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World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | May 2020

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:43:57 +0000

HIGHLIGHTS

• IMPACT OF RACE PROTESTS IN US

On May 25, a white police offer in Minnesota placed his knee on black American George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, asphyxiating him. The murder, caught on video, triggered widespread protests. The rioting, the worst the United States has seen since the 1960s, has spread to all 50 states. The United States government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent surge in unemployment, both of which disproportionately affected minorities, were contributory factors. President Donald Trump inflamed the situation by denouncing the protestors as “terrorists” and projecting the crisis as a law and order issue. The riots could have a major impact on presidential elections scheduled in November.

Historical Moment?

The tumult, argue some US commentators, merging with the health and economic emergencies, could mark a social rupture as dramatic as major turning points in US history such as the Great Depression or the convulsions of 1968. Others are skeptical that a fundamental change is at hand. Historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University says the moment resembled the trough of Richard Nixon’s presidency, when the country was divided politically over the Vietnam War.

Former US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued statements calling for the reasons for the protests to be addressed. Obama said the present crisis could serve as “a real turning point,” adding that the agitation helped “raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s only in response to protest that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities.”

The Economist editorialised at the potential for a greater sense of national unity. However, this would not flow from the White House but would have to arise from the grassroots. “The leaders of protest movements, along with America’s mayors and police chiefs, must inspire it themselves.”

There have been sympathetic protests in many countries, mostly in Europe, Oceania and Africa. There would have been more but social distancing norms meant many protests were banned. China and Russia, long-standing recipients of US lectures about human rights, have highlighted the brutal tactics of the US police. The International Crisis Group, known for its in-depth analysis of failing states and civil wars, wrote its first report about the US.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/a-81bb-c2f70f01034b-story-html/kvhf/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/2d-4b96-9d8b-8839cf85416b-html/kvhk/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

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http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ce-race-and-protest-in-america/kvhp/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/rs-must-stop-courting-conflict/kvhr/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

Opinion Polls And Floyd’s Death

The first few polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans believe Floyd’s death was wrong and there is sympathy for the frustrations behind the protests. This is matched with strong disapproval of violent protests and support for strong state action against rioters.

A survey by Yahoo News/YouGov showed 84% approving the dismissal of the police involved in Floyd’s death. Two polls showed 65 and 68% approving the murder charges against the policeman who kneed him on the neck. Americans, by a two to one margin, agreed that police treated blacks differently from whites including using excessive force. Democrats were almost twice as likely to take this view as Republicans. On law and order, 70% supported curfews and 66% backed the use of the national guard irrespective of party affiliation. A simple majority backed military involvement, but heavily skewed towards Republicans.

Trump’s handling of the protests received a general thumbs down. The CBS News/YouGov poll found 32% approved the president’s response while 49% disapproved, Reuters/Ipsos found 33% approved while 56% disapproved. Republican approval of Trump’s handling of the crisis was about 20 percentage points lower than their approval of his handling of the pandemic.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/floyds-death-and-the-protests-/kvht/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

Sixties Violence Helped the Right

Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, an expert on protests and politics, says “nonviolent protests can be very effective if they are able to get media attention.” This allows groups that are “the object of state violence are able to get particularly sympathetic press.” But this is a difficult strategy to maintain, and “when protesters engage in violence…that tends to work against their cause and interests” in terms of public support.

In the 1960s, he says, white moderates “were open to policies that advanced racial equality, and were also very concerned about order.” The civil-rights activists wanted a strategy that would advance racial equality, capture the attention of white moderates and grow a coalition of allies. “Over time the strategy that evolved was one of nonviolent protest” which actively sought to trigger police chiefs to engage in spectacles of violence and “shock the conscience of the nation.” Wasow says, “It isn’t just nonviolence that is effective, but nonviolence met with state and vigilante brutality that is effective.” The problem was that the images of violence led to a more militant civil rights movement, including race riots. After these, “white moderates who supported the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defected to the Republican Party in 1968.” White moderates were part of the Democratic coalition “as long as they perceive there to be order, but when they perceive there to be too much disorder they “shift to the party that has owned the issue of order.”

