Aug 27th 2015

Jeremy Who? The Bernie Sanders phenomenon at home and abroad

by David Coates

David Coates holds the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies

If you watch virtually any major American news channel right now, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only political development worthy of note was the on-going presidential campaign of Donald Trump. But you would be wrong.

Key sections of the American press are currently playing Trump’s main calling-card for him by giving excessive amounts of coverage to his bombastic rejection of the intelligence and policies of the rest of the political class. By doing so, they are helping him to frame the national political conversation in a frightening and reactionary way, for which one day I hope they will be held accountable. But they are doing more than simply trumpeting Trump. They are also failing to recognize and report on the fact that it is not just ultra-conservative voters who are mobilizing behind new and unexpected candidates. That kind of unexpected and unprecedented mobilization is currently happening on both sides of the political divide. It is happening not just among the Tea Party right but also among the Progressive left; and in the case of the left at least, it is happening not just here at home but in the United Kingdom as well.

For Donald Trump is not alone in drawing substantial crowds to each of his election rallies. So too, in the United States, is Bernie Sanders; and so too, in the United Kingdom, is Jeremy Corbyn.

That last name probably means nothing to most Americans. Indeed my computer’s spell-checker doesn’t even recognize the surname. But it will need to soon, because Jeremy Corbyn will likely win the leadership election for the British Labour Party when results are declared in mid-September; and even if he does not, his politics will inevitably figure large in any Labour political program to come. Jeremy Corbyn is having that impact because, as with Bernie Sanders, his radicalism is galvanizing a new generation of potential voters. These are potential voters who – like those supporting Donald Trump – are tired of “politics as usual.” But for them, the tiredness rests, not in the stupidity or incompetence of those who govern us, as Trump would have it. The crowds drawn to both Bernie Sanders1 and Jeremy Corbyn2 are tired of “politics as usual” because for far too long those politics have been too right-wing, and too lacking in both progressive impulses and equalitarian outcomes.

In other words and at long last, the Democratic Left is stirring again in ways that we have not seen in more than a generation. It is a stirring that we should welcome, and it is one that we should support.

I

Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn share many things in common, in addition to their considerable age, their ethnicity and their gender. They share the fact that they are both unexpected candidates for high office, not least because of their long-established reputations as political mavericks; and they share the way in which their rise to prominence has been not simply surprising but also rapid. Their new-found prominence has been surprising to commentators used to a political class high on platitudes and low on stridency – that was perhaps to be expected – but it has also been surprising to the men themselves. Certainly, “Feel the Bern” is something that took the Sanders’ campaign team initially entirely by surprise; and Jeremy Corbyn for his part was an entirely last-minute recruit to the leadership race triggered by the British Labour Party’s election defeat in May. On his own admission, he only ran to keep a left-wing voice alive in a campaign that was likely to be dominated – we all thought – by protégés of either Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, Labour’s heavy-weights in the years of New Labour rule.

But we – and no doubt, he – got that one entirely wrong. For his campaign quickly revealed the existence of a previously untapped hunger in key sections of the UK electorate for a new tone, a new honesty and a new radicalism in British politics.3 Since his campaign, and his alone, offered that new tone and that new radicalism, the hitherto little-known Member of Parliament for Islington North has been unexpectedly filling stadiums and halls with huge numbers of enthusiastic supporters – and attracting huge numbers of new party members4 – ever since he decided to run.

II

Likewise, Bernie Sanders. Standing as a self-proclaimed democratic socialist in a political system long used to equating socialism with Soviet tyranny, the Sanders’ platform has unexpectedly resonated strongly with a wide range of American progressives. His attack on income and wealth inequality, and on the impact of that inequality on the behavior and policies of most candidates for public office, has struck a deep chord of unease with the political role of the Koch brothers and their kind. His advocacy of policies to eliminate poverty, protect basic welfare services, and raise the wages of American workers has been equally popular;5 and has its equivalent in Jeremy Corbyn’s critique of excessive CEO pay,6 and in the Corbyn call for “shared economic growth”7 built on “a National Investment Bank, to be capitalized by canceling private-sector tax relief and subsidies, and [on] what he calls ‘people’s quantitative easing’ – an infrastructure program that the government finances by borrowing money from the Bank of England.”8

