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In global elections, incumbents are in trouble
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. Lots going on especially big elections. We have the France results. We have the UK results. We have the Iran results. We have a lot of uncertainty of course, here in the United States. My big takeaway is this is a horrible time to be an incumbent.
It's really challenging and what a huge reason for it that people aren't talking about, because it's already way in the rearview mirror is the pandemic. If I'm talking to you right now, your life was really changed by the pandemic in ways that you never would have expected before, right? I mean, we all had to deal with social distancing and masking and vaccine and not only that, but of course, the global economy seized up and people also stopped moving around for like a couple of years. An enormous amount, trillions and trillions of dollars were spent and that got us through an incredibly difficult time. But on the back of that, you suddenly have no more money that's being thrown at everyone, and you've got inflation that comes from, all of a sudden, the supply chains moving and demand moving. You know that these are costs that people are paying, that people no longer have those checks that were coming in during the pandemic, and those savings have been deployed already if you're working or even middle class. And people are moving again, people are moving not just from city to city, but also around the world. So migration is really picking up. And you really don't want to be the leader who's holding the bag when that happens. That's absolutely a big piece of what happened in France. It's a big piece of what happened in the United Kingdom, South Africa, India.
Lots of these elections are people that are unhappy with their existing leadership because it is such an unprecedented environment, and they're having a hard time dealing with that. There are other issues, too, don't get me wrong. And certainly in the UK, the fact that this also comes on the back of Brexit and a level of perceived incompetence on the part of successive conservative prime ministers who were not elected by the population but were selected by the party. The Labor Party did just as well in 2024 as they did in 2019. I think they picked from 33% to 34% total population. It was hardly a landslide, but the Conservative Party imploded because people were unhappy with them. And that is very much the story. It's that the existing incumbents are not doing well.
Macron is not doing well. He's lost so many seats in France and the far right has doubled their number in the parliament and the far left and the left coalition that is not Macron's centrist have also done far better, far better than anyone expected.In fact, they came in number one. Percentage wise, it's Macron in the center that is falling apart in France. That's the big lesson. It's not that the far right is doing well or badly. Some of the far left is doing well or badly. It’s that the incumbent, whoever they are, are really getting hit. Now that leads to a big question here in the United States.
November is coming up. Our elections are way too long. They're way too expensive. But, you know, four months, it's now starting to really be silly season in the United States. And, even if Biden was an incredibly robust and reasonably popular candidate, he would have a hard time in this environment. And of course, that's not the case. He's by far the oldest person that's run for the position in the United States. And he's showing that age, he is showing it more and more every day. I worry about that, of course, for him and for all of those that support him, certainly doesn't seem as if he's about to step down. But of course, that's what he has to say if he's intending to continue to fight until the moment that he changes.
On the other hand, Trump is also historically unpopular in the United States. If this was another candidate on the Republican side, this would be an easy call. This would be a Republican landslide. And Biden or anyone that the Democrats would put up would have a really hard time. And that's because, you know, immigration issues, inflation issues, anti-incumbency very strong in this environment. But because Trump himself is so extraordinarily unpopular and polarizing, it's actually still pretty close. And most of the polls show that that we're talking about a small number of swing states and a very small number of voters. And if you're Biden, you can convince yourself in that environment, “hey, I'm the guy that's going to be, you know, as useful as anybody else. It's too dangerous this late in the race to bring in another candidate.” I would agree with that. I would, if I really believe that what we saw at the debate was a one-off event and not a condition as former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said. I don't believe that, certainly don't believe that on the bases of conversations that I've had with the CEOs, the heads of state, the heads of the multilaterals, the senators, the members of the House that have been engaged with Biden regularly and routinely.
Now, that's different from what the people inside the Biden staff are saying. They are on message. They are very loyal, and they are all saying Biden can do it. If you've seen the schedule, he's so robust, he's so active, he's with it. But anyone outside that who is not like being paid to be completely on message is saying Biden has a serious problem. And in that regard, the likelihood that this doesn't go away, that his principal vulnerability gets worse, I think is very high. So if I were in a room advising him personally and he was willing to listen to me, I would tell him to step down. Having said that, I would have said it a year ago. But, you know, it is what it is.
We'll see what happens this week at the NATO summit with all of these world leaders coming in that are very concerned about what's happening in the United States and going forward, we've got the Republican convention real soon. We’ve got the Democratic convention, and everyone is going to be laser-focused on what's happening in the United States.
So much for that. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ian Bremmer’s 2024 elections halftime report
2024 is fast becoming the most intense year of democracy the world has ever seen. Some 4 billion people, nearly half the global population, are casting ballots in at least 70 countries. With so many people voting around the world, 2024 has been dubbed “The Year of Elections.” And we’re now about halfway through, so how are things going?
