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What Trump’s cabinet picks reveal so far
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
This is what we're watching in US politics this week: It's Trump's transition, of course. Lots of activity happening over the course of the week with some unexpected developments, including a lot of very unusual cabinet appointees. Sean Duffy at Department of Transportation, former "Real World" star and congressman, who has very little experience with transportation other than presumably driving a car, and of course, competing on the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" is going to be in charge of the transportation department.
Other picks like Pete Hegseth have been a little more controversial. The former Army National Guard member and Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault. Not a great look for the incoming Secretary of Defense. But he's nowhere near as controversial as the recently withdrawn pick, Matt Gaetz, the firebrand Congressman from Florida who resigned his seat in order to become Trump's attorney general, and then found out that no Republican wanted him in that job.
Gaetz's withdrawal will allow some of the more controversial attention to be focused on people like RFK Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, somebody with a long career in the nonprofit management space, but no experience in public administration and who's been extremely critical of the US's Public Health Administration, including on toxins in foods, additives in foods, vaccines, and the approval process for them. And he's tapped into a strain of anger among Republicans at the public health apparatus that they say failed to protect the public during the COVID-19 epidemic, pointing to inconsistent and sometimes unnecessary masking guidelines. Things like social distancing, keeping the schools closed, and of course the vaccine recommendations that a lot of Republicans rejected during that pandemic. RFK's confirmation odds, however, look pretty good if you look at the relatively warm reception that he's been received with by most Republicans.
One area that's still totally in doubt for the most part is Trump's economic team. It's been two weeks since the election, there's no treasury of the secretary, there's no USTR. There is a commerce secretary pick, another Trump ally who has no experience in public administration, Howard Lutnick, a lot like Wilbur Ross in the first administration, but potentially leaving Trump's trade czar, Robert Lighthizer, without any clear role. So there's a lot more clarity on the national security side than there is on the economic side for now. That may change over the weekend. And of course, the one thing with President Trump is you could always expect the unexpected.
Global leaders scramble to align with Trump
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. A lot more information about where the Trump administration is going in terms of the appointees that they're making and also, the responses that we see from leaders around the world. Maybe focus a little on the global, because if you think that Republicans who privately don't really like Trump are publicly all lining up and saying, "This is God's gift," you've seen nothing compared to what you're going to see from allies of the United States all over the world who know that they get crosswise with the president-elect at their own peril. He is a lot more powerful, and his country is a lot more powerful than their own. We've already seen that with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel saying that an upcoming Lebanon ceasefire would be a gift to the president-elect. We've seen Zelenskyy in Ukraine saying, "Great meetings, great phone calls."
Of course, the war is going to be over faster with the policies of the incoming president-elect. We're seeing all sorts of outreach from individual European leaders, Asian leaders saying, "We can't wait to find a way to work with this guy. Congratulations. Please don't tariff us. Please don't cause any problems for our country." So, I do think we're going to see a lot of wins in the near term from countries all around the world because the alternative is problematic. And when you look at the G7, the G20, NATO, it is different from last time around in a few ways. First of all, that you now have a number of countries that are ideologically aligned with Trump, and there's going to be more in the near term. I mean, Giorgia Meloni, who is the most popular of G7 leaders, assertively, is someone who sees herself much closer to Trump's worldview in terms of immigration policy, social policy, even to a degree economic policy. And that is going to make him feel much more comfortable when he's sitting at those summits. That wasn't the case first G7 Summit he attended last time around.
Canada, still Justin Trudeau, but won't be for long and soon Canada's going to be Pierre Poilievre who runs the Conservative Party and is absolutely much more aligned with Trump and be a very close friend of the US President-elect when he becomes Prime Minister of Canada. Of course, you've got the Gulf states on board with Trump. You've got the Israelis much more aligned with him than otherwise. The South Korean leader, President Yoon, a conservative, taking up golf again so that he'll be able to play with Trump effectively and wants to be the new Shinzo Abe from Asia in terms of being able to maintain stable relations. That's one reason. The second reason is that there's a lot more at stake. The world is much more dangerous. Getting Trump wrong is a lot more costly when you've got a major war going on in Europe, a major war going on in the Middle East, when the US-China relations are in a worse place, but China's under much more economic pressure at home than they were before. So getting it wrong is trouble.
