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Ian Bremmer
The International Olympic Committee says global politics have no place at the Olympics and insists the Olympics promote democratic values through sports, so why does the IOC keep awarding the Games to authoritarian countries like Russia and China?
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the complicated relationship between global politics and the Olympic Games. The IOC has an uncomfortable history of cozying up to authoritarian rulers, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who use the Games as propaganda, who use the Games to project the image of their country they want the world to see. Calls are growing for more transparency in the IOC, which has faced accusations of corruption, bribery, and bid-rigging in recent years. The 2024 Olympics will be a test of the IOC’s ability to remain politically neutral while balancing the ideals of democracy with the geopolitical realities of a world that’s more fragmented than ever. Can they stick the landing?
Watch more on the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, in which Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins discusses security concerns and logistical challenges at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the complicated relationship between global politics and the events, and sportswashing.
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: Subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How will Biden dropping out of the presidential race overshadow Netanyahu's US visit?
Oh, was it happening today? I didn't notice, I was so busy focused on Biden dropping out. No, clearly, it is a massive benefit for Biden that it is now less of a deal. Probably means less demonstrations, means less media coverage. It is a big problem, right? I mean, you've got the US top ally in the Middle East, Israel, the leader is clearly disliked by Biden. Kamala Harris not showing up to preside over Senate. She's, you know, otherwise disposed at a prearranged meeting in Indianapolis. And then you've got Netanyahu going down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the guy that he wants to become president, former President Donald Trump. All of that is problematic for Biden but less problematic because US political news at home is so overwhelming and headline-worthy.
Can the China-brokered agreement between Hamas and Fatah help bring Palestinian peace?
Unclear. I mean, the fact that Hamas, which is seen as a terrorist organization, and rightly so in my view, by the United States, by most of the West, and certainly by Israel, now has a peace agreement with Fatah, definitely brings the Palestinians closer together. But frankly, since October 7th, the Palestinians have only become more radicalized as a population; just like in Israel, the Jews have become more radicalized as a population, both less interested in peace. The rest of the world is very interested in peace, but very hard to get from here to there. I do think there is a chance that we can still get that six-week agreement because the Knesset is going to be out of session until October, which means that Netanyahu doesn't have to worry about getting thrown out of office if he has a six-week agreement and goes back to fighting, the far right, by the time they could throw him out, the Knesset would be back in. That's interesting and worth looking at.
After a long hot summer of French politics, is the Olympics a rallying moment for Macron?
Not at all. He can't get a government together. That has proved very challenging for him. 2027 still looks like the end of centrism in France, at least for a while. Not going to stop me from watching the Olympics though.
I have little doubt that President Joe Biden’s belated but essential decision to bow out of the 2024 presidential election on Sunday will go down in history as a patriotic act.
Following his infamous debate performance on June 27, an overwhelming majority of Americans – including two-thirds of Democrats – came to the conclusion that the president was no longer physically and mentally fit to serve another four-year term in office. As things stood last Saturday, Donald Trump – fresh off a failed assassination attempt and a triumphant Republican convention – looked set to retake the White House and likely control both houses of Congress, with little an ailing Biden could do to turn things around.
By finally agreeing to step down when his term ends in January, Biden jolted the race 100 days out and gave his party a fighting chance to protect the country – and the world – from what he sees as the existential threat of an unrestrained Trump. Only he had the power to do that, and when push came to shove (and there was plenty of shoving), he met the moment. It was a fitting capstone to a lifetime of public service.
This is what leadership looks like. Contrary to what many are claiming, there was nothing inevitable about Biden’s decision to withdraw. Yes, he was under immense pressure from his party and the media to step down. Yes, all evidence pointed toward near-certain disaster in November if he stayed on. Yes, his legacy was on the line. And yet … he still had a choice. His exit was not preordained. No one forced his hand – in fact, no one could force his hand. It was entirely up to Joe Biden, and Joe Biden alone, to do the right thing. This couldn’t have been easy – if it was, everyone would do it. And we know for a fact that not everyone would’ve made the same choice – least of all Trump, a man who is constitutionally incapable of putting party and country above himself.
