Yves Smith, who is usually bearish when it comes to predictions of fundamental change delivered by conventional politics, re-posts a story by David Llewellyn-Smith from an Aussie website, MacroBusiness. The analysis is thin and is pervaded with the same tongue-clucking that preceded Trump's upset.
We should recall that most polls predicted that Hillary would win easily last November. Even the young sage Nate Silver was caught with his pants down, though he did hedge enough to say that Trump might hit a trifecta: huge white turnout, reduced Obama coalition turnout, and resistant Republicans returning to the fold.
There is no such hedging in Llewellyn-Smith's piece. Wilders will shit the bed, and Le Pen might not even make it to the second round. And even if she does, Macron, who, according to the polls enjoys a 20-point advantage over Le Pen in round two, will humiliate her.
It's unfortunate to see the usually flinty Yves Smith fall for this. The exchange in the comments section is illuminating. Smith gets straightened out. Undecideds and low turnout taint those impressive poll numbers of Macron:
The real political divide can be expressed in various ways: “insiders vs; outsiders”, “soveriegnists vs. Euro-integrationists” or even the centre vs. the periphery. When we look at the figures in these ways, they begin to make sense.
Take the French case for example. There, the last reliable polls show that the two Presidential candidates for the “traditional”, “insider” parties, one of which currently forms the government, the other of which previously did so, can barely muster a third of the French electorate between them. This may even have reduced over the last few days as Fillon continues to weaken, and people keep forgetting who Hamon is. This is astonishing.
By contrast, “soverignist” candidates, who want major changes in Europe and more independence from Brussels can muster about 40%. A lot of this is Le Pen, but Mélenchon (allegedly on the far Left) and Dupont Aignan (allegedly the traditionalist Right) are expressing fundamentally the same ideas. The “integrationist” candidates (Fillon, Hamon and Macron) have a majority, but that’s largely because the elites of those parties are absolutely wedded to Euro-integrationist ideology. Their voters don’t necessarily feel the same. And finally, if you take the candidates from “outside” the system (Le Pen, Mélenchon and Macron for the most part) a clear majority of the French electorate (about 65%) supports one or the other. (OK, Macron is pretending but his whole campaign is based on an allegedly new start and a repudiation of the existing system).
So traditional categories of “Left” and “Right” mean little, and so-called “nationalists” can be found everywhere. That’s what you get for using outdated analytical tools.
Finally, as I have said before, it will be difficult, and probably impossible, for Le Pen to form an FN government. But it will be even more difficult for Macron, because he scarcely has a party, and needs to find 577 candidates and win enough seats to be the dominant party in the National Assembly, to form a coalition; I think that’s very unlikely, and the country will probably be ungovernable after the summer.
traditional loyalties will be weakened with somewhat unpredictable consequences?
The one thing to bear in mind is that, with its weird two-round electoral process, the French system (like the British one) seldom hands out seats in parliament proportional to votes. Even then, local deals may be done in the second round – in 2012 candidates of the major parties conspired to keep the National Front out. So almost any outcome is possible. Don’t forget though that the major parties are very well dug in to many of their traditional seats, and have powerful machines and large patronage systems. I think it’s perfectly possible that the Socialists and the Republicans will do rather better in the parliamentary elections than they will in the presidential ones, thus making it impossible for either Macron or Le Pen to form a government. What fun.