Back in 2016, The Republicans seized on Brexit as a harbinger that conservative leaders were wanted to defeat the "world order." Nigel Farage was one of their "heros" and an adamant Trump supporter. Still is. It didn't matter that Farage and his fellow Brexiteers had no plan for post-EU Britain. Chaos was better than subscribing to the liberal world order.
After eight years of chaos and uncertainty with no good plan being put forward by the Tories and their conservative allies, Britain voted the bums out of office, giving the Labour Party a resounding landslide victory. Even more amusing, Farage and his so-called Reform Party only garnered four seats, far short of the number he thought his last-minute bid would garner.
You won't hear Republicans cheering this result as it doesn't fit their narrative. Instead, they are blabbing about Franxit, or whatever you want to call it, as Marine Le Pen's nationalist party did far better than expected in the snap election that President Macron called, thinking it would favor his party. Even still, it doesn't look like Marine will have the seats needed to rule parliament, not that it would really matter as Macron would simply overrule her party like he did the previous national assembly.
There is a lot of disgruntlement in the world. Everyone was hit with inflation and greatly increased utility bills as a result of the war in Ukraine. This wasn't a uniquely American phenomenon like the Republicans want the US electorate to believe. They have no idea how the world works. Whatever economics they study is a very micro version driven largely by their personal interests.
The amusing part is that the stock market is soaring. Major leading economic indices are up. There is nothing to suggest we have a recession staring us in the face as conservative business media channels would like you to believe. New jobs are being created each quarter and the GDP continues to rise. We haven't seen negative GDP growth numbers since the outbreak of the war in early 2022. It even peaked at 4.9% in Q3 of 2023, a rate Trump could only dream about during his tenure. His one high note was Q3 of 2020 when a Democratic-led stimulus bill helped jumpstart the economy during the pandemic years. These were the "bounce-back" jobs he referred to during the debate, not what we see today.
Unfortunately, there is little attempt to fact check Trump anymore. The mainstream media has pretty much decided to let him go while they sink their claws into Biden. They are determined to set the narrative for the Democratic Convention next month where they foresee the party putting up a new presidential candidate despite no evidence to suggest anyone within the establishment is even considering it. Biden recently met with Democratic state governors, assuring them that what they saw last week wasn't the real him but rather a tired, jet-lagged self who hadn't taken the debate as seriously as he should have.
Perception is everything in the media. Biden certainly didn't do himself any favors in the debate, but at the same time he has been leading the country. He doesn't have time to go around giving interviews or staging rallies across the country. June was a particularly busy month for him with two trips to Europe including a D-Day celebration in France and G7 meeting in Italy, which apparently took a physical toll on him so that he was feeling a little laggard at the debate. Fortunately, this year's NATO summit will be held in Washington, DC.
Trump wasn't a very good world traveller either, often complaining and dodging meetings. One memorable moment he had Ivanka sit in for him at a G20 meeting in Germany. He was apparently feeling a bit out of sorts or just bored, who knows? Ivanka busily tweeted selfies with world leaders on social media. No matter, it is Biden the media is so concerned about these days. Is he up for the job if he can't make it through a facile debate with Donald Trump?
The world is constantly in flux. We see countries go back and forth politically. Conservatives also scored well in Sweden and most recently in the Netherlands, but it doesn't necessarily imply a "red wave," or whatever you want to call it, is sweeping over Europe. Brits made it known loud and clear they were disgusted with conservative leadership, giving Labour a 3-1 edge over its rivals. Far better than Labour expected. Elsewhere in Europe you find liberal governments. Virtually all European countries are social democracies. Even the conservatives aren't that conservative, as we have seen with Giorgia Meloni in Italy. She has been a staunch ally of NATO despite the pro-Russian elements in her governing coalition party. Who knows maybe Marine has had second thoughts about her cozy relationship with Vlad as her nationalist party is on the cusp of seizing control of the French National Assembly. Unlike the US, conservatives in Europe understand that governing a country requires compromise.
But, the Republican Party, or should I call it the Party of Trump, requires harbingers. They so thoroughly need to believe they are shaping the world with their message that they take one-off elections like that in Argentina as proof positive Trumpism is a global phenomenon. It doesn't matter that Brazil voted for a very liberal new president in 2022, knocking out one of Trump's most vociferous supporters in Jair Bolsonaro. Trump now constantly refers to the chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei in the same positive tones he does Kim Jong Un. They may even write "love letters" to each other.
One can only hope that Americans will come to their senses like Brits did and realize that a "me first" policy doesn't work in today's global economy. We are all interconnected. When you build walls around yourself, both literally and figuratively, you are just closing yourself off to the outside world and limiting your economic and intellectual growth.
We have to be bigger than ourselves. We have to come to terms with the "global village," to borrow a term from Marshall McLuhan. What happens in one part of the world impacts other parts of the world, as we have seen with the war in Ukraine. Most importantly, we have to come to terms with each other and sadly that's something I don't see happening in the United States at the moment.
It has became a fractured fairy tale, easily manipulated by media narratives to the point many Americans don't know what to believe. So, they turn to persons who pretend to know what is going on. The more assertive the voice, the more likely that voice is to gain followers in this social media-driven age. The very opposite of what McLuhan and other early information age prophets thought would be the case.
What you have today is a choice between a party of memes, the Republicans, and a party that tries to triangulate opinion, the Democrats. The one offers you conveniently packaged thoughts that you can readily share with all your friends on social media. The other asks you to discuss issues, form reading groups, and make the effort to truly understand what is happening around you by considering multiple sources of information. I choose the latter.
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