Did Biden come to his decision reluctantly, and only after weeks spent in anger and denial? No doubt. It’s hard enough for anyone to voluntarily give up power, but it’s even harder for a person with Biden’s life history who’s also coming to terms with his own mortality. Should he have withdrawn much sooner? Absolutely – I never thought he should have run for reelection in the first place, and I said so publicly many times. Will this delay end up costing Democrats the election? It’s possible, though we may never know.
But we shouldn’t forget the “better” in “better late than never.” What matters most is that he finally got there. Biden could’ve held on until the bitter end, consequences be damned. Instead, he chose to put America first. It was a decision worthy of a leader. Not a winner, but a leader. He deserves credit for it – as does the Democratic Party, which has shown itself to be a much healthier and more functional institution than anyone thought. Can anyone seriously imagine today’s GOP launching a coordinated pressure campaign to depose Trump, even though so many Republicans privately criticize him as unfit and believe him to be an electoral drag?
It gives me a little hope in a country where politicians don’t often do the right thing, and where political parties all too easily bend to the will of their leaders even when it becomes clear they serve only themselves.
Harris or bust. Shortly after announcing his withdrawal, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination. The entire Democratic establishment – with the notable exception of Barack Obama – quickly followed suit and rallied behind her. Within 24 hours, Harris had been endorsed by every viable potential challenger as well as an overwhelming majority of Democratic governors, members of Congress, and state party chairs. By Monday evening, her campaign had raised $150 million from major donors and $81 million from small donors, and she had secured more than enough pledged delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee.
Although an ostensibly competitive and democratically legitimate nomination process would have ultimately benefitted Democrats by ensuring the winner had what it takes to take on Trump and appeal to a broad swath of voters, the speed with which the party coalesced around Harris ensures next month’s convention in Chicago will be little more than a coronation ceremony. With only 54 delegates currently undecided and a minimum of 300 needed for any would-be nominee to compete, it’s impossible to imagine a challenger not named Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips emerging.
And that’s … not a disaster for the Democrats. Harris may not have been the best possible candidate Democrats could’ve put forward a year (or four) ago, but she was the most viable candidate to replace Biden, unite the party, and avoid a down-ballot bloodbath at this late stage.
What can be, unburdened by what has been? The question now is not whether there was a better Democratic candidate than Harris, but whether Harris can beat Trump. And on that front, the jury is still out. We simply don’t have enough recent polling data on this matchup yet to get a decent idea of where things stand today.
Here’s what we do know: This is an incredibly tough environment for an incumbent’s successor, with a majority of voters telling pollsters they are unhappy with the state of the country. And Harris is no Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan – a generational talent with the charisma and vision to work political miracles. So she starts as the underdog accordingly. But off the bat, she has dramatically better odds than Biden because she solves the president’s biggest electability challenge: his age. And she has more upside than Trump, who remains a historically unpopular candidate with a hard ceiling of 45% of national support. By contrast, nearly 10% of Americans don’t even have an opinion of her yet, so she has room to define herself.
Can Harris break above Trump’s ceiling? She’s neither a proven national candidate nor a distinguished campaigner, having fizzled out before reaching the Iowa caucus during the 2020 presidential primaries. She has plenty of weaknesses for Republicans to exploit, including unpopular Biden administration policies (notably on the border) for which voters may blame her. And there’s a chance she could lose more older, white, and moderate working-class voters relative to Biden than she picks up young, nonwhite, and progressive ones.
But at 59, Harris is able to string together full sentences, give cogent stump speeches, campaign vigorously, and effectively deliver the abortion and democracy messages that worked well for Democrats in 2022. She can also play offense on Trump’s age – he’s 78 – and mental fitness, now an exclusively Republican liability that 50% of all voters found disqualifying in the former president nary a week ago.
How this will all net out in November, no one knows yet. Think about all that’s happened in the last two weeks, and imagine all that could change in the next 100 days. That’s an eternity in US politics – certainly longer than entire general election campaigns normally take in most other democracies.
All we can say for sure is Biden has given the Democrats a fighting chance and made the election both more competitive and more uncertain than it was a week ago.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take on the back of a staggering announcement that President Biden is no longer standing for reelection. No one thought that President Biden should have stood for reelection after he won the first time. Certainly, nobody believed that he was going to be able to serve a full four years of a second term.