It is not that either of these men, or the programs they espouse, are particularly radical when measured against the best of the Left over the last century or more. It is rather that the center of political gravity in both the US and the UK these days has moved so far to the right that you have to be a radical merely to be a decent human being. As 40 of the UK’s leading economists put it in an open letter published in the London Observer last Sunday, “it is the current government’s policy and its objectives that are extreme, not the Labour leadership candidate’s….His opposition to austerity is actually mainstream economics, even backed by the conservative IMF.”9

What both men’s campaigns are making crystal clear is that there is a vast constituency of support, on both sides of the Atlantic, for a fundamental rejection of austerity politics and of its associated claim: namely that high levels of income and wealth inequality automatically raise all ships, and that accordingly economies flourish best when taxed and regulated least. What both campaigns are also making clear is that the articulation of a radical program of economic and social egalitarianism can and does make mainstream politicians and commentators uncomfortable. But then it should: because normal politics in both Washington and London these days survives only by ignoring the fundamental causes of income inequality and social injustice, or by addressing those causes in at best only a superficial manner. Given the current state of the United States and the United Kingdom as both troubled economies and divided societies, comfortable superficiality is the last thing that our politicians should now be offering. When electorates are more radical than those who seek their votes, it is not the electorates that need to change.

III

Such a dramatic redefinition of the policy priorities of the Democratic Left is not, of course, without its dangers. It will inevitably invite backlash: backlash not just from political conservatives threatened by the exposure of the hypocrisy of their politics, but backlash too from more moderate Democrats and Laborites whose role and record is now fully under challenge.10 Indeed that backlash is already well under way: with the legitimacy of Jeremy Corbyn’s likely victory already being questioned by former Blairite luminaries,11 and with moderate Democrats in Washington quietly regrouping around Joe Biden as the Clinton campaign begins to look ever more vulnerable.12

The main argument currently being deployed here is that the Anglo-American electorate in general is too conservative to ever generate a Sanders’ presidency or a Corbyn-led Labour Party victory.13 Critics of the new radicalism point to the resilience of the Republican vote in the American heartland, and to the four million votes won by the anti-immigration United Kingdom Independence Party in the May General Election. They then use both as evidence that the US and British electorates are more open to conservative rhetoric than to its radical equivalent, and as justifications for outflanking that conservatism on its right by renewed promises of center-left moderation in office.

But the more faint-hearted members of the current center-left coalitions on both sides of the Atlantic would do well to remember that electorates that are truly conservative invariably prefer to vote for genuine conservatives on election-day, rather than for their paler, electorally-motivated moderate opponents. They would also do well to remember that neither the US or UK electorates are currently as conservative as the moderate critics of Corbyn and Sanders imply. The UK Conservative Party won the last general election because of the vagaries of the UK electoral system, rather than because of overwhelming popular support for Conservative policies. Only 37.5% of those who voted in May voted Conservative. Almost two voters in three did not! In the two-horse US presidential election in 2012, electoral support for Mitt Romney was higher: but at 206 electoral votes in an electoral college of 538, support for the Republican Party and its leading candidate was well short of the national sweep that a successful presidential campaign requires. There are plenty of conservative voters out there, it is true: but there are also millions of frustrated progressive ones.

IV

So progressive supporters of Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn should take heart from the fact that the outcome of elections is not something fixed in stone, years in advance. They should gather strength from the fact that elections are rather political battles won long in advance, and won by sustained campaigning around progressive agendas that alone can pull the center of political gravity back from the conservative settlement point now so effectively articulated by the likes of Donald Trump.