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ts-change-politics-utm-source-/kvhw/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/rb-george-floyd-protests-trump/kvj1/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

Biden’s Weak Poll Lead

Before the race riots broke out, Trump was attracting negative ratings for his handling of the pandemic while continuing to receive kudos for the economy. Joe Biden, who became the official Democratic Party candidate on June 5, had emerged with a clear national lead in the polls. The average of eight polls taken in May by realclearpolitics.com, mostly done before the protests, gave Biden an average lead of +7.2%. A Morning Consult poll had 45% of registered voters more likely to vote for Biden because of the protests and 31% more likely to vote for Trump.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll which had Biden 10 percentage points ahead, however, showed his supporters much less enthusiastic about their candidate. Among Trump supporters, 84% of adults say they would definitely vote for him, compared with 68% for Biden. The Democrat’s lead reduces by half if only voters who are “certain” to vote are counted.

Among the groups unexcited about Biden are young black Americans. The concern Democrats have is that Floyd’s death will lead them to sit out the elections. “This is a moment where people are disillusioned in institutions,” said Branden Snyder, executive director of Detroit Action, an NGO that mobilises minority voters. “I’m worried that a lot of our first-time voters, and a lot of them are young voters, are going … to completely opt out of the system.”

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/a-9590-1858a893bd59-story-html/kvj3/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/6-05-black-voters-biden-301850/kvj7/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/tabs-POLICE-RVs-FINAL-LM-1-pdf/kvj9/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

Caught in a Vice

Biden has promised he will choose a female as a vice-presidential running mate. That still leaves the door open to a number of candidates and the riots have made the political calculations more complicated. A number of the front-runners have backgrounds in law and order and their selection would antagonize black Americans. On the other hand, if white swing voters focus on security issues then these candidates would help win them over.

Senator Amy Klobuchar is a former local prosecutor from Minnesota where Floyd was killed and is likely to be treated as politically radioactive. But two of the other candidates, Senator Kamala Harris and Representative Val Demings, also have law and order backgrounds. Harris, of both Indian and black ancestry, was once a state attorney general and local prosecutor. There has been a sustained campaign “to push a ‘Kamala is a cop’ narrative designed to diminish and disqualify her in the eyes of the left.” Harris has expressed regret for backing some controversial laws. Demings, the descendant of black slaves, is a former police chief but untested in national politics.

The continuing tussle between the mainstream and hard left of the Democratic Party threatens to claim New York Representative Eliot Engel, best known in India as the head of the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee. Engels faces a battle to be his party’s candidate though he has held his seat for 16 terms. The Democratic left has already endorsed Jamaal Bowman for the June 23^rd primary.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ota-political-landscape-290082/kvjc/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

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http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/val-demings-column-5299142002-/kvjh/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

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Threats of Trump

Over the years Trump has issued a never-ending stream of threats, irrespective of how credible they are and who the target is. Politico.com listed how the US president threatens corporations like Twitter, General Motors and Harley-Davidson; senior government officials and a long line of political opponents; foreign governments whether friend and foe such as South Korea and North Korea; and, in particular, the media and individual journalists. He issued off-the-cuff trade threats against India over shipments of hydroxychloroquine.

This seems to be a style brought over from his real estate days where he was famous for putting his face close to a business rival, baring his teeth and firing a barrage of legal warnings. “His former lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress [that] Trump directed him to make at least 500 threats to businesses and journalists over 10 years of representation.” The difference between a businessman and a president making threats “is that a president possesses the coercive power to make good on the intimidating words.” Trump often lacks the authority to carry his threats, like shutting down Twitter, but the other side must assume officials and government agencies lower down could take him at his word. The US president has gone through with some of this threats – most notably in the area of trade – but by “mixing up the real with the fake threats, Trump keeps everybody on edge.”

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/f-trumps-hollow-threats-285044/kvjp/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ts-over-10-years-idUSKCN1QG2MM/kvjr/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

Red and Black History

Maoist China carefully tracked the US civil rights movement in the 1960s and sought to influence some of the black leaders. Mao Zedong argued that “racial struggle is fundamentally a matter of class struggle” and wooed a number of prominent black leftist leaders like Robert F. Williams who visited China in 1964. Research into the Chinese Communist Party files has come up with speeches from Chinese worker, student, and women leaders who drew “explicit parallels between Chinese historical experiences of semi-colonialism and contemporary black American movements; they decried race-based discrimination and lauded national liberation movements.” For Maoist China it was an element of its internationalist strategy and a practical way to show sensitivity to racism in world affairs “while advocating non-racial solutions.”

