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A look back at the annus horribilis known as 2020
Before we bid adieu to the most challenging year most of us have endured, GZERO World is taking a look back at the stories and people we covered. A global pandemic, the US presidential election, protests…it wasn't pretty, but it was very memorable.
2020, in a few choice words
How to capture the essence of this incredible, terrible year in a few short words and without using profanity? It's not easy.
Thankfully, the dictionary website Merriam-Webster.com has released its list of most heavily searched words of 2020, and they tell the story of an historic year in US politics and the life of our planet. Here's a sample.
The top word, unsurprisingly, was "Pandemic," a disease outbreak that covers a wide area and afflicts lots of people. In 2020, the coronavirus crisis hit every region of the world, triggering a public health, economic, and political emergency on a geographic scale our planet has never experienced. Differing responses to that problem defined the politics (and geopolitics) of 2020.
Large numbers of people looked up the word "Defund" in 2020 to understand what many US protesters were chanting about this summer. Calls to "defund the police" erupted following the police killing of George Floyd, but many voters were confused about whether it meant stripping police of all funding or simply diverting some of the police budget toward mental health services and community development projects. Former president Barack Obama opined this week that calls to "defund the police" had "lost a big audience," costing Democrats at the ballot box last month.
Searches for the word "Icon" spiked following the deaths of Congressman John Lewis in July and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September. Lewis and Ginsburg are excellent examples of those whose achievements lift them beyond fame toward myth, and there were far too many similar losses in every country to list here. But COVID-19 also stole many an icon from within families around the world.
Merriam-Webster has included the word "Irregardless" in every edition of its dictionary since 1934, but online searches for the word skyrocketed this year when actress Jamie Lee Curtis said something provocative that we're just too lazy to investigate. Here's the deal: The correct word is "regardless." As in… "Regardless of its inclusion in Merriam Webster's dictionary, 'irregardless' is not a damn word."
Curiosity about the word "Kraken" rose suddenly in July when Seattle's professional hockey team took the name of this "fabulous Scandinavian sea monster." What better metaphor for 2020 than the unseen beast that threatens our lives and makes travel especially dangerous? Searches for this word spiked again in November when Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell promised to "release the kraken," evidence that proves the US presidential election was stolen from her client. Until a US court tells us otherwise, we'll assume that this particular mythical monster lives at the bottom of a lake in Edison County, Michigan.
Speaking of "Malarkey," that's a word meaning "insincere or foolish talk" that's become part of president-elect Joe Biden's "Regular Joe" political brand. Republicans say Democrats are the party of elites, and many voters agree. To avoid that label, Bill Clinton likes to talk about aging hound dogs, and Barack Obama sometimes launches into a bizarro Chicago/Hawaii-style southern accent that makes us actual southerners suppress the giggles. Merriam-Webster is at its most amusing in listing synonyms for malarkey, and it's not hard to imagine Biden whipping out any of these folksy words. (Our favorites are blatherskite, fiddle-faddle, and tommyrot.)
The word "Quarantine" derives from a 14th century Italian word that describes the 40-day isolation of a ship entering port to protect those on shore from the risk of Bubonic Plague. In 2020, it took on the broader meaning of isolation, a trial suffered by those infected with the coronavirus and those who hoped to avoid it. But isolation and loneliness have taken a heavy toll on mental and emotional health around the world this year.
Finally, there is "Schadenfreude," a German word meaning "enjoyment taken from the troubles of others." The world faced many an unexpected misfortune in 2020, and responses were often shaped by affiliation to political tribe rather than human empathy. Here's hoping for lighter burdens and a little more kindness in 2021.
Andrew Yang on Joe Biden's presidential campaign
What I'd want Joe to do, is that we have to let the American people know that this pandemic is going to cause damage that's going to be with us for years. And we need a new Marshall Plan scale initiative to rebuild the country. And to me, that should be the vision that Joe presents saying, it's not just enough that, look, I would in minister the government effectively through this kind of crisis, but to recognize the fact that there are going to be scars that are deep and wide from this economic, psychological, cultural, and that we need to have this massive rebuilding effort that is going to span years and years.
And this is what the rebuilding effort looks like. We're going to make investments in this. Some of the obvious ones are the things that we've needed for years or decades like greater environmental sustainability infrastructure, things that you could legitimately spend hundreds of billions of dollars on and create hundreds of thousands, even millions of jobs. That to me would be the vision that we should be presenting because the danger is that this becomes just pure referendum on Trump. And I think that Trump's done a terrible job managing the coronavirus crisis. But there is a natural propensity for people to rally around the flag and rally around the leader in a time of crisis. And Joe has to make a positive case and present a bigger vision than I'm not Trump, let's go back to normal.