That was becoming increasingly obvious to Biden himself, because he saw what rank and file members of the Democratic Party were saying, how they were pulling. The internal polls that the White House has been getting over the last 48 hours were devastating for Biden, not just a loss, but a landslide that would have led to the Democrats getting wiped out in the House and Senate as well, would probably lead to the Republicans ending the filibuster. Biden ultimately a lot later than a lot of people wanted, but nonetheless ultimately standing down, standing aside, strongly endorsing Kamala Harris, his vice president, for the presidential nomination, and to defeat Trump come November. It is certainly a very long way to go. People were saying it's late. We have 107 days to go left in this election.
That's an eternity in US politics. It is longer than most elections in democracy actually occur for the entire campaign. And so, I mean, if you look at that, look at just how much might happen in a race where Trump and Biden have been historically both very unpopular, both seem to be far too old and unfit to serve as president for another term. Biden, the last numbers we saw in that were 74% of American voters saying that he was unfit to serve for another four years because of his age and increasing frailty. 49% of Americans said that about Trump. Now it's worse for Biden. But if Biden wasn't in the race, for Trump, that would be the worst that we'd ever seen.
And of course, now Biden isn't in the race and Trump is, which means that his age, his frailty, his incoherence when he makes statements, that is suddenly a big issue. It is immediately his largest vulnerability, even after the extraordinary ability of Trump to stand up and put his fist in the air and say, “fight, fight, fight” after an assassination attempt, a huge thing, but suddenly yet another piece of unprecedented history in the US.
This one in favor of the Democrats. I'd like to say this is a good day in US politics in the sense that it shows a level of selflessness from President Biden that he was unwilling ultimately, to put himself personally and his ego ahead of that of the country, and he recognized that this was going to be a disaster. No one had the ability to force him. They pressured him. They embarrassed him. They showed him facts. But ultimately, if Biden decided that he wasn't going to go, no one could have forced him. And of course, that's exactly the case for Trump as well. And, you know, you'll remember that after the 2020 election, when everyone in the Republican Party was saying, “you got to stop this, you got to stand down.” That's absolutely not what Trump was prepared to do. He puts himself above the party, above the country, and has done so consistently. I mean, you know, if you think about, the vice presidents in these cases, the 45th President Trump, threatened the life of his vice president in a last ditch effort to hold on to power, back on January 6th in 2021. The 46th president ended his campaign and strongly endorsed his vice president for the good of the country.
It would be hard to see a more dramatic contrast between two old white men in political power in the United States, one, America’s Nero, holding on for himself no matter what the consequences. The other, America’s Cincinnatus. They are not the same. And as a consequence, the US now has a much more competitive political race. I do believe that over the next month, the Democrats will not just dominate headlines, and they've done that a lot with Biden's unfitness, but also have energy and enthusiasm, and that they have not have and they haven't had for a very long time.
That is certainly an advantage for them. I think that Kamala Harris will do much better if the election nomination process is at least somewhat competitive. Now, I personally don't think that Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, who are, you know, seen to be the most well-known and competitive candidates, potential candidates outside of Kamala Harris. I don't think they'll run, with Biden now having endorsed, fully endorsed his vice president, with Kamala wanting that endorsement, I think that they will wait, they’ll bide their time. They will support Harris, and they'll wait themselves until 2028. But I do think that others will decide to declare, I don't know who they'll be, but I think there will be some. And I think it's interesting that former President Obama did not endorse Harris. He said very strongly positive things about Biden. But he said that the process needs to be open and play out.
And I think that that is not just a knife to Harris. Not at all. I think it is a Obama recognition, that for all of her advantages, she has vulnerability and she will benefit from a process that doesn't look like the political machine has just decided that they're going to anoint her, that there's not going to be a primary process. So there needs to at least be some level of competition, a race that she has to show that she can win. And, you know, conceivably she could implode during that process. And then maybe she isn't the nominee, though I would bet a lot at this point that she is going to be. Where do we go from here?