The fact that such a political repositioning is possible is already clear from the enthusiastic response to the campaigns of Sanders14 and Corbyn15 by wide social groupings in both countries: by old and young voters alike, by long-term activists and the newly mobilized, and by workers in manufacturing industries, in public service sectors and even in the professions. That enthusiasm does more than suggest a lack of support for the old politics of the Clinton-Blair era, though it certainly does suggest that.16 It also points to the emergence of a new electorate: one that is keen to see public policies put in place that genuinely enhance social justice – one that is available to be shaped and energized by principled political leadership, but also one that is likely to be quickly disillusioned and alienated by anything less.

If progressives fear, as many do,17 that too radical a program will let in its ultra-conservative alternative, such fear should not lead them to abandon radicalism and its leading advocates. It should instead inspire Americans with progressive values to join the Sanders campaign, and their UK equivalents to support Jeremy Corbyn – the better in both countries to help strengthen their message and their programs. Neither of those programs is yet complete or perfect. On the contrary, there is much work to do on both. But each constitutes an important launch-pad for the regeneration of a strong center-left; and each needs to be honored (and supported) as such.

For there is no avoiding the fact that only by articulating a coherent alternative vision, of the kind for which Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are now striving, can we hope to ultimately keep conservatism at bay and radical politics in the ascendancy. Progressives cannot duck the left-right battle for ideological dominance in the era of Fox News and Murdoch papers, in the hope that if we remain quiet the center of political gravity will remain largely unchanged. That center of gravity is already being dragged ever further to the right in the US by the antics of Donald Trump and his media acolytes, and in the UK by the steady erosion of welfare rights through one Tory legislative move after another. To hold the current political center of gravity where it is, or better still to pull it back in a progressive direction, necessarily requires therefore an equivalent pull from each and every one of us.

As R.H. Tawney once sensibly reminded an earlier generation of Labour Party leaders, the first thing you need to do – if you want to win a political fight – is to get off your knees. And he was right: we don’t win unavoidable battles of ideas by choosing not to fight. So if there was ever a time for courage on the Left, that time is now. The center-left politics of the 1990s, heavy as it was with triangulation and class accommodation – collapsed in the financial crisis of 2008. Its day is done, as is the credibility of anyone associated with it. The Democratic Left needs a new message, a new vision and new leadership. All three are beginning to emerge – and in the end we will all be better for that.

1 Jason Horowitz, “Bernie Sanders Draws Big Crowds to His ‘Political Revolution’,” The New York Times, August 20, 2015: available at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-evokes-obama-of-08-but-with-less-hope.html

2 Helen Pidd North, “Jez we can! Corby draws thunderous support on rainy day in Middlesbrough,”The Guardian, August 18, 2015: available at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/18/jez-we-can-corbyn-middlesbrough

3 Rafael Barr, “Whatever Labour’s new leader does, it will have to be done with conviction,” The Guardian, June 17, 2015: available at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/17/whatever-labours-new-leader-does-it-will-have-to-be-done-with-conviction

4 400,000 new members in just two months, taking the total up to 600,000. Some no doubt, as critics claim, are spoilers: people joining to support the most radical candidate in the hope of making Labour unelectable. But the overwhelming majority of new members are not of that kind. They are progressives excited by the prospect of helping to pull the Labour Party firmly to the left For more general data on UK political party membership, see Richard Keen, Membership of UK Political Parties, Briefing Paper SN05125, House of Commons Library, August 11, 2015.

5 Steven Rosenfeld, “20 Big Ideas From Bernie Sanders to Reverse Inequality, Expand Safety Nets and Stop America’s Plutocrats,” posted on Aternet.org May 27, 2015: available athttp://www.alternet.org/election-2016/20-big-ideas-bernie-sanders-reverse-inequality-expand-safety-nets-and-stop-americas

6 Jim Pickard, “Jeremy Corbyn targets ‘ludicrous’ pay and Murdoch’s media empire,” The Financial Times, August 23, 2015: available at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/89a31210-4976-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html#axzz3jsG0qAQi

7 Jeremy Corbyn, “Investment, growth and tax justice”, posted August 13, 2015: available athttp://www.jeremyforlabour.com/investment_growth_and_tax_justice

