2. France versus Trump
In the second decade of the 21st century, the world is being swept by a wave of "right-wing populism", simultaneously nationalistic and anti-elitist.
The motive is often attributed to insecurity, as people want protection as wages stagnate and jobs are outsourced or automated, and as seemingly dangerous foreigners seem to cross borders with as much impunity as the elites seem to enjoy for their supposed corruption.
Is it possible to look back in history to find a more benign form of right-wing populism?
Let us look to one great leader of France, Charles de Gaulle, and a model of government that he inspired.
One example might be the French 'Gaullism' of the mid-20th century, which was not so much an ideology as it was a nationalistic attitude that called for a strong, centralized, independent state (France withdrew from NATO in 1966) and strong executive presidency, but nevertheless eschewed traditionalism and xenophobia as being divisive and thus unpatriotic.
Gaullism (French: Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader General Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic
Lawrence D. Kritzman writes that Gaullism may be seen as a form of French patriotism in the tradition of Jules Michelet.[2] He writes: "Aligned on the political spectrum with the Right, Gaullism was committed nevertheless to the republican values of the Revolution, and so distanced itself from the particularist ambitions of the traditional Right and its xenophobic causes, Gaullism saw as its mission the affirmation of national sovereignty and unity, which was diametrically opposed to the divisiveness created by the leftist commitment to class struggle."
There have been a number of political parties in France that identify themselves as Gaullist, but it is difficult to categorize them as definitively of the "left" or the "right".
In France, the Gaullist Party is usually used to refer to the largest party professing to be Gaullist. Gaullism claimed to transcend the left/right rift (in a similar way to populist parties elsewhere such as Fianna Fáil in Ireland). The current Gaullist party is the Republicans.
In the past, some voters saw themselves as left-leaning - a view ascribed to the once-leading Gaullist André Malraux. However, most of Charles de Gaulle's own followers were conservative right-wingers, and left-leaning voters started showing less support again after Malraux's death as figures of the Gaullist left (like Jacques Chaban-Delmas) were gradually marginalised. Under its various names and acronyms, the Gaullist Party has been the dominant organization of the French right since the beginning of the Fifth Republic (1958).
Gaullism not only confounds the left/right distinction, but the difference between populism and elitism. At the heart of the Gaullist agenda is the desire to create a strong presidency that would transcend the petty squabbles of the parliament.
In 1958, the Gaullist succeeded in creating a new constitution which replaced a prime minister elected by parliament as the focus of political power with a president elected by popular vote (who appointed the prime minister).
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, introduced on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing the prior parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system. It is France's third-longest-enduring political regime, after the pre-revolutionary Ancien Régime and the Third Republic.
This is a semi-presidential system, a hybrid of the parliamentary system of the British and the presidential system of the Americans.
A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state. It differs from a parliamentary republic in that it has a popularly elected head of state, who is more than a purely ceremonial figurehead, and from the presidential system in that the cabinet, although named by the president, is responsible to the legislature, which may force the cabinet to resign through a motion of no confidence.
There are two subtypes of this system, France being among the former.
A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state. It differs from a parliamentary republic in that it has a popularly elected head of state, who is more than a purely ceremonial figurehead, and from the presidential system in that the cabinet, although named by the president, is responsible to the legislature, which may force the cabinet to resign through a motion of no confidence.
Under the president-parliamentary system, the prime minister and cabinet are dually accountable to the president and the assembly majority. The president chooses the prime minister and the cabinet but must have the support of the parliament majority for his choice. In order to remove a prime minister or the whole cabinet from power, the president can dismiss them or the assembly can remove them by a vote of no confidence.
The French president is akin to an elected monarch who, as head of state, chooses the prime minister, who is head of government. This is a bit like the difference between the chairman of the board and the CEO.
In a parliamentary system like Britain, the prime minister's position can be precarious, and this can undermine confidence in a government during a period of crisis.
In a presidential system like the United States, the president is both head of state and the head of the government, and his or her role as a political CEO can sully his or her symbolic stature as head of state.
The Gaullist mentality and the semi-presidential system might give the citizenry a sense of security in crisis, without the danger of attracting demagogues.
But it would be hard to imagine this being transferred to the American political culture or political system, which conceives itself as populist and democratic. Britain is a republic pretending to be a monarchy; the United States is a republic pretending to be a democracy. France is a republic being a republic, which would be too overtly plebeian for the English and too openly aristocratic for Americans. So the Americans are stuck with dissatisfied voters gravitating toward right-wing populists like Trump or left-wing populists like Bernie Sanders. There are at least three problems with populists:
1) They can be dangerous opportunists (Huey Long);
2) They can be incompetent as rulers; and
3) They tend to lose elections and waste everyone's time.
It might be time, in any case, for Americans to question their executive branch of government and its origins.
