zizek on Hillary/Trump : Macron/Le Pen

link:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/french-elections-marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-no-real-choice-a7714911.html

“….yes, Le Pen is a threat, but if we throw all our support behind Macron, do we not get caught into a kind of circle and fight the effect by way of supporting its cause? This brings to mind a chocolate laxative available in the US. It is publicised with the paradoxical injunction: “Do you have constipation? Eat more of this chocolate!” – in other words, eat the very thing that causes constipation in order to be cured of it. In this sense, Macron is the chocolate-laxative candidate, offering us as a cure the very thing that caused the illness.

Our media present the two second-round contestants as standing for two radically opposed visions of France: the independent centrist versus the far-right racist – yes, but do they offer a real choice? Le Pen offers a feminised/softened version of brutal anti-immigrant populism (of her father), and Macron offers neoliberalism with a human face, while his image is also softly feminised (see the maternal role his wife plays in the media). So the father is out and femininity is in – but, again, what kind of femininity? As Alain Badiou pointed out, in today’s ideological universe, men are ludic adolescent outlaws, while women appear as hard, mature, serious, legal and punitive. Women today are not called by the ruling ideology to be subordinated, they are called – solicited, expected – to be judges, administrators, ministers, CEOs, teachers, policewomen and soldiers. A paradigmatic scene occurring daily in our security institutions is that of a feminine teacher/judge/psychologist taking care of an immature asocial young male delinquent. A new figure of femininity is thus arising: a cold competitive agent of power, seductive and manipulative, attesting to the paradox that “in the conditions of capitalism women can do better than men” (Badiou). This, of course, in no way makes women suspicious as agents of capitalism; it merely signals that contemporary capitalism invented its own ideal image of woman who stands for cold administrative power with a human face.

Both candidates present themselves as anti-system, Le Pen in an obvious populist way and Macron in a more much interesting way: he is an outsider from existing political parties but, precisely as such, he stands for the system as such, in its indifference to established political choices. In contrast to Le Pen who stands for proper political passion, for the antagonism of Us against Them (from the immigrants to the non-patriotic financial elites), Macron stands for apolitical all-encompassing tolerance. We often hear the claim that Le Pen’s politics draws its strength from fear (the fear of immigrants, of the anonymous international financial institutions), but does the same not hold for Macron? He finished first because voters were afraid of Le Pen, and the circle is thus closed; there is no positive vision with either of the candidates, they are both candidates of fear…. see link