And so already seeing outreach from the Chinese to the United States saying, "Look, here are some things that might be the beginnings of a deal. We could buy more US treasuries. We could maybe organize a Ukraine conference. We could buy a bunch more American goods. What do we need to do? What do we need to do?" So I'm not saying it's going to go well, but clearly there is more such orientation. And then you have the fact that Trump is more powerful at home in the United States. He has the House, he has the Senate, and he's creating far more loyalists around him as opposed to adults that are more independent in his own cabinet. Which means that if you are a foreign leader, your ability to work around Trump with other parts of the US political firmament is very constrained. And all of that implies that whatever it is that Trump decides he wants to do going forward is going to be what other leaders are going to have to engage with and align with.
There are big problems from a Trump administration coming in. He's not interested in multilateralism. He doesn't want a strong European Union. He's prepared to end the Russia-Ukraine war, even at terms that are problematic for the Ukrainians. Has very little interest in promoting rule of law or democracy internationally. In fact, one of the most interesting things about Trump and the United States for right now is that for almost half a century, the US has been trying to get the Chinese to orient more towards an American worldview. This is what the idea of responsible stakeholdership was, that China was meant to play more of a leadership role in US-led multilateral institutions, promote US-led rule of law and values on the global stage, and become more aligned with the Americans and its allies over time as it got wealthier. Turns out China hasn't done that, but America has. The United States is becoming more like China on the global stage, much more transactional in their foreign policy, indifferent to the values of other countries or the political systems and economic system of other countries on the global stage.
Certainly not interested in the global promotion of democracy or even rule of law, and rather bilateral relations between the US and other countries where the US is more powerful to get the outcomes that they want. Exactly the way that Chinese engage globally. It has been successful for China in many places because they're more powerful than most of the other countries they deal with except the Americans. They've had challenges in Southeast Asia, for example, because the US has led a more multilateral approach on things like the South China Sea. Doubt you're going to see as much of that under Trump. So a very dramatic change in how we think about the world, and we'll be watching very closely as Trump continues to fill out his cabinet and starts talking much more with global leaders on the global stage.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Trump's plans for policy & personnel
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Everyone, of course, talking about the incoming Trump administration. What it's going to mean in terms of personnel and in terms of policy. The latter, more important, but informed very significantly by the former. Couple of things I would say.
First of all, on the personnel side, clearly most important point here and very different from the first administration is that loyalty matters immensely. Trump is angriest not at Democrats, angriest at people that used to work for him who have now flipped, who are calling him a fascist. Some of the worst things that have been said about Trump in the first administration came from senior people that he put in that weren't loyal. They may have been long-term establishment Republicans and adults, but now he couldn't be bothered with them in the slightest and wants them to know it.
And that's why nobody really expected, that was talking to the Trump team, that Pompeo or Haley were going to be appointed. But the fact that Trump came out immediately before even making other appointments to a cabinet and saying, "No, you two, thanks, but no thanks. You can go get on with the rest of your lives." Because he sees them as not loyal. Nikki said all sorts of horrible things about Trump, and Pompeo was feeling around with other candidates and didn't endorse until way too late. And Trump was angry about that at the time, and he holds that grudge.
So you're going to see a team that I think is much more consolidated around Trump. And that doesn't mean there won't be different constellations, groups of people that are more aligned with each other, but when Trump has something he wants done, everyone's going to run alongside him.
And I think that's true for JD Vance too. The idea that there's going to be a shadow cabinet that is run by Vance, and he's the Project 2025 guy. No, if that happens, Trump will be angry. If there's any large meeting internally, Trump wants to be the star. And he expects Vance to do his bidding and to be effective at it and to run other things that he doesn't care as much about. And that is, I think, the role that Vance will play.
Is it going to be more populist on some issues? Sure, but not necessarily on as many as you'd think. Why? Because there are going to be a lot of billionaires who are interested in their business interests, their investment interests around the Trump team. There will be CEOs. There'll be a lot of people that aren't globalists in name; they've been thoroughly repudiated, but globalists in more policy than you would think.