We're in unprecedented times. As much as this is a better day for US democracy and there haven't been many, it is also true that this is a democracy that remains in crisis. We were less than a second, a fraction of a second away from former President Trump getting killed, getting assassinated, and if that had happened, I have no doubt that we would have had George Floyd-style riots across the country, but with a lot more guns. And I think that there is a lack of appreciation of just how close this country was to a level of political chaos, social instability and violence. And we have three more months plus before this election, where both the Democrats and the Republicans still believe that if the opponent wins, that it is going to be the destruction of democracy.
Biden's standing down did not change Trump's view of that or his supporters view of that. And the Democrats still feel the same way about Trump, and they feel the same way about Trump, even after his near assassination. There's been no unifying of the country on the back of that, and there'll be no unifying of the country on the back of Biden stepping down. But there may well be a lot more unifying of the Democrats, with perhaps a significant number of independents that show up. So very divided, deeply vulnerable over the coming months, we're going to be very busy. But it's nice on a Sunday to have something nice to say.
And I will certainly say that to President Biden, someone that I have criticized a fair amount over the past months, as he has deteriorated for not, doing the right thing in standing down, that you sir have my appreciation. as an American and more importantly, as a citizen of this little planet here, for doing something that the world can take a little bit of inspiration from, and thinking of someone beyond yourself for your legacy, which looks better today than it did yesterday. That's it for me.
And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures with a bloodied face as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 13, 2024.
The United States came within a hair’s breadth of serious civil instability last weekend when former President Donald Trump narrowly survived assassination at a campaign rally near Butler, PA. The attempt on Trump’s life, which killed one audience member and critically injured two others, marked the first time in over four decades that a sitting or former US president was shot at.
While the worst-case scenario was thankfully avoided, the attack was no one-off, both coming at and adding to one of the most volatile times in modern American history. As I warned in Eurasia Group’s Top Risk #1 for 2024, “The United States vs. itself,” extreme levels of polarization, record-low trust in democratic institutions, algorithmically boosted disinformation, and foreign and domestic weaponization of outrage has made political violence in the United States “nearly inevitable.”
Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Too many Americans across the spectrum have been primed to see their political rivals as mortal enemies out to destroy US democracy in every election. A national survey last year found that roughly 75% of Americans believe that US democracy is at risk in November (although they disagree on which side of the aisle the threat comes from), and 25% agree that patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country. Add to that the mental health and drug-use crises plaguing our society and the fact that the US has more (and deadlier) guns per capita than any other country in the world save Yemen (which is having a civil war), and the only surprise is that something like this didn’t happen sooner.
To be clear, we still don’t know what caused 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to shoot Trump, and we may never find out. He could’ve been a severely ill man with easy access to a weapon and no agenda other than to commit suicide by cop in the highest profile way possible. But regardless of whether Saturday’s assassination attempt was politically motivated, nothing changes the fact that the United States is a country ripe for political violence.
American democracy is in crisis. The United States is still the most powerful country on the planet. Its economy and military remain the envy of the world, as do its technology companies and research universities. But the US is also the only major democracy in the world whose political system is in serious crisis. Elsewhere, elections are taking place normally and peacefully. Here, not so much. When I was a kid, we were the “shining city on a hill.” Most Americans no longer believe that their democracy is healthy or functional. No one around the world looks at America anymore and thinks, “I want my political system to work like that.” US allies are deeply troubled by this, and US adversaries see a generational opportunity.
Trump’s front-runner status gets a shot in the arm. The picture of a bloodied Trump defiantly raising his fist and yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service agents tried to hold him down and an American flag waved behind him will be the defining image of the presidential race. The attack solidifies Trump’s already strong grip on the Republican Party and cult status among the MAGA faithful while taking media focus off President Joe Biden’s issues and reducing internal Democratic pressure on him to drop out, making it less likely that he cedes the nomination to someone with a better chance of defeating Trump.
At the same time, Trump’s extraordinary physical response to being shot draws a more powerful contrast with Biden’s age and frailty than any debate performance or press conference could, making Trump marginally likelier to beat him in November. To top things off, the attempt makes it harder for Democrats to campaign on Trump as a threat to democracy without being accused of inciting violence against the former president. This neutralizes one of their most effective attack lines and further depresses Biden’s reelection odds. If I didn’t think Trump was the odds-on favorite before, I sure do now.