Ian Bremmer: And when can he start doing that? Because I mean right now of course, I mean not only do we have these press conferences every day, but we're in the teeth of the crisis. We haven't turned the corner yet. People are still under lock down. Can Biden start to deliver that message now or I mean does he really realistically speaking have to wait until we at least have the immediacy, the urgency of all of these people dying in the rear view mirror?
Andrew Yang: That's a great question, Ian. I personally do not think it is too soon to start presenting a positive vision of what we can do after this crisis. Even in the depths of the crisis, even right now when, I agree with you, to me, priority number one is just getting PPE into the hands of healthcare providers in Louisiana. That's number one. And so focusing on that is 100% the right thing to do, but it's not too soon to start thinking about how we're going to actually rebuild after this crisis clears, whether that's weeks, months from now or even next year after hopefully a vaccine gets developed. To me that's one of the roles of the presidency is to present a vision to the country that people can get excited about and passionate about.
Will the US stave off depression? Will Biden unite Democrats?
Ben White, Chief Economic Correspondent for Politico, provides his perspective on the news in US politics: Is the US doing enough to fight off a prolonged recession or depression?
I'd say the Fed, the central bank is doing enough with its giant programs that it has rolled out over the last couple of weeks. Congress did a good job with the first $2 trillion package. Needs to do more in help for small businesses, States and localities, and hospitals. So, no partisan fighting, more passing of bills.
What does Joe Biden need to do to unite the Democratic party now that Bernie Sanders is out?
I don't think he has to do a ton, there's a lot of unity to beat Donald Trump. And a lot of the hard core, Bernie Dems are in blue states like New York and California. That said, it would be good if he reached out to them on health care and the environment in ways that don't alienate moderate suburban swing voters.
Is the new OPEC oil deal to cut production a big win for Trump and the US economy?
Well, it's something of a win, although 10 million barrels cut does not match the drop in demand. Oil prices stop their tanking, but they're certainly not rising. So, I'd say a moderate win for Trump, a moderate win for the US economy, but not a blockbuster
Someone old for president!
Our puppet 2020 contenders find common ground on the key attribute the next U.S. president should have. Here's a hint: It involves moth balls and hard candies.
Is Trump the Favorite in 2020?
Some say Donald Trump is a clear favorite for re-election next year, while others insist that unless the Democrats nominate Leon Trotsky to take him on, he'll probably lose. A new CNN poll released this week found that 54% of respondents say Trump will win a second term.
There's persuasive evidence on both sides of this debate. Consider…
Trump will win, because…
- …incumbency is a big advantage in US presidential elections. Only twice in the past 87 years (1980 and 1992) has a president lost his bid for re-election. (Note: you can't count Gerald Ford in 1976. He was never elected president in the first place.)
- …the US economy is riding high. No president seeking re-election in the past 100 years has lost unless the US economy was in recession two years before the vote.
- …the data is on his side. Combine the incumbency advantage with a strong economy, and you can see why a number of respected mathematical models are predicting a Trump victory.
Trump will lose because…
- …with a president as broadly unpopular as he is, the normal rules don't apply. He's the first president in the era of modern polling who has never enjoyed an aggregate approval rating of at least 50%.
- ...he's the least popular president of the past 38 years. On Day 867 of his presidency (Wednesday), Trump's aggregate approval rating was 41.9%. Compare that with 72.8% for George HW Bush, 62.2% for George W. Bush, 49.3% for Bill Clinton, 48.2% for Barack Obama, and 45.4% for Ronald Reagan.
- …he's unpopular where it matters. It's the "swing states," not the national vote, that decide who wins the White House. In new polls released this week, Trump's net approval ratings (approval minus disapproval) were 0 in Florida, -4 in North Carolina, -4 in Ohio, -6 in Arizona, -7 in Pennsylvania, -12 in Iowa, -12 in Michigan, and -13 in Wisconsin. In 2016, Trump won all those states.
- His base isn't big enough by itself to lift him to victory, while swing voters are losing faith in him. In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats won nationally by a 7-point margin – and a recent study suggests that nearly 90 percent of the national margin of victory for Democrats in those midterms came from voters who chose Trump in 2016 and then switched to Democrats two years later.
What neither side knows…
The election is still 17 months away, an eternity in today's politics. We don't know who the Democrats will nominate to run against him (Trotsky isn't available) or how independent and third-party candidates might impact the race, particularly in important individual states. We don't know what the US economy will look like—though there are early signs of pessimism--or whether an international crisis might change the US political temperature.
Buckle up: This will be a presidential race unlike any other. And the first debate among the (very many) Democratic candidates is just three weeks away.
US Politics in 60 Seconds: 2020 Field Heats Up
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's independent campaign in 2020 would only help reelect one person: President Trump
It's your US Politics in 60 Seconds with Ben White!
And go deeper on topics like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence at Microsoft on The Issues.