Now here, China policy is extremely interesting because on the one hand, Trump really wants to see higher tariffs on China and has talked about that. Robert Lighthizer, who was US trade rep for Trump last time around, very professional, very capable in that role, clearly playing a very significant role in running trade and maybe other things economically for Trump this time around. He is pushing for more jobs in the United States, more investment in the United States, decoupling from China. Very comfortable with a new Cold War between the US and China.
You know who isn't? Elon Musk. Has massive investments on the ground in China, wants a more comfortable relationship there, and has basically told the Chinese that he's very interested in helping to be an interlocutor. Kissinger is dead. And the one person who's out there that could be a conduit of information and potentially better relations between the two most powerful countries in the world is Elon. Will he be effective? A technology policy is kind of interesting because Trump first time around didn't do technology policy. Remember the CHIPS Act? That was Biden. Semiconductors, export controls, that was Biden. Wasn't something Trump was focused on. He was focused on trade, on the trade deficit, on tariffs, on those issues, intellectual property theft, those issues. Not as focused on technology. Elon will be, and he's going to want people he wants to be appointed in relevant positions in the Trump administration. So if that happens, maybe it's true that US-China relations become more functional than they otherwise might've been. But this is an untested proposition, something very interesting to watch.
A couple other places that are really important, Russia-Ukraine. Did Trump, did Trump not have a conversation already with Putin? Kremlin's saying no, that means absolutely nothing. But clearly he is very interested in pushing Zelensky, who is on the back foot militarily right now, to end this war. And the likelihood of a near-term ceasefire has gone way up because of Trump. Orbán of course, already been saying that from Hungary. Robert Fico from Slovakia wasn't saying that before Trump was elected. Now he is. Are we going to see that from Giorgia Meloni in Italy, for example, who's ideologically disposed to Trump, but has been much more anti-Russia in her policies? Watch that very, very carefully. Other countries that aren't on the front lines.
So it's going to be a lot of pressure on the Ukrainians, an opportunity for Putin, if he wants it, though he's doing well militarily, so he's going to probably drive a harder bargain on even a short-term ceasefire than he might have three months ago, six months ago. And he knows Trump wants to get this done. And then we need to see what the Europeans do. Do they hang together under a relatively strong and aligned European Union leadership, or do we start to see a real split among a whole bunch of European individual government leaders that are a lot weaker? Super interesting.
And then of course, you have the Middle East. And on the Middle East policies are even stronger than Biden's pro-Israel policies. And you've seen a lot of support for going after Iran. Might the Israelis now do that? Oil prices are low. China's not demanding much energy. Hitting the Iranians nuclear and energy capabilities wouldn't bring oil as high as they would've been 6 months ago, 12 months ago. Depends on what the Iranians do in response, how disruptive they want to be. But right now they're reaching out to everyone. The Europeans, the Iranians are reaching out to the Saudis. They just did some low level military exercises with the Saudis. This is a country that is basically saying, "We don't want a big fight. We know that we're going to lose if we have one." Easy time for Trump to press in the Middle East. Last time he was president, first place he went was Saudi Arabia, then Israel. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he does that again. Though he probably flips it this time around in terms of the order.
Okay, so much to talk about, so much to watch. I hope you find this interesting. We'll be on top of it and we'll talk to you all real soon.
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Ian Bremmer on Trump’s win
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your post-election morning. And Trump is back as president. Should not be a shock to people. Certainly, was not to us. Anyone looking at elections around the world this year has seen incumbents underperform. We saw that in the United Kingdom. We saw it across Europe in the EU parliamentary elections. As well as in Germany, in France, everywhere, Austria, you name it, Portugal, in Japan in the last couple of weeks, in India, in South Africa. Soon in Canada, as Trudeau will be forced out and very likely Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre will be the next Canadian prime minister.