Trump has an opportunity to unite the country. As the victim of the assassination attempt and our likely next president, Trump is in a unique position to rally the entire nation together. Maybe, just maybe, could this be the moment when Trump decides to take the high road and finally Becomes President™ before he’s even elected? Don’t bet on it.
Unfortunately, nothing about his history suggests that he will do that. In fact, every impulse and instinct moves him in the exact opposite direction – to make this about his grievances against his political enemies, about dividing us vs. them, about getting retribution, about winning. That’s just who he is: a winner, not a leader. Someone who will do absolutely everything he can to get to the finish line first, no matter who he knocks down along the way. It’s how he made his billions, how he became famous, and how he became president.
Would a man who believes he has been wrongly persecuted, impeached, indicted, convicted, and nearly killed by his political enemies let them get away with it for the sake of the country? Or would he use all the tools at his disposal to do what he does best: win? I would love Trump to prove me wrong … but his selection of Ohio Sen. JD Vance – who on Saturday accused the Biden campaign of inciting the assassination attempt – as his VP pick and his latest rhetoric suggest he won’t.
Could any good come from this tragedy? Is the crisis big enough to shake us out of our complacency?I’m also skeptical. The weaponization of dangerous and divisive rhetoric has become too profitable and politically useful, and there are not enough people in positions of power who are willing to sacrifice their own ambitions, careers, and pocketbooks for the public good. This latter point speaks to a greater sickness afflicting the US: We are becoming a nation of winners but not of leaders. Trump is its purest, most unbridled expression, but the rot runs much deeper than him.
In this environment, I expect that the response to the near assassination will look less like the unifying, rally-around-the-flag response to 9/11 and more like the divisive and politicized response to Jan. 6, tearing the country further apart and presaging more, rather than less, violence and social instability to come. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How did JD Vance, who once called Trump “America's Hitler,” become his VP pick?
Well, of course, that isn't exactly what he said. He said that he goes back and forth between thinking that Trump is either a cynical asshole like Richard Nixon, who could actually be good for the country, or he could be America's Hitler. How come no one's actually reporting the actual quote? And it's because the media's freaking horrible is why. And because the algorithms promote stupidity and fake news, and disinformation. But the answer to the question is because Vance is really smart, very aligned with Trump. He's very, let's say, situationally ideological and wants to win, doesn't bring a lot of votes for Trump, but Trump doesn’t think he needs them. Last time around, when Trump was running and picked Mike Pence, he was looking for an establishment figure that would get him more votes and that would make Trump seem more approachable and attractive to a larger group of voters. Trump now thinks he can win the election either way, so he's picking the person he really wants. That's what's going on.
Will the EU reelect Ursula von der Leyen as president?
Almost certainly, yes. There are still questions about where exactly she's getting the votes for. She can't afford to lose a lot of people from the parties that, in principle, support her in a secret ballot. But there aren't good options for her, and everyone I talk to in positions of leadership in the EU thinks that she is a layup there.
Why did Orbán choose to visit Russia and China despite knowing it would upset EU leaders?
Well, mostly because he wants to portray himself and not just in the six-month rotating chair of the European Union, but more broadly as the person who can represent the Chinese and the Russian view, that gives him more leverage, especially if Trump becomes president. That’s why he went to Mar-a-Lago right after NATO, saying, I'm the one in the EU that knows what these people are saying. I'm the person that can connect with you. It's not like he's trying to leave the European Union. He needs their money, but he wants to position himself more strongly and as the outlier, that's the easiest way for him to do it.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a quick take to kick off your week. Still talking very much about the United States, the elections, the assassination attempt on former President Trump. We now have the Republican National Convention kicking off in Milwaukee. And is it possible that anything good can come from this most tragic event and very close to a world changing event?
I wish I could say yes. I certainly was heartened to see in the initial hours after the attack that the president of the United States strongly condemned it, called for unity, a very nonpartisan statement, pulled down campaign ads and stopped with planned events for the president and vice president. This is no time to be campaigning. I saw the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, did the same in a statement that he made publicly a few hours later. And it's good to hear from former President Trump, that he is changing his speech and wants it to be a less divisive and a more unifying speech.