A new book on the rise and fall of the Communist Party in the Deep South during the 1940s (Mary Stanton, Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party 1930-1950) shows the importance the party development of a legal-cum-media strategy to publicize numerous social injustices “helped lay the foundation for the organized civil rights movement that emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” The party, backed by black intellectuals like W. E. B. Dubois, sought to convince the white and black working classes in industrial Alabama cities like Birmingham that their real enemy was capitalism rather than race. The party did not last, but its tactics and organisational skills left a legacy.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/-as-class-struggle-7673f2a6abb/kvjt/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/-communist-party-mary-stanton-/kvjw/43936270?h=Aci6PICLXKJNsEaTGEqyQCVN53_IeJ6r1GHI1RVTur8

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(The views expressed are personal)
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The post World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | May 2020 appeared first on ANANTA ASPEN CENTRE.

World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | April 2020

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:41:51 +0000

US POLITICS AND THE PANDEMIC

What If the US Cancels its Elections?
There is a way Mike Pompeo could be sworn in as the next United States President. The combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and President Donald Trump’s unconcern about constitutional propriety has led to speculation that the US presidential elections in November could be cancelled. The result would be an unprecedented constitutional crisis. It seems unlikely: the US held an election even during its civil war. But if that were to happen, the US Constitution lays out a half-dozen other ways a new US president can be chosen.

The Constitution is clear the president does not have the right to cancel an election. It specifically says only the Congress, not the president, can select Election Day but it can vote to not choose such a date. In addition, the 20th Amendment clearly states “[t]he terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.” But there are a number of paths a future president could be selected without an election. The key is that a full-fledged president must secure a majority of the electoral college which is chosen by the state governments, each getting electors equal to the number of legislators they have in Congress. If that does not happen, there are a number of ways to choose an acting president.

1) If Trump cancels the elections without the support of Congress, individual states could decide to hold elections as scheduled. After all, voting is administered at the state level. If only Democratic Party-ruled states defy the president they would not produce enough electoral college votes to secure the presidency for Joe Biden.

2) State legislatures can in theory appoint electors without a vote. Going by present state governments, this would lead to an electoral college of 219 Democrats and 214 Republicans. As Article II (1) 3 requires only “a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed” this would mean a President Biden.

3) If the electoral college has not chosen a president when its votes are counted on January 6, then Article II (1) 3, and the 12th Amendment require the House of Representatives to “choose a president from those receiving the most votes from electors”. If the November elections are not held, the House would exist only until early January. If it votes before then, going by the current House and the fact the vote must be decided state-by-state, as Republicans control 26 state delegations compared to 22 for Democrats (two states are equally divided), Trump would retain the presidency.

4) If the House cannot assemble a majority of 26 state delegations for one candidate, the 20th Amendment says one of the two vice-presidential candidates, if selected by the Senate, can become acting president. Article I (3) and the 12th Amendment require a quorum of two-thirds of the senators to elect a vice-president. Just over a third of the Senate end their terms in November so without elections there is no quorum — unless two states with expiring Senate terms held elections on their own. State governors could also appoint senators to fill vacancies. If current governors appointed members of their own parties to join the 65 holdover senators, the result would be a 51-49 Democratic Senate.

5) If neither House nor Senate can produce a majority to resolve an electoral college impasse, the 20th Amendment calls for Congress to designate by statute who would then be acting president. That statute is section 19, Title 3 of the US Code, and it designates the Speaker of the House as next in line to the acting presidency. If the House does not exist because of a lack of elections, the president pro tem of the Senate would become acting president. Tradition dictates the most senior member of the majority party is elected. That would mean Vermont’s Republican Senator Patrick Leahy.

