After the disaster that was last week's passing of the AHCA in the House, even though the final bill had not been scored by the CBO and some members admitted they hadn't read it when they voted for it, politics had me feeling pretty low. On Friday, I got a migraine, which is terrible on its own, but even worse now that it's probably a pre-existing condition that will make my insurance cost a shit ton more if the Republicans have their way.

Then, on Sunday, France held its presidential election, in which the people overwhelmingly rejected fascism in the form of Marine Le Pen, despite Russia reportedly attempting to hack their process like they had ours. And with Emmanuel Macron's decisive victory giving many hope that we may not be doomed to constant Brexit/Trump disasters across the world, we're left wondering: What was different in France? Why didn't the hack of Macron work? What can we learn from them?

Well, a quote in The New York Times gives us a pretty clear idea of why they were better prepared to deal with an attack on their democracy than we were when it happened to us:

France does not have an equivalent to the thriving tabloid culture in Britain or the robust right-wing broadcast media in the United States. “We don’t have a Fox News in France,” said Johan Hufnagel, managing editor of the leftist daily Libération. “There’s no broadcaster with a wide audience and personalities who build this up and try to use it for their own agendas.”

Now, was that the only reason France didn't allow this kind of hacking to affect them? No. Their nation also has a news and campaigning blackout for 44 hours before an election, and the media respected that despite the fact that the Macron hacks were leaked right before the blackout began. But it raises an interesting question: What would our country look like without a massive right-wing media that chooses to promote "alternative facts"? Well, it would likely look like a country being led by its first female president.

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