8 Robert Skidelsky, “Taking Corbynomics seriously,” posted on socialeurope.eu, August 21, 2015: available at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeremy-corbyn-uk-economy-by-robert-skidelsky-2015-08

9 “Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to austerity is actually mainstream economics,” The Observer, August 23, 2015: available at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/23/jeremy-corbyns-opposition-to-austerity-is-actually-mainstream-economics

10 Owen Jones, “The Right are mocking Jeremy Corbyn because they fear him,” The New Statesman,August 4, 2015: available athttp://genius.it/7500374/www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/owen-jones-right-are-mocking-jeremy-corbyn-because-secretly-they-fear-him

11 PA, “Lord Mandelson offers bleak warning over Labour leadership contest,” The Daily Telegraph,August 26, 2015: available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11757247/Lord-Mandelson-offers-bleak-warning-over-Labour-leadership-contest.html

12 Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, “Hillary Clinton’s Woes Pushing Joe Biden to Reach Out to Those Who Would Back a Campaign,” The New York Times, August 21, 2015: available at XXXX

13 Janan Ganesh, “It’s as simple as it seems: Corbyn spells disaster for Labour,” The Financial Times,August 25, 20215: available at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/85d51748-4a41-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.htmljQuery111109100316802393387_1440668104883ftcamp=crm/email/_DATEYEARFULLNUM___DATEMONTHNUM___DATEDAYNUM__/nbe/UKPolitics/product#axzz3jgMhxWRg

14 Molly Ball, “There’s Something About Bernie,” The Atlantic, July 29, 2015: available athttp://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/theres-something-about-bernie/399740/

15 Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, “Who’s backing Jeremy Corbyn? The young,” New Statesman, July 23, 2015: available at http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/whos-backing-jeremy-corbyn-young

16 Benedict Cooper, “The triumph of Corbynism is the death rattle of New Labour,” New Statesman,August 18, 2015: available at http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/triumph-corbynism-death-rattle-new-labour

17 Polly Toynbee, “Free to dream, I’d be left of Jeremy Corbyn. But we can’t gamble the future on him,” The Guardian, August 4, 2015: available athttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/04/jeremy-corbyn-gamble-labour-future-yvette-cooper-best-chance

Tags: Bernie Sanders, Democratic Left, democratic party, Donald Trump, hegemonic politics, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, progressives




Dr. David Coates holds the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies. Born in the United Kingdom and educated at the universities of York and Oxford, he came to Wake Forest University in 1999, having previously held personal chairs at the universities of Leeds (in contemporary political economy) and Manchester (in labor studies). He has written extensively on UK labor politics, contemporary political economy and US public policy. For further details, www.davidcoates.net.

He writes here in a personal capacity.

For David Coates' books, please see below

TO FOLLOW WHAT'S NEW ON FACTS & ARTS, PLEASE CLICK HERE!




  

 


This article is brought to you by Project Syndicate that is a not for profit organization.

Project Syndicate brings original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by esteemed leaders and thinkers from around the world to readers everywhere. By offering incisive perspectives on our changing world from those who are shaping its economics, politics, science, and culture, Project Syndicate has created an unrivalled venue for informed public debate. Please see: www.project-syndicate.org.

