So much for the doomsday hype about the French presidential election
Emmanuel Macron has finished five points ahead of Le Pen in today’s round of voting in the French presidential election, which also included several other candidates. Now Macron and Le Pen, the top two candidates, will have a two-way runoff in two weeks.
The polls all show Macron beating Le Pen, by various margins, in the upcoming runoff. But as always, most U.S. media outlets will only hype whichever one specific poll shows Macron ahead by the smallest margin, while ignoring all the other polls that show him ahead by a larger margin, in order to manufacture suspense and boost ratings.
Will Macron win? Very likely yes. Would it be devastating if Putin’s far right puppet Le Pen won? Absolutely. If you’re worried about it, don’t just fret, find a way to boost Macron these next two weeks, if that’s something you can do from your location.
There are a number of factors in this race that are beyond my range of expertise. The fairly popular leftist candidate who was eliminated today only sorta kinda endorsed Macron, while condemning Le Pen. You’d have to ask French media about how that plays into things. It’s just not my arena.
But two major false narratives, that the U.S. media, spent all week hyping, were struck down today. The first was that Macron would fail to finish in first place today. The second was the false implication that if Macron had finished behind Le Pen today, it would mean Le Pen had won the election. It’ll be interesting to see which ratings-driven false narratives the U.S. media cooks up about this race over the next two weeks to try to boost its ratings. You’d think the race itself would be suspenseful enough, without the media needing to add its own fictional doomsday spin. But that’s what they usually do.