Ian Bremmer is here to unpack the wins, losses, and big surprises in elections in Mexico, India, South Africa, and Taiwan. Do large mandates from voters mean big political changes on the horizon? Can shaky coalitions work together without crumbling into chaos? And, of course, the final showdown of 2024 will take place in the United States this November, an election that will have far-reaching consequences not only for the United States … but for democracy itself.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
How political unrest across the West will impact the world: A conversation with UN's Mark Carney
Listen: On this episode of the GZERO World Podcast, major Western democracies like France, the UK, Canada, and the US are on the verge of sweeping political change, but how will upcoming elections impact our collective ability to deal with the world’s biggest challenges like climate, AI, and cyber defense? Mark Carney, former Governor of the Banks of England and Canada and current UN Special Envoy on Climate Action & Finance, joins Ian Bremmer to take a hard look at three of America’s closest allies: France, Britain, and Canada.
Upcoming elections in France and the UK could mean big changes for the West, similar to the aftermath of Brexit. Carney says there are still many aspects of the UK-EU relationship that need to be recalibrated. He also stresses the strategic importance of the US-Canada relationship and Canada’s role as a reliable partner in everything from national security to critical minerals to fighting climate change.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders votes during an EU election in The Hague, Netherlands June 6, 2024.
Europe votes with the far-right on the rise
The Netherlands and Estonia kicked off the European Parliament elections on Thursday, with the rest of the bloc’s 27 member states set to vote on the composition of its ruling body by Sunday.
While each country will have local issues weighing heavily on voters, a few patterns of concern are crossing borders: immigration, the war in Ukraine, and climate policy, particularly where it intersects with energy costs. On balance, the far-right parties like Alternative for Germany, France’s National Rally, and Brothers of Italy look set to grow their seats, but barring a major upset, the ruling center-right coalition under Ursula von der Leyen is expected to stay in control.
That’s thanks, in part, to the far-right’s struggles to get on the same strategic page. The RN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, chose to distance herself from the AfD after a high official said not all Nazi SS members were criminals. That’s the kind of ideology-driven own goal that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is concurrently serving as president of the European Conservatives and Reformists coalition in Brussels, would sooner avoid.
Italy’s first female PM has leaned hard into apragmatic approach, firmly backing Ukraine and advocating for the right wing to get behind climate policy while pressing for Brussels to do more to control immigration across the Mediterranean, much of which falls on Italy. That tack has made it easier for centrists to work with Meloni, and she stands a good chance of being von der Leyen’s first call after results come in. If Meloni plays her cards right — she’s played a weaker hand almost flawlessly so far — she can stay in the inner loop of decision-making in Europe. And, of course, if the centrists can’t keep her happy, she can join back up with the Le Pens of this world to make them regret it.
Generative influence: Using AI to sow chaos online
On May 30, OpenAI announced that it had disrupted five foreign influence campaigns using its software to spread misinformation and sow chaos on the internet. The tech startup, which has become the industry leader in generative AI on the back of its ChatGPT chatbot and GPT-4 large language model, said that over the previous three months it detected covert campaigns from groups in China, Iran, Israel, and Russia.
Most of these campaigns were very simple, using generative AI tools to generate social media posts and comments and translate them into various languages so the actors could post them on social media websites such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) and blogging platforms such as Blogspot and Medium. OpenAI’s tools were also used to translate news articles, clean up grammar, and remove errors from computer code.
Some of these operations were already well-known, including the Chinese group Spamaflouge, which is widely considered a government operation, and the pro-Russia group Doppelganger, whose members were recently sanctioned by the US government for spreading disinformation. There’s also the Iranian group, the International Union of Virtual Media, which translated anti-US and anti-Israel articles and posted them on its own website. And OpenAI disrupted the activity of an Israeli company, called STOIC, that was found to be generating pro-Israel articles and social media comments about the conflict in Gaza. STOIC also tried to influence the elections in India, posting comments critical of Narendra Modi’s BJP and praising the opposition party, the Indian National Congress.
OpenAI also said it discovered a new Russian group, which it’s calling Bad Grammar for its sloppy writing. The group used OpenAI’s tools to debug code for a Telegram bot where it posted political comments in Russian and English about the war in Ukraine and Western involvement in the conflict.
Social media companies constantly comb their platforms for signs of abuse from influence operations, especially after the 2016 election. Allegations abounded of Russia’s Internet Research Agency and other groups spreading fake news and conspiracy theories on Facebook and other platforms to sow confusion and discord in the US.
Now, social media companies are monitoring how AI is being used to spread disinformation: On May 29, Meta said that in its quarterly threat report that it removed six influence campaigns from its platforms, including an anti-Sikh network based in China that used AI to generate images about floods in Punjab and the assassination of a political leader in Canada.
Still, OpenAI’s report is the first major move by an AI company — not a social media platform — to police how its tools are being used for this purpose. It’s a sign that the leading generative AI company wants to be seen as a responsible actor, or at least mitigate the harm that its platform enables on a global scale.