Should you want to support Project Syndicate you can do it by using the PayPal icon below. Your donation is paid to Project Syndicate in full after PayPal has deducted its transaction fee. Facts & Arts neither receives information about your donation nor a commission.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Nov 24th 2024
Extracts: "We all think, speak, and write within certain intellectual frameworks that we largely take for granted. But, eventually, the passage of time renders familiar categories and ideas obsolete. For example, who still talks about the “Soviet Union” today, apart from historians?" ------- "Trump won decisively despite his contempt for democratic institutions, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his subsequent 34-count felony conviction. Though voters know about his chaotic approach to governance, his habitual mendacity, and his sinister immigration policies, he won every swing state. Even with full knowledge of who Trump is, more Americans voted for him than for Kamala Harris. We must not mince words: liberal democracy in the US has suffered a lethal blow. It will be under increasing pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, and there is no guarantee that it will survive. After all, can there be any future for the liberal West without the US as its leader? I believe the answer is no." ----- "If Europe fails to come together at this moment of tumultuous change, it will not get a second chance. Its only option is to become a military power capable of protecting its interests and securing peace and order on the world stage. The alternative is fragmentation, impotence, and irrelevance."
Nov 24th 2024
EXTRACTS: "When the US presidential election was called for Donald Trump, the yield on ten-year US government bonds increased from 4.3% to 4.4%, and the 30-year-bond yield rose from 4.5% to 4.6%, with both remaining at those levels ten days later." ----- " Clearly, investors expect the next Trump administration to produce higher government budget deficits and more debt. It is not difficult to see why. During Trump’s first term in office, he added $8 trillion to the national debt – all previous presidents combined had accumulated $20 trillion – despite having promised to run budget surpluses so large that they would eliminate the national debt within two terms." ----- "Supporters often say that a businessman like Trump or Musk will know how to put America’s fiscal house in order. But the smart money says they have no idea what they are doing."
Nov 13th 2024
EXTRACT: "For 2,300 years, at least since Plato’s Republic, philosophers have known how demagogues and aspiring tyrants win democratic elections. The process is straightforward, and we have now just watched it play out." ........ "As Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued, democracy is at its most vulnerable when inequality in a society has become entrenched and grown too glaring." ..... "From everything Trump has said and done during this campaign and in his first term, we can expect Plato to be vindicated once again. The Republican Party’s domination of all branches of government would render the US a one-party state. The future may offer occasional opportunities for others to vie for power, but whatever political contests lie ahead most likely will not qualify as free and fair elections."
Nov 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "The likelihood of escalation in the coming weeks and months means that there will be economic and financial risks to manage. A large-enough Israeli strike on Iran could severely disrupt energy production and exports from the Gulf. If Iran gets desperate, it could try to mine the Gulf and block the Strait of Hormuz, while also striking Saudi oil facilities. In this scenario, the world would experience stagflationary shocks similar to those that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1979 Iranian revolution."
Oct 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "The continuing cycles of violence can easily spiral out of control, precipitating a wider war involving nuclear powers. Moreover, Netanyahu’s goal of 'total victory' against an ideological movement cannot be achieved by military means alone." ..... "So long as both sides seek to inflict maximum damage on the other to right past wrongs, the violence will not end. Netanyahu may think that total victory is in sight, now that Hezbollah is badly damaged and Gaza reduced to rubble, but that is an illusion. All he has done is create more enemies who will want to restore their honor by killing in a war without end."
Oct 9th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Nasrallah was on a mission to destroy Israel. It was a mantle he had taken up from countless other Arab leaders, from Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who met with Adolf Hitler in 1941 to discuss the destruction of the Jews, to Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League who described the Arab invasion of the then-nascent Israel in 1948 as a 'war of annihilation'. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – an icon of pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 1960s – pledged more than once to 'destroy Israel'. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah, nurtured their own dreams of liquidating the Jewish state." ...... "Alas, Israelis have built their own dangerous dream palace of 'total victory', erected on a foundation of nationalist fervor, religious messianism, and political intransigence. There is a scenario in which Israel’s military exploits change the region for the better. Unfortunately, far from being the standard-bearer for some enlightened political vision, Israel’s current government is committed to fighting a war on all fronts, with no view toward any political future that Israel’s neighbors could possibly accept."
