Thankfully, Emmanuel Macron won the 2017 French Election. The implications of the hacking of President Emmanuel Macron are very controversial and concerning. Very much so related to the "influence campaign" that Vladimir Putin had ordered to sway the vote for Donald J. Trump, it shows us that the rest of the world needs to take cyber security (and the growing internet culture) more seriously and find ways to counteract them. There have also been speculations regarding Russia's connection to the reason hack as well.
Another interesting thing to note is the use of the Pepe Meme is being implemented once again in order to show support for the Far Right Candidate, Marine Le Pen. This echoes the use that helped Donald Trump's campaign allowed supporters to connect over the internet use the meme as a form of propaganda. The use of propaganda along with the hacking is basically becoming a repeat of what happened to the United States. It is has been claimed with high confidence of the CIA, FBI, and medium confidence of NSA, that Putin and the Russian government had aspired to help Donald Trump win.
The use of the Pepe meme and methods of hacking also occurred in France soon after. If we are to trust the CIA, FBI, and NSA, then we can assume that Russia also attempted to sway France into choosing Le Pen. What does this mean, though? It means that cyber hacking is becoming a legitimate issue within global politics. In order to maintain security, the rest of the world needs to either participate in the new "rules of the game", regardless of morals or find another way to counteract cyberhacking.
Several other attacks regarding cyberhacking have been happening across the country. What does this mean? It means that ever since the first initial cyber hack that happened to the Democratic National Committee, hackers have felt more and more comfortable to attack countries and companies. Not only are hackers willing to affect democratic processes, they also seem to be hacking simply for a profit, or to try to gain some money out of it. What you wish to make of this, is up to you.
Despite the fact that Macron did win, also points us to the question of why are these very nationalist, populist movements coming back again? I theorize that it is because globalization is intertwining the international economy to the point that the transnational capitalist class is gaining more power than the nation state. This can be understood through the fact that transnational corporations like General Electric and Toyota are able to bargain enough to the point that a nation state is at their whim. If a nation state is not willing to abide by trade rules that these transnational corporations want, they can simply move their production to other countries, which would essentially cripple said nation state's economy.
Another example of their power is shown here, where TNCs are able to have a strong impact in the creation of trade policy. "The deregulation of trade aims to erase national boundaries insofar as these affect economic life," economists Herman Daly and Robert Goodland have noted. "The policy-making strength of the nation is thereby weakened, and the relative power of TNCs is increased." It could be that all of these populist movements are happening because of a backlash to try to gain power back from these TNCs, or as a counter to the progressive movement that has been continually happening across the world, but this is all just a theory.
There are a lot of things wrong with the current state of affairs. Populism is on the rise, cyber hacking is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, and there is no saying what is to happen next. All that we know for sure is that Trump has been doing increasing foolish things by the day, like leak highly classified information to Russian officials and we can bet that he will do something even more idiotic soon.
