I have seen a number of articles this morning about Macron's win. At least two were about how France is better than Britain and/or the US. However much satire is involved, and certainly Andy Borowitz believes himself to be a satirist, there is one problem with the concept (which Borowitz fervently believes is true) being promoted. That problem is Obama.
After all, both four and eight years ago, the US was so darn progressive and ahead of the curve. In such a short period of time, we've become mind-numbingly idiotic, to believe the press. This only happens when a non-Democrat is elected (I hesitate to say Republican because I really don't consider Trump a Republican in any traditional sense). Remember when Bush was elected, and re-elected? We were stupid then, as well.
Whether Macron is good for France or not remains to be seen, and is of little interest because it's France. They've hitched their wagon to losing causes far too many times to trust their instincts (for clarity, since Progressives have a problem with it, this statement was satire). For now, the Left is hailing his victory as the Waterloo of far-right politics. That's hard to support, since Macron is hardly a darling of the Left. Besides, even many policies which have been deemed 'far-right' could just as easily be labeled Leftist (traditionally, anti-immigration, closed-border, and protectionist views have been domains of the Left. It is only recently that they've been furiously adopted by the Right).
Regardless of what Macron's election leads to, it's hardly logical to assume France's election means anything at all. A glorified popularity contest, which is all elections are, does not indicate any kind of collective intelligence. Mainly because collective intelligence is usually an oxymoron. Even in cases where it may not be an oxymoron, it's a meaningless term when applied to an election. The agenda is preset. We have no idea what the 'intelligent' choice is, only what our own personal choices may be. These aggregated personal choices don't provide insight to any kind of intelligence. A vote for Macron by someone who wanted to see their taxes cut, but opposes Macron's stance on immigration has no special intelligence over the person who supported his stance on immigration but cared little for taxes.
All we can definitively say is that more people preferred Macron over Le Pen, though we can't definitively say why. We're certainly no more capable of saying why people preferred Trump over Clinton (avoiding the obvious and irrelevant discussion over the fact he lost the popular vote - after all, if the popular vote is all that mattered, my belief is he'd have won that because his strategy would have changed).
The point is, these discussions about national intelligence, based on electoral outcomes, are not only one-sided favoring Leftists, they are misguided and give more power to the supposedly 'ignorant' bloc. Andy Borowitz is creating more likely voters for his opposition, simply because his use of repulsive caricatures alienates anyone he'd hope to attract to his side, and causes many others to feel he's a repulsive intellect to begin with. Unless you're 100% sold on the idea of Progressives being correct, Borowitz is a boor.
That is the echo-chamber. That is why the Left is increasingly tone-deaf. That is why, barring massive political disaster revolving around Trump and the Republicans, the Democrats are doomed. What we do know, from history, is that when parties have the opportunity to do things properly, you can almost count on them to screw the whole thing up. The Republicans are doing their level best to accommodate history and let the Democrats off the hook.
