America Votes: Where’s the tsunami?
The United States went to the polls, the world hung on the outcome…and breathed a sigh of relief. Trump at bay. But for how long? With what consequences? And we conclude with a cartoon from Bleibel.
Continuing our pledge that Andelman Unleashed will chronicle every presidential or national leadership election around the world, the focus today is on the United States and its landmark mid-terms. The world—at least the slice that embraces democracy—breathes a sigh of relief.
And coming to you today from Paris…where the red wave’s being seen as more of a ripple….
The morning after…
With many key races still in the balance, it was clear the worst cases, painted in at times apocalyptic terms across Europe, Asia and beyond, had failed to materialize. As I explained in my CNN column:
What Europe makes of America’s election results
PARIS (CNN)--On newspaper stands across the French capital and online, the early results of America’s national elections were quite evident Wednesday morning.
The world – or at least the slice of it that continues to embrace the political system called democracy – has breathed a tentative sigh of relief.
While key results may remain unresolved for some days, with the red wave reduced to a stream, America appears to have rejected the sharp turn toward the right that has marked so many other national elections this year. Or as France’s leading newspaper Le Monde put the uncertainty over Congress: “A bad surprise for Republicans”....
It’s worth pointing out just how far from the norm the American electorate seems to be veering in its absence of a strong right-wing drift Tuesday….
Now, more clearly into focus ….
Another 24 hours later, the picture is coming even more clearly into focus. The feeling in the vast bulk of the world’s media, and with some hesitation still in official circles as well, is that America may finally be as prepared to rid itself of Donald Trump as are the other democracies, who passed that mile marker long ago. Most are delighted by the results Tuesday, and their views of Joe Biden’s White House press conference are yet another indication of how deeply those hopes run.
The French daily Le Monde, which yesterday trumpeted “the democrats limit the losses,” in today’s paper begins searching for some explanation for this unattended yet utterly welcome development. And their astute Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar cuts directly to the chase. “Midterms 2022: Abortion and the excesses of Trumpism fueled the good scores of the Democrats,” reads the headline on his lead story. “The final composition of Congress remains uncertain. But the excellent resistance of Joe Biden's party is less the expression of a membership than of a double concern.” Turning to Biden’s White House press conference, he adds, “the President of the United States rejoiced in the obvious: the law of gravity in American politics [that holds] this election [should have] punished the party in power has been challenged.”
The largest center-right daily in France, Le Figaro, splashes a headline across its frontpage “America frozen in its divisions: A slim Republican majority awaits in the House, incertitude in the Senate: the ‘red wave’ hoped for by Donald Trump has not been unfurled. The political landscape emerging from the ‘midterms’ is evolving, leaving Joe Bidden and the democrats with the hope of limiting the damage.”
In Italy, where voters recently installed their own neo-fascist leader as its new prime minister and a far-right government, the leading Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera turns to Trump himself who it describes as “furious: Melania’s ‘fault,’ as she advised him to support Oz,” the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania who went down to defeat. Referring to the Democrats, Corriere’s Washington correspondent Giuseppe Sarcina writes, “The adversaries and Joe Biden were not ‘humiliated,’ as the ‘exiled’ leader in Mar-a-Lago hoped. But he seems willing to announce his candidacy for the White House, the third, on November 15.”
Indeed, Trump sent a blast e-mail at 8:05 pm Wednesday, an hour before Biden convened his triumphant White House press conference, Corriere actually calling attention to his trumpeting “I’m about to announce something huge in Mar-a-Lago and I want you to be there too.”
The paper adds, “A portrait of ‘The Donald’ smiling follows. In the background an invitation card….It all seems confirmed, then. Trump will announce his third White House candidacy on November 15. But the real moods don't match the postcard idyll….with polling stations still open, Donald Trump had already started talking about rigged elections.”
Few media in the United States or abroad seem to have paid much attention to an important answer President Biden offered to a question from CNN’s Phil Mattingly quoting a remark the president made last month: “The rest of the world is looking at this election…both the good guys and the bad guys….How should those world leaders, both good guys and bad guys, view this moment both for America and for your presidency?” Biden’s response: “Well, first of all, these world leaders know we’re doing better than anybody else in the world….So I think that the vast majority of my colleagues—at least those colleagues who are NATO members—European Union, Japan, South Korea, et cetera—I think they’re looking to cooperate and wanting to know how—how we can help one another.” Biden added that there “are not many other countries in the world that are in that position” which he described as “still growing at 2.6%, creating jobs, still in a solid position.”
Across Europe, the headlines mirrored a lot of the Biden script:
Slate.fr : “Joe Biden avoids the worst…the heavy defeat predicted for the Democrats didn’t happen.”