Oct 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "But in the real world, slain leaders are replaced. Those who bury their dead do not forget or forgive, and those who have felt the punishment of arms do not forego weapons but embrace them. So it seems unlikely that’s how the story will end. Sadly, it’s far more likely it will never end."
Oct 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: ".....,Russia will probably spend about $190 billion, or 10% of GDP, on the war this year, and that figure presumably represents the peak, given the constraints imposed by Western financial sanctions. Whenever Russia can no longer finance a budget deficit, it will have to cut public expenditures, and its non-military outlays have already been pared to the bone."
Sep 12th 2024
EXTRACT: "Throughout recorded history, crises and tragedies have inevitably spurred apocalyptic interpretations that seek to imbue temporal catastrophes with some divine or redemptive meaning. One can see this in the doctrines of the major monotheistic religions, and even in modern totalitarian ideologies, such as communism and Nazism. One way or another, humans appear inclined to believe that, without Satan, there is no redeemer. To understand just how dangerous this logic can be, look no further than Gaza, where a tragedy of Biblical proportions is fueling the messianic hallucinations of Israel, Hamas, and American Christian evangelicals alike."
Aug 7th 2024
EXTRACT: "China knows that the war has had catastrophic consequences for both Russia and Ukraine. Estimates indicate that Putin’s conflict in Ukraine could cost Russia US$1.3 trillion (£1.0 trillion) and at least 315,000 in troop casualties. So, win or lose, the post-war damage to Russia would be immense. This is bad news for China. Not only will it have a weakened ally, but the west could then have a free hand to consolidate its resources in dealing with the 'Chinese threat'."
Jul 27th 2024
EXTRACT: "......, regardless of the folly of political violence, the attempt on Trump’s life was futile inasmuch as ridding America, and the world, of Trump, would by no means rid us of Trumpism, which was and remains a symptom, and not the root cause, of this country’s moral and epistemic decline. How else could so many millions of Americans support this man? No one can claim that they do not know what he stands for (insofar as he stands for anything other than himself) or what his intentions are: he has made it very clear that his second administration will be not only authoritarian, but fascist in rhetoric and deed.
Jul 17th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Iran unveiled a digital clock counting down the days to the destruction of Israel in 2040. The display, located in Tehran’s Palestine Square, embodies the Islamic Republic’s long-held commitment to annihilating the Jewish state. Some view this promise as a mere rhetorical exercise...." ----- "From Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin and even Osama bin Laden, history has taught us to take threats of ideologically inspired attacks at face value. " ---- "......., the key enabler of Iran’s war of attrition is, in fact, Israel’s own government. Netanyahu’s unrealistic goal of achieving 'a complete victory' in Gaza serves Iran’s strategy of miring Israel in an inconclusive conflict while orchestrating a long-term plan to destroy the Jewish state." ----- "It turns out that the only truly irrational, trigger-happy fanatics in this lethal equation are Netanyahu and his theo-fascist allies, who are determined to engage in an apocalyptic war in Gaza and Lebanon." ---- "These messianic hallucinators have a willing collaborator in Netanyahu. Together, they are doing more to annihilate the Jewish national project than Iran could ever hope to achieve on its own."
Jul 16th 2024
EXTRACTS: "In her dissenting opinion in Trump v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that with the majority’s ruling, 'the President is now a king above the law'. In this, she is wrong: the majority opinion has given the US president far more power than English kings had at the time of the American Revolution." ---- "In June 1686, 11 of the 12 hand-picked justices ruled in favor of the king. Echoing the king’s own solicitor, Sir Thomas Powys, the Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys contended that if the king did not have leeway above the law, 'the preservation of the government' might be in jeopardy." ---- "In 1689, the English people roundly rejected such reasoning and asserted that their kings would thereafter be subject to the law. They set a precedent by removing James II from office. The Supreme Court’s decision goes beyond threatening more than two centuries of American jurisprudence; it overturns four centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence. The Roberts majority did not give the president the power of an English king; it gave the president power that an English king could only covet."
Jul 4th 2024
