U.S. And France: Where Modern Democracy Was Born, Will It Now Go To Die?

-Analysis-

PARIS — American Revolution, French Revolution: Which inspired the other? Chronologically, of course, America comes first. But in terms of the history of ideas, didn’t French philosophers exert a decisive influence on the American Revolution?

In the era of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen-Jordan Bardella, the historical debate over which of the two countries had the more influential role in the “Enlightenment” seems almost surreal. The question today is virtually the inverse: who is influencing whom in terms of populism, obscurantism, irresponsibility and geopolitical risk?

The same nostalgia for the past and same fear of the future seem to animate the two countries that have each made exceptionalism their trademark. There are certainly more than nuances between the problems afflicting the declining American superpower and the once dominant French global power.

In America, the men fighting for power are too old. In France, they are too young. Too much fatigue on one side, too much immaturity on the other. Nonetheless, the parallels between the American and French maelstroms are more than troubling.

In both countries 

Having spent a few days in the United States this week, I have been able to judge the similarity between the issues, the vicissitudes, and even the very climate of the electoral debates.

It’s hard for a visiting Frenchman not to take a cross-sectional look at these “great sick bodies” that are America and France today. We are not only allies against Russia geopolitically, and competitors if not rivals commercially. We face the same internal, structural, if not existential political challenges.

In both countries, the expression civil war is also widely used. A few days ago, Emmanuel Macron himself used those words to denounce, with the virulence of a pyromaniac firefighter, the profoundly destabilizing programs of the extremes. What will the far left do on the evening of July 7 if the far right wins?

Tearing the country apart 

In the United States, a much more violent and heavily armed country than ours, Civil War is the title of a recent film that references a scenario put forth by, among others, Robert Kagan in his latest book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism is Tearing America Apart Again.

Wouldn’t the states that voted for Donald Trump risk seceding if their candidate is defeated nationally? Could America experience a new civil war, more than a century-and-a-half after the first? This is, of course, a highly improbable disaster scenario. But who would dare to say, given the extreme polarization of American society, that it is impossible?

In France too, there is a climate of violence fueled by extreme political forces, who need an enemy to feel they exist. On both sides of the Atlantic, there is an obsession with the issue of immigration. And there is a kind of resignation to the triumph of extremism.

There is a poisonous scent spreading on both sides of the Atlantic.

In this context, which oscillates between despair, anger, and resignation, there is a poisonous scent spreading on both sides of the Atlantic. And it creates a form of tragic and worrying link with the 1920s-1930s: the rise of anti-Semitism. In the United States, the far right has been responsible in recent years for the deaths of more Jews than radical Islamists have.

The latest incident in Los Angeles, when an angry crowd attacked a synagogue, is a spectacular illustration of this. In France, the issue of anti-Semitism occupies a central place in the legislative campaign. It seems as if the two largest Jewish communities in the world (after Israel) have become (or become again) markers of the crisis that our democratic models are going through.

Biden’s reason for his downfall 

What to do? First, do not give up or despair. The danger is real. The worst is possible, but it is not certain. In the United States, the first major televised debate was certainly not reassuring for the camp of reason. Watched as the equivalent, in a way, of the Superbowl, this verbal joust confirmed the doubts of Joe Biden’s supporters about their candidate’s physical adequacy.

Biden’s age handicap seems to have proven more decisive than Trump’s character handicap. Deep down, more than ever, Democrats seem to be dreaming of an alternative to Biden. As if a last-minute miracle could still happen.

On the Republican side, the vast majority of voters support Trump, not despite his character, but because of it. They identify with his excesses, his vulgarity, his hatred of the elites, and the system they embody.

French hope of blocking the far right?

In France, can a Republican front of decency still come together to block the probable arrival of the far right in the prime minister’s office? It would take a near-political miracle for that to happen. But illiberal democracy — Poland demonstrated this during the legislative elections in October 2023 — can be defeated. And give way to the return of reason.

Is it even possible to be “almost” democratic?

The Italian example is more ambiguous. Despite its heritage among the pro-Nazi collaborators during the World War II Occupation, can the RN — like Fratelli d’Italia, Giorgia Meloni’s party in Italy — become an “almost” normal political force, despite its fascist heritage? But is it even possible to be “almost” democratic? Isn’t that equivalent to being “a little bit pregnant”?

The rot is in the fruit, just as life is in the body. Let’s not kid ourselves. The far left in France is the objective ally of a far right that, despite all its efforts, still reeks of fascism.

“I was born in the 1930s, I’m going to die in the 1930s,” said the elderly mother of one of my American friends to her son recently.

In just over two centuries, America and France have moved from arguing over the origins of the Enlightenment to competition as the world leader in obscurantism. A very sad twist of history.