmsman of the caliber of Barack Obama, a spiritual guide for the American nation (and for the whole planet).

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