So, this was an election that Harris had a significantly uphill battle. That's not usually the case with incumbents, but it is in this cycle. Why? Inflation. And yes, inflation numbers were coming down, but from a high baseline. And anyone in power is seen as responsible for that. You're vice president, you don't get to say it was somebody else. I think the numbers coming down are still from a high baseline. Those prices aren't coming down. You're still paying them. Immigration, and more recently, immigration numbers also illegally coming down, but from a high level. And the illegal immigrants in the United States are still here. And a lot of those that were in red states have also moved or were moved to blue states. And that certainly had an impact. I saw that Trump did better in New York City, my own city, than he had ever before by a large margin. He didn't win, but he got a lot. He was over 30%.
And why is that? Well, because a lot of New Yorkers aren't happy about those things, not so different from the rest of the country. And so, inflation, immigration and disinformation. Disinformation because the country is not having a single conversation about policy. It's having two very different political conversations and you are in your bubble. So, there were very, very few votes that were actually up for grabs. It was more a question of who you could get out, who you could turn out. If there's a surprise, it's that women did not turn out in droves despite the abortion issue, despite the fact that there was a woman on the ticket. And despite the fact that Trump has lots of challenges appealing to women historically. But women overall, white women turned out in favor of Trump.
He also outperformed overall with African-Americans and with Hispanics. And again, this is something that looked pretty clear in earlier polls, but the polls could easily be wrong. And the biggest poll that was wrong, of course, was that Iowa outlier, which wasn't just wrong, it was spectacularly wrong. And I don't know what they got wrong with the methodology, but there you have it. So, that is the point, Trump will be coming back. As of right now, as of I'm taping this, Kamala Harris has not yet conceded, but I have literally no doubt in my mind that she will. That is essential. It's important for the country that everyone agrees on who actually won the election.
There wasn't a lot of uncertainty around the balloting process itself. I've said that before. The US has a gold standard in terms of the way it conducts its elections. That is the case here. There was a lot more effort at disinformation, most notably all of these bomb threats that were called in, particularly in Georgia, in lower income and black polling neighborhoods, that would've hit the Dems but didn't have an impact overall on the election. We'll see whether or not that was Russia that was behind it. I don't think we have any definitive information there. But again, the level of disinformation externally from Russian, from Chinese, from Iranian sources, a nuisance and irritation.
But the problems of the US political system are overwhelmingly domestic problems of the US political system. And that will continue to be the case going forward. Internationally, of course, this is a really big deal because a Trump administration is going to look very different to other countries around the world than a Harris administration would have. I think the biggest question mark out there is for the Europeans. Trump has consistently said that he's going to end this war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. Wouldn't even need to wait until he was president. So, hey, in the next few weeks, it could happen.
Zelensky, Ukrainian President immediately putting out a congratulations to Trump. What a great meeting bilaterally they just had when Zelensky was in the United States, all of that. He has no choice. It's political reality. It's what he needs to do. But when Trump says he wants to end the war, what he means, of course, is that the Ukrainians don't get to keep fighting. The Russians don't get to keep fighting. It means that where the territory lines are right now, that's where they're going to get frozen. And furthermore, that the Trump administration is not going to coordinate with the Europeans. They're going to unilaterally reach out to Zelensky and Putin, and try to dictate those terms.
Might well succeed. It is possible. Zelensky will be under massively greater pressure. But how the Europeans will play that, both with Ukraine themselves as well as inside NATO, inside the European Union. A very big question, a very big problem. Especially as the Europeans who are economically not performing well will also be facing higher tariffs from a Trump administration. Will they align with the United States as they have in the last couple of years? Will they support the United States on China or will they hedge? That's a huge question mark.
The Middle East, there's a war going on right now. Netanyahu just got rid of his Defense Minister. Fired him. He is riding high right now, riding high in terms of internal popularity compared to months ago, in terms of how his war efforts are going in killing the leadership of Hamas, both political and military, as well as major gains with Hezbollah. Netanyahu has a lot of support from Trump. They don't love each other, but they are aligned with each other. And Trump has said he would go harder against Israel's adversaries. He criticized Biden for not giving enough support to the Israelis. Will that embolden Netanyahu to try to take on Iranian nuclear facilities? That's a very interesting question we should watch carefully over the coming weeks.