6) In case the electoral college deadlocks and neither chamber of Congress is functioning, section 19 passes the acting presidency to confirmed cabinet members, beginning with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Note that in only one of these scenarios does Trump retain the presidency, and that scenario relies on every member of the House surviving the pandemic and individual congressmen strictly following the party line.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/17/could-trump-use-the-virus-to-stay-in-power-192883

Mail Ballots
David Daley is an author who has chronicled how the Republican Party has used gerrymandering and other tactics to undermine Democratic votes and how the Democrats have fought back. Such tactics mean that 59 million Americans live in states where the Republicans rule locally despite having polled less votes than Democrats. Daley also discusses the difficulties that will face the US if, because of the pandemic, it has to hold elections only using mail ballots. Republicans have sought to disallow such methods because they feel this would increase Democratic voter turnout – being on average poorer they find it more difficult to physically show up at voting centres. But the recent experience of the Wisconsin primary elections is a reminder that underfunded state election boards struggle to handle so many mail ballots, ensuring any close results will be strongly contested in the courts.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/17/21219034/coronavirus-wisconsin-voting-rights-november-election

War With Governors
Why is President Trump inciting his supporters to hold rallies and call for an end to the lockdown?

The president, worried at polling showing growing disaffection with his handling of the pandemic and a thinning lead in the battleground states, plans to use the next fortnight to deliberately cause confrontations with state governors on the issue of lifting the lockdown. The state governors will, like China and the World Health Organisation, be blamed for not handling the pandemic properly and driving down the economy. The result will be a patchwork of different levels of lockdown across the US which will make handling the crisis all that more difficult. But this is being seen by Trump and his advisors as a means to rally his base and force the polarisation on which he thrives. “The White House has been setting itself up for weeks now to blame governors for the response to the coronavirus, including any failure to procure medical equipment and resources, or problems that arise from restarting businesses and resuming public life.” The strategy is risky. If the result is a resurgence in viral deaths, Trump may lose more support. Republican Party’s internal polling, however, shows that an increasing number of voters, especially among their base, would like the economy to be opened up even though wider polls still show two-thirds of Americans are nervous about lifting the lockdown too early.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/18/trump-reopening-economy-193885

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-revs-up-state-fight-coronavirus-shutdowns-195443

Obama Endorses
Ex-US President Barack Obama’s endorsement of Joe Biden last week was billed as “a momentous political event.” Obama was the last Democrat to cobble together a winning coalition: motivating a massive turnout of black voters, exciting millennials and persuasive enough to get upper Midwestern whites to support him. “At its core, Biden’s candidacy is premised on restoring that halcyon Obama era — electorally as much as politically.” Obama’s post-presidential approval numbers have been strong. Gallup’s first retrospective job approval rating for Obama in 2018 was 63%. YouGov polling between February 2019 and February 2020 found 55% of Americans have a positive opinion of Obama. In comparison, Biden’s approval in polling averages is 45.7%, according to RealClearPolitics. Trump currently has a 44% approval rate. And Biden is the “white Obama” candidate — “a white, male Democrat trying to ride the former president’s ‘hope and change’ coattails.”

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-can-obama-help-biden-in-2020/

Senate Swings
The US Senate may prove difficult to hold on to for the Republicans. New polls show Democratic challengers ahead of GOP incumbents and the party is recruiting strong candidates. There is a tight correlation between presidential and senatorial voting trends so the choice of Joe Biden as the presumptive presidential candidate will give Democrats a boost. The Republicans are still likely to maintain control of the Senate but with a reduced majority as most of the states where the Senate will be decided lean red. Republicans currently have 53 Senate seats to Democrats’ 47. Colorado, Arizona and Maine remain too close to call. Montana, however, has become vulnerable for the Republicans.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/new-polls-and-new-candidates-are-giving-democrats-some-hope-of-flipping-the-senate/

Left Outreach
With the Democratic candidacy in the bag, Joe Biden’s advisers reached out to a number of progressive groups, including those that endorsed Bernie Sanders. Biden recognises he needs to win over the leftwing of his party. These groups represent causes ranging from climate change and immigrant rights to gun control and mobilizing underserved black and brown communities. A key group the former vice-president wants to attract is young voters. “Broadly speaking, they view Biden as one of the least-inspiring candidates in the sprawling Democratic primary field.” He has adopted some elements of the left’s platform, backing proposals on student debt and free college. But progressives want more ideological postures on gun control, the Green New Deal and immigration.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/28/joe-biden-plan-to-court-young-progressives-151787

Democratic Worldview
Several of Biden’s foreign policy advisors have met their counterparts in Bernie Sanders team to iron out a “united platform on foreign policy.” While still at an early stage, they indicate how much Sanders was able to influence the foreign policy agenda of the Democratic Party. This includes “opening a debate on conditioning aid to Israel,” cuts in defense spending and tightening congressional war powers authority in response to the US’s involvement in the Yemen conflict. Biden, a centrist, has stuck to his guns on some traditional foreign-policy priorities. This includes keeping special forces deployed in West Asia to counter terrorism says Stehen Wertheim, a co-founder of the Quincy Institute.

