As President Trump heads back from his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, a number of Americans are sighing wistfully for the president we don’t have. Macron’s American admirers see in him everything that we lack in Trump: The new president is young, attractive, concerned about the climate and possesses commanding power in parliament. In short, Macron represents what Democrats here have lost. The French dodged their bullet; we didn’t. Macron stemmed the nationalist tide sweeping across Europe and restored order to the free world reeling after Brexit and Trump. Or so the story goes.
With Marine Le Pen’s National Front as the only alternative in the French runoff earlier this year, Macron was the right and necessary choice. Yet Americans should beware of developing too much of a love affair with France’s latest president: After all, Macron does not provide a truly progressive blueprint that we should or even could emulate here.
American liberals have been quick to embrace Macron. During France’s election, former president Barack Obama called and formally endorsed him. Painting this simply as an effort to stop Le Pen would be a half-truth: Obama reached out before the first round, where a more progressive candidate by the name of Jean-Luc Mélenchon would go on to win the youngest segment of the voting population. Obama was not opting for a lesser evil but an unabashed embrace of centrist politics. As political commentator Joy Ann Reid put it, “Macron found a way to thread the needle between far right and far left populism/socialism. He’s culturally liberal but economically pragmatic.” Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, was another visible leader in the Democratic establishment who argued that Macron provides a model for progressives here. Enthusiasm for him extended to the popular level. When Macron attended the G-7 Summit in late May, he ignited social media fan fiction over his “impossibly romantic first date” with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/07/14/democrats-get-a-grip-emmanuel-macron-is-not-your-progressive-savior/?utm_term=.183b7aada618#comments