And then, of course, China, which has an economy that is really underperforming. They're going to feel very defensive right now, reaching out to both people like Robert Lighthizer, who has been pushing hard for more tariffs on all Chinese exports to the US, as well as through third countries. And also reaching out to Elon Musk who's traveled to China, who has a lot of business in China, who's clearly very close to Trump, and who the Chinese will hope is someone they can facilitate an easier, softer relationship with. Will Trump support that? What will that mean for the GOP and Congress, given that you're likely to see a GOP wave across both Senate, clearly they've taken, as well as likely the House at this point. That's also an interesting question. The biggest challenge here is that the backdrop for the Trump administration incoming is a far, far more dangerous world.
Two major wars going on. US, China relations in a more challenging place, though better than they were a year ago. Lots and lots of seriously moving and dangerous pieces geopolitically. And so, in that regard, definitely you would expect that Trump is going to get some wins because he will be the president of the most powerful country in the world. And therefore what he says, countries will listen to more than they would other people when they disagree. But the potential for things to go wrong, if that happens, they'll go much more badly wrong than they did or would have in his first administration.
So, that's where we are. And there's a lot to talk about. Certainly, everything geopolitical is going to be much more uncertain and volatile in the coming months. And I expect to be focused on it closely and chatting with you about it as we go through. That's it for me, and I hope everyone's doing well. Breathe. Very important for people to breathe and I'll talk to you real soon.
US election: GOP could win a Trump-led sweep
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
It's election night in America. And a slightly unexpected result tonight, with the election returns coming back very strong for President Donald Trump. He may actually end up winning the national popular vote, which was not, I think, on anyone's bingo card, really.
Big surprise for Trump has been a surge in rural support where the Trump coalition showed up to vote for him. Meanwhile, Harris has somewhat underperformed in urban areas, and while she did have a pretty good showing with women voters, it wasn't enough to keep her ahead of Trump, at least in the results as we know them tonight.
Harris has been underperforming down-ballot Democrats generally, which has kept the Democrats competitive in the House, which could lead to an unusual situation where all three of the main political bodies in the United States, the White House, the House, and the Senate, flip in the same election. The Senate is in the bag for Republicans. They're going to have somewhere between 52 and 55 seats, it looks like. And Trump is probably the favorite to win in the Electoral College.
The House outcome we may not know in the next 24 hours. Some of the House seats that really matter in determining the majority, which is very close, are slow to count. But right now, it does look like Democrats have some momentum with a couple of Republicans losing key seats.
So stay tuned for more of what we're watching this week in US politics.
2024 US election: What to look out for
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
This is what we're watching this week in US politics. It is, at long last, election week. The US has one of the longest most exhausting presidential election cycles in the world. That basically begins two years before general Election Day. And Tuesday of this week, it all comes to a conclusion. It's unlikely that we will know the results of the election on Tuesday night, although if Harris is significantly ahead in the early counting states, like North Carolina, that's going to be a strong signal that she's probably winning the overall electoral college. Seven key swing states to watch. Trump looks like he has the advantage in Arizona and Nevada. And the election, like it did in 2016, could potentially come down to the three so-called Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. On election night, Wisconsin and Michigan are likely to be known, but possibly not till late in the night. They were called for Biden late in the night on 2020.
Pennsylvania is the real outlier when it comes to counting votes, and this is because Pennsylvania does not count its early ballots until the day of the election, which means that the people who vote in person in Pennsylvania, who tend to be Republicans, we'll know where they are when the polls close in the evening, East Coast time, on Tuesday night. But then overnight, you expect to see what's been called the 'blue shift,' which is as those early and absentee ballots get counted, which are primarily democratic, you will see Harris's vote share start to climb. So if the outcome of the race is not known because the outcome in North Carolina is ambiguous or Trump is leading, and there's no clear winner in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that night, or it looks like a close race, officially calling this race could drag on until much later in the week, just exactly what happened in 2020. Now, President Trump tried to exploit that gap in 2020 by saying he clearly had won in Pennsylvania, and all these late-breaking votes were all just fraudulent, which isn't true, but that's what he claimed. And that could happen again this cycle.