Already there are signs that handling China will be a crucial part of the US presidential campaign’s foreign policy agenda. The Trump election team launched a series of ads accusing Biden of being “soft” on China. The Biden camp responded almost immediately, claiming Trump’s unwillingness to confront China helped lead to the present Covid-19 pandemic. Trump’s team says it has surveys saying as much as 77% of Americans blame China for the outbreak.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/09/biden-likely-embrace-bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-ideas-coronavirus-pandemic/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/coronavirus-turns-china-into-2020-election-issue/ar-BB12POJL

Mixed on China
Republican senators and rightwing US media have increased their attacks on China, blaming Beijing for the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic damage that has followed. This is partly out of genuine anger, existing beliefs that China is an adversary but also part of a strategy to divert attention and blame for Trump’s slow response to the pandemic. However, the results have been mixed largely because the US president has tended to muddy the message. Trump still wants to salvage his trade deal with China and needs to import large amounts of Chinese medical supplies to handle the pandemic. He has publicly continued to call Xi Jinping his friend, says the US is “dealing in good faith” with China and has dropped his earlier description of Covid-19 as the “China virus.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/politics/trump-china-virus.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Politics

The post World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | April 2020 appeared first on ANANTA ASPEN CENTRE.

World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | February 2020

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:39:53 +0000

US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Biden is Democratic Party Frontrunner
The race to be the Democratic Party presidential candidate tightened dramatically after the Super Tuesday set of primaries leaving only centrist Joe Biden and leftwing Bernie Sanders in the fray. Biden’s subsequent victories in key states like Michigan has left him the clear frontrunner. Biden’s dramatic resurgence began when he won South Carolina in February by a landslide thanks to en masse black American support. Just before Super Tuesday (March 3) his two main centrist rivals, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, withdrew in his favour. Subsequently the billionaire Michael Bloomberg did the same. Elizabeth Warren also withdrew, leaving Sanders without a leftwing rival — but she declined to give him an endorsement. Biden has been publicly backed by two other candidates, Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang.

A number of reasons are cited for these developments. The main one is that Democratic voters are desperate to defeat the Republican incumbent, President Donald Trump. “Electability” is the number one criteria for an overwhelming number of Democratic voters, according to numerous polls. This seems to have been Biden’s star attraction. In exit poll interviews across a dozen Super Tuesday states, a majority said choosing a candidate who could beat Trump was more important than finding one who agreed with them on issues. “The weaknesses of Joe Biden did not disappear,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic Party strategist. “They landed on Joe Biden for a simple reason, and that is because he’s a known and safe quantity…Beating Donald Trump is the unifying force.” The other reason was the overwhelming support Biden received from black voters. In the same way Sanders’ campaign has been fuelled by dedicated leftwing youngsters, Biden’s survived because of a bond with blacks that he earned while being Barack Obama’s number two for 10 years.

The Biden versus Sanders battle reflects a deep ideological division within Democratic ranks. Since 2016, the Democratic Party’s youth and college-educated white supporters have shifted leftward, even becoming comfortable with terms like “socialism.” Sanders has been able to even attract support for his views among Latino voters. But it has been the moderate black voters who have kept the party centred. As one writer argued, this was a group “whose experience with race in America perhaps informed their notions about what is the realistic pace of change in this country.” College-educated whites eventually joined black voters over the electability issue and this coalition helped resurrect Biden’s campaign. Youth and some working class whites remain loyal to Sanders. An ABC News/Washington Post exit poll showed that 60% of youth (below 29 years of age) voted for Sander versus only 15% of elderly (above 65). But youth are notoriously fickle when it comes to turning up and it was notable that, when it came to turnout, Sanders fared worse this year with the young than he did when he took on Hillary Clinton four years ago. Dislike for Clinton helped galvanize Sanders base earlier, that spark seemed to have been missing this round.

