The French establishment is rattled by this thing called “democracy.” Le Monde’s editorial today – from the front-page headline, “Danger Californien – continues, highmindedly:
“California is known for its capacity to innovate. Every new trend from Los Angeles or San Francisco generally ends up crossing the American continent from west to east, and then the Atlantic. The trend launched on Tuesday October 7 is worrisome. . . . [Mr. Schwarzenegger’s substance doesn’t worry us.] No, it’s the process that led to “Arnie’s” victory that should worry us. Here’s a state with 35 million people and a GDP about the size of France’s. . . . And yet here’s a state where, at a cost of millions of dollars, voters can dismiss a sitting governor barely eleven months after his election. . . . Laboratory of the United States, California has been no less a testing ground for democracy itself over these past 20 years: more and more, by means of referendums and “citizens’ initiatives,” direct democracy has stolen a march on representative democracy. Thus Mr. Schwarzenegger, like his predecessor, will have his hands tied with respect to something like 70% of the state budget on account of constraints imposed by successively restrictive referendums. This state of affairs results, to be sure, from the electorate’s distrust of the political establishment. Schwarzenegger’s populist victory is but a further illustration of this point.
Some of these points, are, of course, valid. But one of the pleasures of this victory is watching the Europeans squirm, harrumph, and privately marvel.
The Dish 