CollateralDamage

What Macron allies are saying to justify his moves is some of the most undemocratic stuff I've ever read, it's frankly beyond unreal. This is François Bayrou, a very famous liberal centrist politician who's a long-time supporter of Macron. First of all, he rejects the fact there was a winner in the elections: "Those who claim there was a winner in this election know very well that they're talking nonsense. It's not true." His interpretation of the election result is that "it says: 'French democracy cannot be led by an absolute majority of the far-right, or extremes in general'". When the votes - factually speaking - said the exact contrary: what he calls the "extremes" (the New Popular Front, NPF, and the Rassemblement National, RN) gathered 63% of the votes (37% for RN and 26% for NPF) and have 56% of the seats in parliament (31% of the seats for NPF and 25% for RN). His own group - Macron's political coalition - got 23% of the votes and 26% of the seats... So what the French very much said with their vote is "we're fed up with the political center, fed up with Macron and his ilk, we want dramatic change, not business as usual". Transforming that into "the French said they don't want to be led by the extremes", and therefore implying they want to keep being led by the center, is beyond unreal. So what's Bayrou's proposal? That's the most insane part. He says: "There is only one thing to do in my eyes: the President of the Republic appoints a prominent figure to form the government. This figure proposes a team, and this team does not ask for prior agreement from political parties since it will never obtain it." In other words he proposes to completely bypass the democratic process: Macron chooses a new Prime Minister - obviously someone he likes - and does away with the inconvenience of asking parliament for their agreement, because if he did they obviously wouldn't agree. How would that not be a coup? Explain this to me like I'm five... Lastly, he explains why Macron shouldn't appoint a NPF Prime Minister which should normally be the case were Macron to follow democratic rules set be precedent (the PM is normally and logically appointed from the group with the most seats in Parliament). He says that "the main obstacle for the NPF bloc, which claims victory, is its program". That's it, that's the quiet part out loud, they don't want the NPF to assume power because they don't like their their program. So effectively they're shamelessly arguing that their political preferences trump the democratic process. Link: lemonde.fr/politique/live/20…

Something quite extraordinary is happening in Australia. Over the past few weeks, many key authoritative figures - former PMs, top strategists, etc. - came out against AUKUS and US imperialism, in favor of Australian independence. A small 🧵 listing the various key statements

This is perhaps the most important and powerful case against AUKUS that I've heard, especially because it comes from one of Australia's preeminent strategic thinkers: Hugh White, inaugural Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and former Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Australian Department of Defence. Here's what he says: - White argues that the era of Anglo-Saxon (British and American) dominance in the Western Pacific is ending. He states: "We are facing one of the, perhaps the biggest transformation in our shared international setting since European settlement." This transformation is driven by China's rise as an economic and military power comparable to the United States. - As a result he argues that there's no alternative to treating China as an equal partner: "Nobody really knows what America's aim in Asia is. But one thing's for sure, nobody in Washington thinks they should treat China as an equal partner. And my basic argument to my many friends in Washington is that if they don't treat China as an equal partner, then they're going to be taking on a rivalry with China that I don't think they can win." - He emphasizes this point repeatedly, arguing that given China's economic and military power, especially in the Western Pacific, the U.S. cannot maintain its previous position of uncontested primacy: "I don't see how, in an era where China's economy is as big as America's, in an era where its military power in the West Pacific is really quite comparable to America's, in an era where China is increasingly potent as a nuclear armed power, the US and China can find a way to get on in which the United States doesn't, at the very least, treat China as an equal partner." - White sees AUKUS as problematic because it aligns Australia (and potentially New Zealand) with a U.S. strategy that refuses to acknowledge this new reality. He argues that by supporting AUKUS, these countries are effectively endorsing a primacy approach that is "not a smart way to go" and risks destroying both their prosperity and their security, because they'll "only be prosperous and secure if the United States and China can find a way to get on." - On the economic benefits arguably brought by AUKUS: "The idea that you buy those economic benefits at the price of committing yourself to support an approach to this really fundamental question about the shape of our future order in Asia, which I don't think is going to work, that would be a very high price to pay for a very doubtful benefit."