Caroline Fourest in Tablet:
Five years ago, American journalists called me following the terrorist attack that took the lives of my former colleagues and friends at Charlie Hebdo. They all thought that we were going to elect Marine Le Pen. I tried to explain to them that it’s precisely because there is a leftist movement associated with Charlie—both anti-racist and secular, a left that remains lucid about the dangers of extremism—that we had a chance to avoid that fate. But my explanations were in vain.
A few years later, America elected Donald Trump, who dared make equivalences between anti-racists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, fanned nostalgia for white supremacy, declared a Muslim ban, and in addition wanted to “grab [women] by the pussy,” and showed open contempt for the truth and democracy. How could such a great democracy have elected this man? It’s a question that has troubled us for four years in France.
Yet after the Charlie attacks, we understood what was pushing certain Americans, many of whom were perfectly aware of Trump’s faults and incompetence, to vote for him—even as we hoped for better. All we had to do was read The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and the CNN website to see their coverage of the terror attacks in France, and it became clear that a sector of the American elite was no more attached to truth than Trump was.
More here.