Whoever the Democratic candidate, he will face a Trump still able to motivate his base. The Republican Party primaries are being ignored because Trump faces no real opposition. Despite its pointlessness, Trump received nearly 130,000 votes in his party’s New Hampshire primary – twice what a Barack Obama or a George W. Bush received when they ran.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/y-bernie-sanders-lost-michigan/56ck/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/-democrats-in-2020-142590-html/56cm/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

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http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/swung-super-tuesday-for-biden-/56cr/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

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http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/hort-compared-2016-4947795002-/56cw/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

Why does electability matter?

Ballot Access News, which tracks partisan registration in the US, showed that for the first time this century the number of registered independents was larger than those of a mainstream party, in this case the Republicans. The data tracks the 31 states that require US voters to register by party. It found 29.09% of Americans identified as independents, 28.87% as Republicans and 39.66% as Democrats. As recently as 2004, Republicans outnumbered independents by nearly 10 percentage points. The registration numbers reflect a long term but mild decline in support for both parties.
State registrations are an imperfect measure of party support because of the different ways local rules are applied. But shifts towards independents seem evident even in broad surveys were voters were asked to self-identity. A Gallup Poll found that 42% of voters in the US say they are independents, 30% say they are Republican and 27% say they are Democrats. There is evidence in some surveys that the increase in independents is because of Republican defections driven by distaste for the Trump administration or the US president himself. But these right-leaning independents remain ideologically conservative. Biden supporters argue these independent voters could be persuaded to support a centrist Democrat and would go back to Trump if the alternative is a leftwing candidate like Sanders.

A new survey of battleground states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – among the six to eight states on which the US presidential elections will hinge – show that Trump has been losing ground since December. In each of the three states, Trump polls better in head-to-head matchups against Sanders by a few points, but against Biden his leads are within the margin of error in each state.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/republicans-than-independents-/56cy/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/sis-march-battleground-survey-/56d1/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

Future Biden Government

Axios.com has come out with the first report on the possible character of a Biden cabinet and government. His advisors have said their governing plan will be about “returning to normal” and reversing the damage of the Trump administration. He will also draw heavily on known figures from the Obama administration. The sources stressed that the transition process has barely begun within the Biden camp. Among the key takeaways:

Biden’s team feels they need a black or a woman, or both, as vice-president. This puts Kamala Harris among the top candidates for the position. Two black politicians, Cory Booker and Deval Patrick, are also seen as possibles.
Candidates for the cabinet and senior positions include John Kerry as a climate change negotiator, Susan Rice as secretary of state, Elizabeth Warren as treasury secretary – though some Wall Street names like Jamie Dimon and Anne Finucane are in the mix as well, Pete Buttigieg as UN ambassador or US trade representative, and Michael Bloomberg as World Bank president.
South Carolina legislator Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden helped turnaround the candidate’s flagging campaign, will have outsized influence on the government. Other reports say that Barack Obama, widely believed to have quietly lobbied on behalf of Biden, will also have considerably sway.

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Sanders, Warren and the American Left

Bernie Sanders is easily the most unusual presidential candidate because of his avowed socialist leanings and refusal, even to this day, to register as a Democratic Party member. But as a number of articles argue, Sanders is well within the political mainstream of US history and would barely be considered unusual in, say, Western Europe let alone India. Sanders prefers to cite the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his ideological framework. He often argues Roosevelt would not have been against most of his policies whether it is Medicare for All, free college, the Green New Deal, strengthening of labour unions and taxing the rich. Yet, he is clearly the most leftwing presidential candidate ever run by either American political party in recent history and has positioned himself as an anti-establishment figure. Sanders’ populist narrative is about the “ninety-nine per cent” needing to take on the economic élite and is one reason he finds some support among the white working class that voted for Trump. He is famously quirky, prone to sleeplessness and happiest in a room temperature of 16 Celsius.