Le Parisien : A bit prematurely “After the result of the midterms, President Biden says he ‘has the intention’ of standing for re-election.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung : Correspondent Fabien Fellman in Washington reports “Biden basks in election result…The US President claims a historic electoral success in the midterm elections….Told you so, I said.” But then the reporter quickly asks, “Or did the Democrats do well despite Biden?”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Washington correspondent Majid Sattar observes “What difference 24 hours can make….Biden also sent a message to the Republicans, who should soon control the House of Representatives, albeit not with the majority they hoped for. He, Biden, is willing to work with the Republicans and find compromises. But he will not deviate from his agenda afterwards…..He doesn't believe that Trump's ‘Mega-MAGA-Republicans’ can be liberated from their delusion. But he thinks ‘that they are a minority in the Republican Party.’”
There are issues, of course, beyond Donald Trump and election rigging that are of prime concern across broad swaths of the world.
In Kyiv, there is above all the question of how the mid-terms might influence America’s hitherto unswerving intention of helping Ukraine at all costs. So Igor Kozlov, a columnist for one leading Kyiv newspaper Fakty, observes “for us this is the most important thing, most Republicans strongly support our country….” Illustrating their Scrabbled view of American politics….
“However, there are those who play on the sentiments of ordinary voters,” Kozlov continues in Fakty.
“These are Trump supporters and followers of the QAnon movement who believe in conspiracy theories and do not consider Biden to be the legitimately elected president. These politicians shout that they will not give Ukraine a single cent. The most prominent representative of this small group of Republicans is Congresswoman from Georgia Marjorie Taylor Green. There is a more serious team, whose members believe that helping Ukraine is important and necessary, but how Kyiv spends every dollar received should be strictly controlled. These policies can complicate the procedure for the allocation of aid, which is already serious, considering how important speed is for our country.”
At Sharm-el-Sheikh, some 40,000 delegates from 193 countries are halfway through the COP-27 session seeking to set a new global environmental agenda in the absence of the leaders of all but two of the world’s ten leading polluters and none of the top five, as Cairo-based Egypt Today pointed out, listing all the heads of state or government who showed up. “New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday that he will attend the conference after having been slammed for not attending,” the paper pointed out with some apparent pleasure. But, its report continued, “Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid cancelled plans to attend the COP-27 amid the Israeli legislative elections as the initial results show the winning of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s largest-circulation daily, Kompas, reports that Putin will also be skipping the G-20 summit at Bali this year. As Muhammad Samsul Hadi reports “Putin's absence eliminates the possibility of a confrontational atmosphere at the G20 summit,” adding that “leaders at the G20 Summit can put aside differences and produce a joint declaration to calm geopolitical tensions.” As for the American elections, the paper’s Kris Mada observes, “A number of politicians’ support has fallen, Trump’s fortune has faded….There has been a focus on the defeat of a number of Trump-backed politicians.”
In Beijing, the government-controlled People’s Daily has finally weighed in with its view of the mid-terms, observing “US dysfunctional politics makes the world sweat…This is an internal US matter, and the outside world has limited interest in its process and results….
“Nevertheless the elections have sparked widespread concerns in the international community,” People’s Daily continues. “To use an analogy, it is like seeing a group fight not far from your home, and you may be hit by a brick thrown out suddenly….The Republican Party still obsessed about whether the result of the presidential election two years ago was "fair," while the Democratic Party repeatedly made the election a ‘referendum’ on American democracy. The American people are suffering from the worst inflation in four decades and fears of a recession, but their concerns have been diluted. The two parties have tried their best to incite and kidnap voters with ideological language, which further exacerbates the uncertainty and destructiveness of the elections.”
Finally, there’s Hassan Bleibel….
The great Lebanese cartoonist sees America’s midterms leaving Trump cut loose from the capitol in Washington and apparently still filled with hot air, yet lightly tethered while drifting off into a sky still studded with little black clouds.
Bleibel is the lead cartoonist for the Lebanese newspapers Almustaqbal and the Daily Star and is a member of the Cartooning for Peace collective.
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We’ll continue to follow all the world’s elections, of course, to the finish. Be sure to check back regularly for updates.
This has been quite clearly an epiphanal year that Andelman Unleashed has been chronicling as the global—at times corrupt—right has been swept into power or accumulated powerful positions in such disparate nations as Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Kenya, the Philippines, Israel, even France…. And corrupt incumbencies with roots in such forces have managed to retain power in other nations. We will continue to chronicle these new power centers and the forces that oppose them as a central theme of Andelman Unleashed. Next up, the snap election in Malaysia on November 19, followed by Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Fiji, winding up with Guinea-Bissau on December 18.
That is so VERY kind, Ann.... I always treasure attentive and intelligent readers!
SO, spread the word !!
;-)
If only more Americans would take the time to look at how the rest of the world sees us. Thank you for your work