Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, May 24, 2019
The Weekly Brief - May 24, 2019
Indian election results
A few weeks back, the Weekly Brief announced the national elections unfolding in India, the world’s largest democracy.
Well, after counting the hundreds of millions of votes, the results are in: Prime Minister Modi’s BJP party has emerged victorious, giving Modi another 5-year term in a landslide.
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the results confirm a substantive shift in Indian democracy away from a parliamentary to a presidential system underwritten by the popular Modi.
Such a development is not exactly something AEI is excited about as Sadanand Dhume points to some unsettling trends in Indian politics. But Akhilesh Pillalamarri, writing in the American Conservative, argues that American observers should be careful of resorting to caricature in assessing Modi’s rule over such a diverse and fractious democracy as India.
Regardless of how the Modi regime develops in its second term patterns of governance, it will likely be faced with some significant foreign policy challenges and internal pressures that will test Indian institutions.
Other elections
India isn’t the only Eurasian country to be adapting to the elections and their results.
Next month, Kazakhstan goes to the polls in an election that will have strategic implications for the United States. Though Kazakhstan has taken a generally pro-West stance in its foreign policy, it also happens to border America’s two biggest geopolitical competitors- China and Russia.
In Indonesia, another election that has slowly unfolded over the last few weeks, incumbent President Jokowi secured a second term by a comfortable margin, but is facing a legal challenge to the election results from the opposition.
Social media and social responsibility
I’ve covered the travails of Facebook and the criticisms of Big Tech quite a bit in this newsletter, but I have to tip my hat to Google and Facebook this week.
National Review reports that Facebook has removed 2.2 billion (!) fake accounts in just the first quarter of this year. This is good news ahead of elections next year.
Google, for its part, severed ties with Chinese tech giant Huawei, and is perhaps the heaviest hit the United States has scored so far in its ongoing tussle with Huawei and, by extension, China. The Hudson Institute argues that similar actions should be interpreted as proof of the seriousness with which the Trump administration is approaching competition with China.
It’s not a Cold War, it’s not a trade war. It’s a Tech War.
That competition with China is slowly evolving in how its being understood by American thinkers and policy makers. It’s becoming increasingly seen as a competition over tech, not just trade or geopolitics.
The conflict, according to The Strategist, is rooted in very different approaches to cyber culture. And maybe that’s due to culture differences, period. Maybe?
As the next round of the trade war develops, Chinese President Xi Jinping is increasingly drawing on the history and imagery of Maoist China to rally his country.
Flipping the script down under
And in ANOTHER election in which most polls were wrong AGAIN, Australia’s ruling conservative coalition pulled out a stunning reelection victory.
The victory for PM Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National Coalition largely comes out of a hard fought campaign over largely domestic issues, but will also play out amidst the increasingly fraught US-China relationship, which puts Australia in an awkward place.
Still, Morrison’s victory is likely to favor the US more than China, but how that will be done is unclear. For now, American commentators note that Democrats in the United States should take a lesson from the Australian election and be wary of alienating working class voters by a pushing a radical reform agenda.
Defeating Donald Trump
When infrastructure talks broke down this week between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, impeachment talk seemed to make a comeback with Pelosi accusing Trump of engaging in a “cover up.”
It seems Pelosi is now being pressured by more senior leaders, and not just her progressive backbenchers to pursue impeachment. This comes as Robert Mueller continues to fend off calls for public testimonial on his report.
Why the renewed push? It could be playing hard ball in policy negotiations, or it could be because Democrats believe it’s a strong point to run on as they look ahead to 2020.
And the elections kept coming...
This Weekly Brief comes to you the morning Theresa May announced her resignation from 10 Downing Street. I’ve posted a story on that on Facebook, but that’s actually not the European election to watch.
Rather, over the weekend, EU member countries will be casting votes for the EU Parliament. It’s another “hold onto your butts” moment for Europe as conservative populists and assorted right wing groups have made significant (and increasingly problematic) strides in national elections the last 3 years and now have their sights set on Brussels.
Should eurosceptic parties make major gains in the EU Parliament, it could significantly alter the character of the organization, and have a ripple effect across the continent in terms of economics and politics. In fact, Brookings argues that win or lose, the far right has already won in terms of influence and effect.
France and Germany, who have staked the most in terms of their power and influence on a united, powerful EU would stand to lose the most, which probably explains President Macron’s “all in” approach to defeating the populist right in France.
Border deaths
There’s an unfolding tragedy within a crisis on the US-Mexico border as five children have now died in Border Patrol custody since December. The deaths have been related to a flu outbreak hitting migrants at the border and in detention facilities, which is further raising concerns and criticisms about Trump administration policies and management of the border.
Curving the SAT
With a lot of attention on the unfolding celebrity admissions scandals, not much attention is being given to a quiet announcement by the College Board (the organization that administers the SAT) to start including an “adversity score” in its SAT scoring rubric.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: a grade curve. Essentially, College Board will use 15 socioeconomic indicators to develop a second score only visible to the college (no current plans for students to have access to their adversity score) to assist in make admissions decisions.
Coming up next...
June will mark the unveiling of the Trump Peace Plan, the much anticipated, ballyhooed, and generally unknown Mid East peace initiative being quarterbacked by Jared Kushner. Stay tuned.