Politicians are becoming increasingly apoplectic in their efforts to convince the general populous that they are the safe pair of hands. That they are the only ones to be trusted. The rise of populism (a dirty word amongst the establishment) has occurred because of Russian hackers, or fake news, the establishment would have you believe. Having witnessed Brexit, and the almost more unbelievable US election and the rise of the Trump (however shaky that may be), they appear not to understand where they are going wrong, and are almost visibly becoming more and more desperate. An example of this, is President Hollande throwing his enthusiastic support behind the (albeit "Independent") establishment clone, who appears to have been taken from the box, specifically to defeat the rising and real threat of Marine Le Pen. Hollande has become so unpopular he didn't even stand for re-election. But it appears, his ego does not allow him to believe that he is actually unpopular, hence publicly giving his support to Macron. Now any amateur psychologist will tell you, that is not a smart move, if he genuinely wants Macron to win. He would have been far better to have kept quiet and slipped away with fingers and toes crossed that the plan works.
We hear politicians time and again explaining how they did not get their message over to the electorate. When the actual truth more often than not, is, that they did and as with Brexit were wholly rejected. Even post referendum the remainers, who have now had nearly a year to come up with an argument that could win them the vote. Unyet they persist on social media with the sorry old arguments that failed to win the first time round. Of course there is the oft quoted saying by Einstein "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." This fits nicely into the Liberal framework of their campaigning and targeting of the electorate. The shallowness of their argument was the most extraordinary position to take, and why many chose to vote Brexit.
More recently we are still hearing about the lies on the battle bus claiming £350 million for the NHS. So why are politicians getting so uptight over fake news? When it is quite apparent to the electorate and has been for years that politicians simply present a version of the truth. Hence why they nearly always show towards the bottom of any table of trustworthy occupations, along with estate agents and lawyers. But of course now the establishment is losing the argument. Previously it was okay to disseminate fake news because the only parties who would ever be in power, were Labour or the Conservatives. So it was almost an unwritten, unspoken understanding, that the losing party would simply have to wait its turn yet again. Whilst the winning party could continue with its own version of the news it wished to reveal to the public.
The Russians are coming!
Whether there is any truth in the current narrative of Russian hacking, I'm not sure the public actually care. The Russians didn't put the tick on their ballot paper, nor could they. Ultimately though, the establishment need to wrestle back control of the voting public and if that means blaming anyone but themselves, they will. Speaking for myself my mind was made up years before politicians attempted to manipulate me, to obtain my cross on the ballot, and I suspect many, many others. We had to wait over 40 years for a referendum, now if the politicians were that confident that everything was balanced and above board the it wouldn't have mattered if we had an election yearly, as they would have nothing to fear. But as the years rolled by with an expenses scandal, and the public were told by their Prime Minister that, "It was time to move on." The EU accounts that simply could not be signed off, and further explosive revelations, more and more people became very discontented, at least outside of the capital.
So what impact could the Russians have had?
Well, they could make up stories about the EU having empire building intentions, which appear to be true as it happens. Or they could have smeared Hillary Clinton which may have persuaded one or two. Now, If a powerful person has been slandered, and most of these powerful people are lawyers. Then why have no civil suits been brought for slander? I don't know, I'm just a simple man, but my gut says something smells fishy. Okay, so Russia wanted Trump, maybe! But today Obama gave his full support for Macron, isn't this a degree of interference in another countries election process? He also tried this tactic, whilst still president, and gave a full bloodied interference siding with the 'remain' campaign.
We have also heard the ill advised comments via a 'hot mike' by Angela Merkel, to curtail racist comments on social networks.
What she actually meant was, we need to censor content we do not like, I suspect. So now we see groups like 'Prison Planet', or Paul Joseph Watson undergoing soft censorship. So does this not then come into the realms of fake news? If you are only going to distribute one side of the argument then surely, that is then fake news, as political opposites can put whichever spin they like on any given story. We in the UK have seen the BBC becoming less and less unbiased, which is actually entirely contrary to its remit.
Fake news and blaming anything other than themselves is the nuclear weapon in the tool box of dirty spin, for the establishment to use, as the populous, whether in the UK, US or now it appears maybe France are now realising that their votes can make a difference, without needing to remain within the establishment umbrella, and they don't like it!