Sanders foreign policy advisor, Matt Duss, and the co-chair of his national campaign, Congressman Ro Khanna, have outlined a worldview that challenges the positions of the liberal and conservative establishment. There is a deep opposition to the US’s military interventions overseas, its excessive military spending, its close relations with autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia and even Washington’s support for Israel. They also question US support for expansive free trade agreements. Questions have been raised about Sanders naivete regarding China and he has berated Trump for not being more critical about the Narendra Modi government’s treatment of minorities. However, the Sanders campaign has been overwhelmingly focussed on domestic issues and most of his foreign policy comments have been about Latin America and West Asia.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ilitary-foreign-policy-606364-/56d7/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/cy-2020-presidential-election-/56d9/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/ow-socialist-is-bernie-sanders/56dc/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/vator-articleshow-74539689-cms/56df/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

Warren is seen in two different ways in the US. One view saw her as the best female presidential candidate that the US never had, who arguably did more than any other candidate to work out detailed policy responses to every problem but because she was a female was labelled “shrill” and “argumentative.” Another view was to see her as the author of a new leftwing activism that took up 21^st century issues like climate change, Wall Street’s misdeeds and breaking up Silicon Valley’s monopoly firms. Her website had sixty-five policy plans and Warren could be counted on at every debate to begin by saying, “I have a plan…” One profile said she was “the key synthesizer and champion of a new progressivism.” Ultimately, she was outflanked on the left by Sanders while being unable to convince enough centrists that she had the capability to take on Trump.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/cy-agenda-will-live-on-source-/56dh/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/atures-why-warren-couldnt-win-/56dm/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

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The Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank, has argued there are four schools of progressive thinking in the US today. One is the “new structuralists,” who focus on “setting guardrails and rules for the market”. Two are the “public providers,” who want to boost public services and public investments. Three are “economic transformers,” who are about “deploying government to catalyze large scale economic change,” such as a shift to a green economy. The last school are “economic democratists,” who focus on strengthening democratic institutions to make them better handle an economic transformation.

The Roosevelt Institute’s head, Felicia Wong, has argued Warren comes from the first school with her battles against Facebook and Amazon and desire to restrict the private-equity industry. But there are also elements of all the other schools in her policy formulations, including her support for universal child care and a green economy. Warren, however, is clear that she is not a socialist but someone who wants to correct the failures and shortcomings of the market economy. In an interview she once said “I am a capitalist to my bones…I believe in markets.” She added, “That’s how we build a lot of wealth in this country and a lot of innovation and create a lot of opportunity. But markets without rules are theft.”

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/gWorldview-report-202001-1-pdf/56dr/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

Why the Working Class is in Revolt

The revolt of the white working class against their ruling establishment helped drive both the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and the successful run of Donald Trump. The latest book to analyse the economic reasons for this anger is “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” by the Princeton University pair Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Deaton, a Nobel laureate in economics, is well-known in India for his work on inequality and poverty in this country.

Case and Deaton first published research on “deaths of despair” five years ago, looking at middle-aged whites. They noted that so many white working-class Americans in their 40s and 50s were dying of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse that the overall mortality rate for the age group was no longer falling – a rare and shocking pattern in a modern society. But they also determined that this phenomenon was true for all non-college educated whites. Up and down the age spectrum, “deaths of despair” were increasing dramatically.

The new book tries to explain why this is happening. Their answer: US working-class life is more difficult than it is in any other high-income country. “European countries have faced the same kind of technological change we have, and they’re not seeing the people killing themselves with guns or drugs or alcohol,” Case says. “There is something unique about the way the US is handling this.” Inequality has risen more and middle-class incomes have stagnated more severely in the US than in comparable countries like France, Germany or Japan. Outsourcing has become the norm, which means that executives often see low-wage workers not as colleagues but as expenses. Labour unions have lost negotiating power to large corporations. On top of this, the US has by far the world’s most expensive health-care system.

In effect, white workers have begun to experience the economic deprivation that has been commonplace for years among black Americans. Mother Jones recently carried an article on Darrick Hamilton, an academic who strongly influenced the policies of both Sanders and Warren on the racial wealth gap in the US and shown that a black American middle class does not really exist in the US.

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/about-book/56dt/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/-working-class-death-rate-html/56dw/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

http://go.pardot.com/e/827843/nie-sanders-racial-wealth-gap-/56dy/13841158?h=bQiTdXZ6cgkHOtWRwpZPWKujDgglRqYXiStpNqKk_Ds

The post World Review | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | February 2020 appeared first on ANANTA ASPEN CENTRE.