All of that sounds promising, and there is an opportunity here. But I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical. I think that the divisions in the country are too deep, and the weaponization and of the politics has come from inside the House. It's not from the Russians or the Iranians or the Chinese. It's from American citizens. And that's very likely to continue. When you say that former President Trump is a dictator and that if you elect him, the US will become a dictatorship, and you compare him to Hitler, then it is understandable that many people would view it as patriotic to do everything possible to stop him. If he is an existential threat to the country, then he must be stopped by all means. And if it is true that Biden and the Democrats will destroy the country, and we'll have World War III and the country will be gone if they're elected as Trump has said, then you have to stop them. You have to do everything possible to stop them.
And in that regard, I think this is not going to look like 9/11, where after an external threat, the country rallied together and said never again and meant it, made a lot of mistakes, of course, trillions of dollars and a failed war in Iraq, a failed war in Afghanistan. But it was unifying for America. The response to 9/11 was not red or blue. It was not left or right. It was all Americans, and waving a flag was something that all Americans were proud of and did not see in any way as polarized. I think this is different. I think this is a lot more like what we saw on January 6th. January 6th, you have a lot of people that were outraged, Democrats and Republicans outraged with the violence that they saw in the Capitol building with the illegal insurrection and attempt to overturn a legitimate vote.
And you saw the speeches that were made by Senator McConnell and many others that said that this would not stand. But in a short period of time, it became politicized. It became weaponized, it became Democrats saying one thing and Republicans saying another. And we're now at the point that the January 6th insurrection is singing the national anthem are seen as patriots by the MAGA right. And not only does Trump play that at rallies, but he salutes it. That is, I fear, what's going to happen in the United States in the next four months of this election. I want to see the country come together. I want everyone to recognize that the rhetoric is dangerous and leads to violence and that the US is not on the verge of becoming a dictatorship, and that Trump is not the second coming of Hitler, and that political violence in all of its forms in the United States is something that we as a democracy can't tolerate that. But I don't believe that's where we're heading. I think it is, unfortunately, much more likely that we are going to revert to an “us” versus “them” diatribe.
It is going to be an incredibly polarized election, and people really do feel like democracy at stake. 75% of Americans, when asked, believe that democracy of the United States is at stake with this election in November. The problem is, of course, they don't agree on who's behind that and who's responsible. 25% of Americans agree that it's patriotic to turn to violence in this environment to protect the country. And that doesn't mean that 25% of the people are prepared to actually take action on it. But the level of sympathy, private sympathy and public sympathy is an awful lot higher than the number of people that publicly said, “Oh my God, this is horrible, and nothing like this should ever happen.” And everybody that's watching this knows that.
And so, I fear, that we are not going to learn the right lesson from this near assassination. I'd love to see Trump himself prove me wrong, and we'll see, what the speech is like. But there have been many times, of course, over Trump's presidency, it's like now he's a leader, now he's presidential. And of course, the reality is that Trump is much less of a leader than he is a winner. And Trump won the presidency by dividing America, by taking advantage of the existing divisions and playing on them and preying on them, that he refers to others, his political opponents, as losers. Much more focused on that than fellow citizens. And the need for that to change is immediate and immense. The United States cannot be a country of winners and losers. The United States has to be a team with leaders that we respect. And there are many countries around the world, many democracies around the world, that have that manifestation that feels much more like that.
But the United States today does not. And that's fundamentally why the US is a democracy in crisis and is uniquely in crisis compared to all the other democracies in the world that have had their elections over the past months with no problem at all. It's not where we are right now in the US. We can't normalize this. We can't accept it. We have to be willing to fight together for our democracy, as opposed to fight each other and destroy our democracy. I will say I'm a little offended that President Putin thinks we need his help to destroy democracy. We're more than capable of doing that ourselves. Russians. Stay the hell out. But, seriously, this is a time that we need a lot more from Americans being together.
And that is not the way that we define our political system right now. So that's my honest take on this. I hope I'm wrong. My analysis is not where I want the country to go. And it's not where I'll work on the country to go.
