Via The Economist is an interesting piece on the French presidential campaign: France’s presidential race is a clash of worldviews. The first paragraph raises an interesting point on the current state of world politics:
WHAT did Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s National Front, expect to gain by visiting Moscow on March 24th? Her core supporters relished seeing her with Vladimir Putin, a strong woman standing next to a strongman. Ms Le Pen came away claiming that the world now belongs to nationalist populists such as Mr Putin, Donald Trump, India’s Narendra Modi and, implicitly, herself.
Really, it is hard not to look at events like this (or the photo in the piece of Putin with Le Pen) and not clearly see that Russia has a vested interest in influencing elections abroad. As such, it is disturbing how many US citizens don’t take that influence seriously.
At a bare minimum, it should be concerning that a foreign power would seek to interfere with another country’s internal operations if anything because, by definition, that foreign power has its own interests in mind, not that of the target country.
The phrase “useful idiots” comes to mind.
