In direct contravention of my wife's explicit instructions, herewith I inaugurate my first blog. Long may it prosper.

For some reason, I think I have something to say to you. You think you have something to say to me? Email me at: gideonsblogger -at- yahoo -dot- com

 
InstaPundit.Com is trying to figure out if Le Pen is more like Buchanan, or something uspecifiedly worse (David Duke? Hitler?). But we've got an excellent home-grown analog: George Wallace. Le Pen's strong showing is a warning to the French government about popular discontent over crime, the erosion of national identity, and subordination to Brussels. Sounds a lot like the platform Wallace ran on in 1968 on the American Independence ticket. The two of them, Le Pen and Wallace, were both demagogues who terrified the establishment and who played on very legitimate concerns of ordinary people that the establishment refused to acknowledge for reasons of political correctness. And they both achieved their success in an environment where ordinary people felt they were losing control of their democracy - to the EU in the case of France, to the Supreme Court in the case of the U.S. And while Wallace had no chance of winning, his success paved the way for the Republican realignment that took place under Ronald Reagan.
posted by Noah at 9:26 AM