So, I'll be back and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and responding to what is certainly a very dramatic turn of events in my country, the United States, with former President Trump at a rally appearing to have been shot, an apparent assassination attempt, and he's okay, but certainly didn't have to go that way. It looks like he was at least hurt, a minor injury, grazed, blood on his ear, got back up when the shots stopped, and again, appears to be fine. But that cannot be said for the state of American democracy.
This is a very grave turn of events in a country that is very deeply polarized, in a country where a great many Americans do not believe that their democracy is healthy or particularly functional, and where a large majority of Americans believe that the domestic political opposition is out to destroy that democracy. This is the worst sort of event that can happen in that environment, and I deeply worry that it presages much more political violence and social instability to come. This is the kind of thing that we have seen historically in lots of countries facing instability. It frequently does not end well. And the US, of course, is far more powerful; its institutions are resilient, but they have been under stress and eroding an attack for decades now.
Lots of things to say about this. Maybe the first, about the campaign itself, is that image of Trump standing up with blood on his face and injured and with his fist raised up and the Secret Service all around him, and it was he's saying fight, fight, and there's a flag above him is an iconic image. I suspect it is an image that will become very, very important for the remainder of this campaign. It makes it more likely that Trump wins. The fact that President Biden and his serious vulnerability is his age and that he's seen to not be physically robust, that he's frail, that he will, and we saw that with the debate, and everyone's talked about it for two weeks. This is the opposite of frail, and I don't know if it was adrenaline or instinct or what it was that got into Trump after someone tried to shoot him, but that response and being caught on tape is, I think, going to be a rally for his people for a long time. And I expect it to lead all the headlines on this issue as people across the world see it over the coming hours and days. So, that's the first topic.
The second is what has to happen now as a consequence. And I think it's utterly essential that everyone across the American political spectrum denounces this political violence. Everyone denounces this assassination attempt and calls for calm from their supporters going forward and that this has no place in a democracy, however damaged. Ideally, that is done in a bipartisan manner, that is done in Congress, in the House, and in the Senate. Not with individual posts, and comments, and tweets, but from the entirety of a joint session condemning it and working for peace and a peaceful transition, whatever the results of the election going forward, no matter what. That's what the country needs. I am deeply suspect that it's not going to happen. I'm deeply suspect that former President Trump, President Biden, will not be willing or able together to do that and that many of their supporters will have no such interest. But that's what the country needs. It's utterly essential in this environment.
Secondly, we should be prepared for more violence. And I would say this across the political spectrum: the United States has more gun availability and violence than any G7-advanced industrial democracy by a long margin. Political extremism and disinformation have been weaponized through the media landscape, and particularly through social media. There are large numbers of people, of course, that are spreading conspiracy theories. And there are also external actors like Russia, like Iran, like China, like North Korea, and others that are very interested in taking advantage of US division and dysfunction, and further using their resources as a megaphone to support and stoke more political violence and instability in the United States. And at a time when Americans believe that the other political side is out to destroy US democracy, then the stakes are very high. And the willingness of some to use political violence is far greater, certainly, than we've seen at any point since 1968, but perhaps at any point since the Civil War. So, that is a real concern.
I think that finally, and I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about this as we learn more, but one point I really do want to make is that democracy around the world is not in crisis right now. This is a year of many, many elections, and we've seen them in India, the world's most populous country, 1.5 billion people. We've seen it across the European Union, the largest common market. We've seen it in France, in the United Kingdom, in Mexico, rich countries, poor countries, democracies all they have had free, fair options with peaceful transitions. That is not what we are seeing right now in the United States. The US is the only major democracy in the world today that is experiencing a serious crisis. And we do ourselves no favors by normalizing the events of the past months of this election, and the events that we've just witnessed in the past moments in the United States.
This is going to require people to recognize that US political institutions are in danger, and that they require our protection together as citizens to uphold the values that we believe in. If further devolution into blamesmanship, into polarization, into the weaponization of politics, is the way you lose your democracy. And those stakes are very real, certainly much more real than at any point in my lifetime.
So that's where we are right now. I hope everyone is going to continue to follow this and engage. It's a really important issue, and I'll do my best to share my thoughts as honestly as I know how. That's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.