The only situation in which we would get a genuinely ambiguous outcome, where we wouldn't know the outcome for weeks at a time, is if, one, there's evidence of widespread massive election fraud, which has not been the case at any time in recent US history and is a very low probability event. Or if it's such a close race in one of the key swing states, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Georgia, where we don't actually know the winner because the margins are within several hundred votes. There is precedent for state-wide elections being overturned in recent US history, but typically, those elections come down to about 500 votes. There's been 31 recounts from the year 2000 before the 2020 presidential election, three were overturned because the margin was so incredibly close. And so, this is a very, very rare event, and it's unlikely to play out in this election cycle, but it could. You never know.
The polls are suggesting this is a very close race. So stay tuned for more watching this election week, and hope you find a nice, comfortable place to watch the election results because it could take a long time to count these ballots.
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Ian Bremmer on the 2024 US election ahead
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your US election week. I'd say happy Election Day, but it seems more a matter of stress and anxiety for most Americans I know. And frankly for most non-Americans I know that are watching it. And in many ways this is really not the election that we want to be having. Not because there's a problem with the electoral process itself, though you wouldn't know that from watching people online. There have been a lot of studies and audits on non-citizens voting, for example, which has gotten a huge amount of attention in Congress recently and on Twitter recently. And virtually no non-citizens are ever on rolls or vote. There was recently a Georgia audit, did a full audit of 8 million people registered and 20 of them, 20, were non-citizens.
You've never had an election remotely swing ... Of illegal voters going to the polls. There are no cyber issues because you're not allowed to vote online. That would be one of the most vulnerable parts of a US election if that wasn't the case. You can track your mail, your vote if you are voting by mail, as I did for example. In almost every state, just in a few non-swing states is it not possible to track exactly the state of your vote. I mean, in many, many ways, this is the kind of an election that you want to have, but people don't believe in it. And by people, I mean Americans and I mean Americans across the political spectrum. And I think there are lots of reasons for that. Why not?
Well one is because $10 billion has been spent on it, $3.5 billion on the presidential election itself. Over 1 billion in Pennsylvania and only a few states matter because this isn't about every vote counting equally. It's an electoral college where only votes in states that could actually swing one way or the other will determine the outcome. And so a lot of people feel like their vote doesn't matter, feel like it's an enormous money suck in spend, and that people that have that influence are the ones that are going to end up mattering and getting the policies that they want and capturing the system so they don't really believe in their democracy.
Then secondly, one of the candidates shouldn't be running. I feel strongly about this. It's only because impeachment no longer functions as a check on executive power that Trump is able to run right now. And he certainly doesn't believe in a free and fair outcome unless he wins. And I think that should be table stakes for an election that both people that are running have to be prepared to accept the outcome no matter what happens. Certainly, I would accept the outcome. I did in 2016 when Trump won and I considered him my president. And I did in 2020 when Biden won and I considered him my president too. And it doesn't really matter if I like the outcome or not. The point is that's what an election is all about. But increasingly, not in the United States and certainly not this time around. And that is a very big concern.
I am worried about the state of America's political institutions, not about the state of democracy everywhere around the world. I don't think this is a problem, a structural problem in most democracies. I think Canada is just fine. The UK and Germany and Japan and South Korea and Australia and New Zealand, plenty of democracies around the world that function well. The United States, we are watching these institutions erode real time. The legitimacy that American citizens hold for their elections, for their executive, for Congress, even for their court system, the Supreme Court, certainly for the media. Basically for anyone and any institution that is in a position of a authority and power, increasingly the belief that American citizens have in those institutions is eroding.
And that has led to a long, particularly divisive electoral cycle where Americans might as well exist in two different planets in terms of what they do and don't believe about the candidates and about the vote. And I think it's a real problem. I think that's been true for the coverage that we've seen over the past week. Some of you may have seen me go after so many of the media institutions for saying that Trump had announced that he wanted Liz Cheney killed or executed at a firing squad, which he didn't say and which was complete crap. It was garbage. And this was a major headline for two days across the mainstream media. And if you think mainstream media is bad, social media is even worse. The amount of active disinformation, lying, fake news that's being algorithmically promoted, including particularly by Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, X, which is where a lot of people get their political information. And don't even get me started on citizen journalism, which is even more biased than actual journalism, just without any of the expertise.
