Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief
The Weekly Brief - January 19, 2018
Trump at One
Well, we made. A year ago, it may have seemed unlikely that we would get out of Trump Year One without some serious cataclysm. However, Parag Khanna, writing in Politico, reminds us that there are global trends afoot that are bigger than Trump, meaning that we need to keep things in perspective.
That’s not to say all are happy with Trump. Former Obama administration hands, Ben Rhodes and Samantha Powers still fear what the next three years could look like, and there’ve been calls for mental health tests for the president. Khanna’s article, however, reminds us that there are bigger things to give attention to, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. Things like ending slavery.
Poor California... No, Seriously, California is Poor
The story of the week on the economic front, among economists anyway, was California’s crowning as the “Poverty Capital of America”. How could it be so when “everyone” knows its Mississippi? AEI explains that it’s due to weighting the data according to the US Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure which accounts for the cost of living.
Never fear, though, California, help is on the way thanks to companies like Walmart proposing minimum wage hikes due to tax cuts… Yeah, I don’t believe it either… California becoming affordable that is.
If you’re looking to advance your career or otherwise increase your income, though, Harvard Business Review suggests building your imagination-creativity-strategy skill sets.
Around the Horn
I’ve been tracking the Egypt-Sudan fracas over water and dams the last couple of weeks, and this week the story seems to be growing. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is concerned a war is about to occur in the strategic Horn of Africa, and the North Africa Post concurs. Egyptian President Sisi has said he does not want war, especially as he’s facing reelection this year, but internal and external factors may not grant him his wish.
Such a conflict comes at a bad time for American diplomacy in the region with Congress about to lose its leading Africa advocate, Ed Royce, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is not seeking reelection.
Not Grandad's Populism
I think most people can agree if they can agree on anything related to Trump, that his election was part of a broader populist wave that broke on Western democracies in 2016-17. But what is populism? Is it good or bad? Is it just a Western phenomenon?
Politico provides an excellent overview of America’s populist history while the World Politics Review calls attention to the rarely acknowledged populist trends in Asia. I, too, have written on this subject through another lens on the Tim Talks Politics blog. In my article, I noted the emergence of violent Buddhist nationalism, which sounds as odd as it is to write, but the Washington Monthly points to the recent ethnic conflict in Burma as evidence of that particular form of populism.
With all the populist angst floating around, some countries don’t seem to have caught the bug. Japan is one such example.
Yeah, About That Korean Thaw...
OK, last week, news of North-South Korean tensions easing over an Olympic deal had everybody sighing with relief. But, as I noted in last week’s newsletter, not all was or is settled. In fact, some analysis suggests that such diplomacy is pretty typical for North Korea and fits within the Korean historical context. Indeed, China doesn’t seem to be taking this reprieve lightly.
So if it’s business as usual along the 38th parallel and China’s looking for an exit ramp, where does that leave American-South Korean relations? As they say in Britain, “Mind the gap.”
Think About This
I think we all agree clean energy is a good thing environmentally, but will it be geopolitically? A potential mixed bag according to the CFR.