EXTRACT: "Most American voters who believe that Trump is the best defender of democracy are not fascists, much less communists. The very thought would horrify them. But they almost surely have a strong opinion on who constitutes the true American people: God-fearing, hard-working, and most probably white. And they worry that these ordinary Americans are being displaced by illegal immigrants, and that their way of life is being threatened by new ideas about gender, race, and sexuality emerging from elite universities. Trump is stoking these fears and exaggerating these threats. His line that the US courts are attacking not only him, but every right-thinking American is horribly effective. Since he is heard as the true voice of the people, he is the purest democrat. As a result, liberal democracy might not withstand another four years of his rule."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "....the debate showed all too clearly that he is suffering cognitive decline and cannot possibly serve as a competent president for another four years. If Biden is true to his word, and stopping Trump from regaining the presidency is his overriding goal, he needs to announce that at the Democratic Convention in August, he will release his delegates from their obligation to vote for him, and instead ask them to vote for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court have just announced grand opinions trying to resolve the fundamental constitutional issues raised by former President Donald Trump’s claim to absolute immunity" ---- "According to Sotomayor, who wrote for the three dissenting justices, Roberts’ sweeping grant of immunity has 'no firm grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent.' ” ----- "For what it’s worth, I think that Sotomayor is right and Roberts is wrong." ----"But for now, it is much more important to consider the objection raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett to both Roberts’ constitutional glorification of the presidency and Sotomayor’s devastating critique of Roberts’ majority opinion." ---- "Barrett is right to ask why Roberts and Sotomayor did not join her in adopting the problem-solving approach that they have repeatedly endorsed in many other contexts." ---- "Roberts took the path that not only betrayed Founding principles, as Sotomayor argued, but also betrayed the very principles to which he has dedicated his entire career. "
Jul 1st 2024
EXTRACTS: "Netanyahu’s disdainful criticism of Biden. Netanyahu knows how indispensable the US is to Israel, as no country has provided Israel with more financial, military, and political support than the US. And no American president has ever been more supportive and committed to Israel's security than President Biden. But then, leave it to the most loathsome Netanyahu, who dares to criticize the president for suspending the shipment specifically of 2,000-pound bombs to continue with his devastating bombardment of Rafah that could indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent civilians." ---- "All Israelis who care about their country’s future must rise and demand the immediate resignation of this corrupt and brazen creature who inflicted untold damage on the only Jewish state, making it a pariah state."
Jun 12th 2024
EXTRACTS: "One of the more amusing exercises on the economic calendar is the International Monetary Fund’s annual review of the United States. Yet while everyone knows that the US government pays absolutely no heed to what the IMF has to say about its affairs, the Fund’s most recent Article IV review of the US economy is striking for one unexpected finding. Readers will be startled to learn that, in the IMF’s estimation, US government debt is on a sustainable path." ---- "What then could go wrong? Well, US institutions could turn out not to be so strong. Donald Trump has a personal history of defaulting on his debts. As William Silber has observed, Trump in a second presidential term could instruct his Treasury secretary to suspend payments on the debt, and neither Congress nor the courts might be willing to do anything about it. The gambit would be appealing to Trump insofar as a third of US government debt is held by foreigners. The damage to the dollar’s safe-asset status would be severe, even if Congress, the courts, or a subsequent president reversed Trump’s suspension of debt payments. Investors in US Treasuries would demand a hefty risk premium, potentially causing the government’s interest payments to explode."
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "An all-too-familiar specter is haunting Europe, one that reliably appears every five years. As citizens head to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, observers are once again asking whether far-right anti-European parties will gain ground and unite to destroy the European Union from within. To be sure, skeptics of this doomsday scenario have always argued that the far right will remain divided, because nationalist internationalism is a contradiction in terms. But it is more likely that specific policy disagreements – mainly over the Ukraine war – and drastically diverging political strategies will prevent Europe’s various far-right parties from forming a 'supergroup.' ”
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "While the dreadful legacy of his Conservative predecessors – the morally vacuous Johnson and the reckless Liz Truss – would make it extremely difficult for Sunak to offer a credible vision of a better future, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. For example, he supported Johnson’s bid for the Conservative leadership, a decision that reflects poorly on his judgment. Sunak has also been a Euroskeptic since he was a schoolboy and was an early supporter of Brexit."