And as a consequence of that, almost everyone I know today believes some things about politics that are clearly not true. Now, I am not going to tell you who to vote for. I'm not going to make an endorsement. I think that, you, the voters get to make up your mind for yourself. I will tell you who I voted for. I voted for Kamala Harris. This probably does not surprise people. I am not a Democrat. I have never been a member of any political party and certainly pre-Trump, I have voted for Democrats and Republicans and I continue to vote for people on the basis of who I think they are as candidates. But I am unprepared to accept someone that is unwilling to accept a democratic process, the outcome of a free and fair election. I am convinced, completely convinced that whether Harris wins or loses, she will accept the outcome. I'm completely convinced of that. And I am also convinced that if Trump loses, he will not accept the outcome.
And that for me is foundational, irrespective of what I think about their policies on other things. In part because I think the presidency is constrained, and in part because I think at this point American institutions are increasingly vulnerable. So in other words, I think those things matter. Look, I clearly would make a lot more money under Trump. First time around, Trump reduced corporate taxes, he reduced taxes on the wealthy, he reduced regulatory restrictions in lots of ways. I mean, private equity firms did really well and real estate companies. And as someone who started my own company and has built it up globally, Trump is great from a financial perspective. I don't care. Also, he's great for political risk. I mean, there's more international uncertainty and volatility. And so my firm, Eurasia Group that is focused on that would do better in that environment. I don't care. That is not the point.
I consider Trump to be the most unfit person for office I have ever encountered with political ambitions. I felt that way when he was a Democrat. I feel that way now that he is a Republican. I don't think the party affiliation matters. He certainly isn't ideological. It's just about him. And for me, that is a serious, serious problem. But whatever you do, you can agree with me, you can disagree with me. As you would know, I don't mind if you disagree with me. It's not a problem. It's not fundamental. Doesn't mean you can't be my friend, certainly doesn't mean you can't follow me. But whatever you do, if you're in the United States and you're a citizen, do not opt out of the process. Our ancestors, my grandmother, grandfathers, did everything they could to get to this country. Heck, historically, some of them, many of them committed unspeakable atrocities to clear the land of the folks that were actually living here before.
Do not dishonor all of that by thinking that you don't need to put in any work, that it doesn't matter. There's a lot of things that are broken about the US political system, but none that are so broken that we can give up ... And none that you can wash your hands of it and say, "There's nothing I can do. My voice doesn't matter. I'm giving up. I'm not putting in any work."
And the most limited amount of work that you can possibly put in is voting. And I think that voting with your heart and with your head is the absolute minimum obligation that we all have as citizens. I am proud and patriotic to exercise mine as I always do. And you should be yours too. And again, you heard who I'm voting for. You can tell me who you're voting for if you want or you cannot. Again, it's a secret ballot and this is a free country. And the important thing is that you speak your mind and when you agree or disagree, you tell people that too. So happy Election Day, for what it's worth, I'm sure this too shall pass and I'll talk to you all on the other side. Take care.
US election: America is at war with itself
In a powerful and candid address, Ian Bremmer delivered a sobering reflection on the state of democracy in the United States during his annual "State of the World" speech at the 2024 GZERO Summit Japan in Tokyo.
"My country, the United States, is today at war with itself," said Bremmer.
With the November 5th election on the horizon, Bremmer highlighted the fractures within the US political system, emphasizing the growing chasm between political parties, voters, and the institutions meant to uphold democracy. He further painted a grim picture of the post-election period, saying, "We are about to have an election whose outcome will be perceived as illegitimate by nearly half of the country."
He noted that tens of millions of Americans are disillusioned and convinced that their political system is broken. The stakes are high, and the larger issue is the growing perception among voters that their democracy is being "stolen" or "subverted." The result is a deeply polarized nation, where even after a president is eventually declared, a significant portion of the population will reject the legitimacy of the outcome, leading to political and social instability.
Click to watch Ian Bremmer’s analysis and his full 2024 "State of the World" speech.
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