For governments looking to disrupt elections, influence people’s political views, or cause chaos, it makes sense to turn to generative AI. “If you’re a government that already runs online influence operations and spreads disinformation through websites, social media accounts, and other networks, of course you’re going to use GenAI to … do so faster and cheaper,” said Justin Sherman, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Sherman noted that it’s impossible for any tech developer to fully eliminate the risk their technology poses and it’s a good thing that OpenAI is cracking down on this issue. “But it’s simultaneously amusing for OpenAI and its CEO to hand-wave about how worried they are about the misuse of GenAI for elections when they continue to rapidly, without much pause, design, develop, and deploy the very AI technologies that facilitate the harm,” he said.
And while the influence operations OpenAI discovered were simplistic and, frankly, ineffective, that doesn’t mean future ones will be — especially in a year full of so many global elections.
“There’s widespread concern among policymakers and the public that AI tools can be misused to wreak havoc come election time,” said Josh A. Goldstein, a research fellow on the CyberAI Project at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “We should not over-index on OpenAI’s most recent report — we don’t know how other bad actors will misuse AI tools, or what operations have yet to be discovered, for example. It’s important that different pieces of the election security community remain vigilant.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech calling for a general election outside No. 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, on May 22, 2024.
Sunak fires the starting gun
For embattled leaders with the power to call elections, it’s all about the timing. In Sunak’s case, though his Conservative Party has trailed badly for months, some factors suggest things might only get worse in the fall. More migrant arrivals by boat over the summer will add to his political headaches, particularly if the government’s plan to fly some to Rwanda runs into more legal challenges and delays.
He does have some positive economic news to work with.Newly released data from the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday indicated that UK inflation fell to just 2.3% in April, allowing Sunak to say he kept his promise to cut inflation in half during his tenure.
Will Sunak’s earlier-than-expected election date help Tories stage a stunning comeback? Not likely, says Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman. Instead, he forecasts, “Labour will capitalize on the public’s desire for change after 14 years of Tory rule and will win a comfortable majority.”
Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White party, speaks during an election campaign rally in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Israel, February 25, 2020.
Is Israel’s government about to fall apart?
National Unity Chair Benny Gantz, a key figure in Israel’s war cabinet and major rival for the premiership, has threatened to resign if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not deliver a post-war plan for the conflict in Gaza by June 8.
Gantz has offered his own six-point plan, which calls for securing the return of hostages, ending Hamas’ rule, demilitarizing Gaza, and establishing an international administration of the region. The ultimatum has exposed a rift within Israel’s three-man war cabinet, composed of Gantz,Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who also opposes Israel reoccupying Gaza after the war ends.
“If you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss, we will be forced to quit the government,” Gantz told Netanyahu, who responded that Gantz’s “washed-up words” would mean “defeat for Israel.” Netanyahu is facing mounting pressure to end the conflict, with the latest protest in Tel Aviv coming just hours after Gantz’s ultimatum. Police used water cannons to disperse crowds that were demanding an end to the conflict and new elections.
What would an election bring?
A poll published this weekend by Israel’s Channel 12 puts Netanyahu’s job approval rating at 32%, and 35% among right-of-center Likud voters. Gantz garners a 35% overall job approval rating, and 42% among center-left voters. Another survey published by Maariv has Gantz leading Netanyahu for prime minister, 45% to 38%.
In the meantime, Netanyahu is unlikely to bend, and the Rafah offensive is likely to intensify. He also will be even more beholden to the far-right elements in his coalition to fend off potential challenges from Gallant and Gantz.
Campus protests spill over into US political sphere
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
This is what we are watching in US Politics this week: It's still the campus protests for the second week in a row.
This has been a pretty dominant story in US Politics, despite everything going on in the world. Antony Blinken trying to get peace in the Middle East. Donald Trump on trial. These campus protests have dominated headlines and are starting to spill over into the political sphere.
You've seen a number of Republican governors like in Georgia over the weekend, gleefully moving the police in, in order to crack down on a protest at Emory University. The University of North Carolina system has come out strongly against campus protests, and conservatives are rallying to support a bunch of frat boys that decided to defend the American flag against some protesters who wanted to put up a different flag.
Ben Sasse, former senator from Nebraska, is now the president of the University of Florida system, getting kudos online for his strong response. And you're getting protests that are turning increasingly violent at UCLA, at Columbia where a bunch of students occupied administrative building, leading Mayor Eric Adams to send in the police. President Biden this week gave an address to the nation on the student protests, asking for everybody to please calm down, clearly trying to align themselves with who are basically the normies of American politics who don't like this kind of campus protests and violence.
And Donald Trump getting in the game, trying to take advantage of the protests by claiming these are all left wing agitators who are aligned with the Democratic Party. This theme is going to continue throughout the campaign if the protests are sustained, which is, of course, a big question marks with campuses going home for their summer vacation in the next few weeks. So likely the story dies down but will come back to life later in the summer with any protests planned around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
And of course, any protests that are launched on campuses when they come back in the fall, much closer to the election date. One thing this could be a preview of is organized activism against Donald Trump. Should he win the White House and immediately take actions to crack down on immigration in the United States, or any other hot bit social issue. You now have an organized protest movement that could carry itself into 2025, in the event of a Trump win.
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