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Election -- A busy summer

 The old fight between the far right and the rest of the country is heating up in France.   It looks like a replay of previous elections but one important change is the number of support for the far right.   Will  2024 be a watershed moment?  God only knows, the pressures from the right have been growing for years, immigration is a hot topic, France had done a terrible job at integrating migrants setting them up to fail in the "Cite".   

Here the elections are a little loopy, from the far right to the middle right, they will make you believe that the arrival of Labour marks the end of the world.   Maybe, but overall it's irrelevant.   Also, to all those who insist that Brexit has been a total success...maybe one day, but right now the economic cost had been substantial and easy to show.   While the benefits are far harder to quantify.   Over time maybe, but we are talking a decade or more.

Our American cousins have a real fight on their hand.  Until the debate I thought that despite everything Biden would win, the economy is doing great, unemployment is at one of its lowest in history and lets be honest Trump is a wanker.   It is easy to exagerate the importance of the debate, what is not hard is to understand that Biden is really a spent force, he is the Ronald Regan of the 21st century.  Regan was widely viewed as suffering from dementia during his second term as President.

Still, the Americans do love their drama, the reality is that during the four years of Trump's administration they got a president that did absolutely nothing.   He golf, he had a good time and did little else of any substance.   It is unlikely to change for a second term, granted his allies seem interested in destroying democracy, but considering that less than half the US electorate bothers to vote, it probably doesn't matter either way

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