This Week’s News
How fares the left?
In the ongoing narrative of left vs right and Democrat vs Republican we often lose sight of the fact both parties have internal factions that don’t see eye to eye. Today, on the Republican side the divide is mostly between those who like/love Trump and those who don’t, the “Never Trump” faction being the most extreme version of this. With the Democrats this is less about the personality of Biden and more about the divide between moderate and progressive voters. It’s hard to say which divide is more of a disadvantage. To the “Never Trump” tweaking the policies won’t matter as Trump will still be in charge, but changes may encourage more of the rest of the base to come out and might influence independents. The Democratic side is more complicated. Policies that the moderates support are anathema to progressives (and vice versa). The news this week illustrates some of the challenges face by Biden heading into the election.
While AOC made her Biden campaign debut in Vegas earlier this week demonstrating Democrat’s belief in the need for progressive support, not everyone is happy. Biden’s continued support for Israel in its war with Hamas is not going over well with progressives. This presents Biden with a dilemma, distance the party from Israel to shore up the progressive vote or continue to support Israel and keep the moderates happy. There is already an indication trying to straddle the line between the two sides won’t work. Jamaal Bowman, a member of the progressive “squad,” lost a primary challenge in New York’s 16th Congressional District this week largely due to his pro-Hamas comments and his opposition to support for Israel. In a blow to progressives, Bowman didn’t just lose, he was crushed.
Bowman’s loss may only be the first indication that progressives are losing influence within the Democratic Party. Representative Ilhan Omar, who has faced criticism for what many see as antisemitic comments, is herself facing a challenge from within her own party heading into the primary for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. Challenger Don Samuels is hoping to cast Omar “as a divisive figure on the issue” and given her record of anti-Israeli comments shouldn’t prove too difficult.
In what may be further evidence to the weakness of the progressive left is a recent poll which shows that 18% of Biden voters in battleground states will not support him in 2024. If this is due to the state of the economy, then they might still be persuaded to vote for him in November. However, if these are people who voted for Biden based on his 2020 position as a moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Biden’s attempts to woo progressives with such policies as student debt relief and new emissions targets for cars may keep these voters away permanently.
In Biden’s attempts to please both moderates and progressives he may be forgetting Aesop’s famous warning: “please all and you please none.”
The Left’s troubles are not restricted to the US. Earlier this month European Union elections saw the right (broadly labeled “the far right” in the legacy media but we’re used to that by now) make significant gains in Germany, France, and Italy.
This trend is likely seeing an emergence in Canada as well as a long time Liberal riding of Toronto-St. Paul's went to the Conservative Party for the first time in over 30 years.
Is this an indication that people have grown tired of left-wing politicians? Perhaps, however in England the Conservatives look to be headed for resounding defeat in the next election. If UK sees a shift to the left and the upcoming French elections result in a shift to the right, recent election results may be less about political ideology than an indication that the public is fed up with the failure of any government, left, right, or center, to address longstanding issues be they inflation, mass immigration, or housing. If so, this should be a wakeup call for politicians to begin taking the voting public seriously. Another possibility of course is that this is a widespread rejection of “elites.” If so, expect large gains by “populist” parties.
Election Related News
It’s tempting to say that tonight’s debate between Presidents Biden and Trump is the only election news that matters this week. That’s a bit of a stretch but I think it qualifies as the most visible election related event of the week. A small part of me is tempted to watch the debate but then the rest of me remembers what passes for a debate these days and honestly shouting, talking over each other, and lying pales in comparison to my other choice which is watching the season finale of Dark Matter1. I’ll most likely do what most people do and read a summary of the debate tomorrow.
The big question tonight is who will win? I do not think it will be a question of whose policies are best but rather which candidate manages to get over the ridiculously low bars that have been for them. For Biden it will come down to whether or not he can remain coherent for 90 minutes (i.e. not senile) while Trump challenge will be to come across as even tempered and well behaved (i.e. normal). On second thought the bars might be higher than I first thought. Gun to my head? Trump will win.
Election Tracking
This week’s PredictIt “values” have Trump and Biden converging again proving (in case it wasn’t already obvious) that no one seems to know who’s going to win. Will the debate make a difference? Anything is possible, I guess.
Trump – 52 cents (-2)
Biden - 45 cents (+3)
This betting average data also converged somewhat this week although Trump remains the favorite of over half the betters. As of Wednesday the odds to win were:
Trump – 51.7% (-0.5%)
Biden – 35.7% (+2.4%)
Other – 12.6% (-1.6%)
In the first big change in quite some time, the aggregated polls now show Biden leading Trump by 0.2% after Trump lost 0.2% and Biden gained 0.5%.
The Electoral College projections remain unchanged which shouldn’t come as a surprise given how tight the race remains.
What I’m Reading
Lost amongst the cries of “AI will kill us all” are the stories that reveal just how much AI relies on people to do anything. Sure, ChatGPT may help students cheat on their term papers, but really, how hard is it for a computer program to look slightly less grammatically challenged than the average undergrad humanities student? In a recent BBC story, Emma Woollacott describes “AI washing,” a new term used when a company overstates AI capabilities or makes them up entirely. The example used in this story describes Amazon’s use of around 1000 workers in India to manually verify 75% of the transactions in the company’s new AI-powered “Just Walk Out” technology.
Non-Political Item of the Week
For the second week in a row I have two non-political news stories proving that they are out there if you’re willing to look (just like aliens and Big Foot! I’m kidding…or am I?).
While the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003 and scientists are now able to identify “genetic variants linked to different chronic illnesses” relatively quickly, much work remains to be done. One of the areas ripe for study are gene deserts, “swathes of the genome that initially appeared to contain nothing of relevance.” Scientists are hoping that the study of these areas will help improve our understanding of tumor development, rare diseases such as lupus, and “ultimately help improve the notoriously inefficient drug development process” which sees only about 10% of drugs ever being approved following clinical studies.
This is arguably the most exciting time for space exploration since the days of the space race in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Private space flight, interstellar exploration, and asteroid mining are all either underway or being treated as legitimate ideas. While asteroid mining is not quite a reality, returning material from the moon is once again in the news. This week saw China’s Chang’e 6 mission return material from the far side of the moon. It is thought that material from the far side of the moon “could help answer some vexing questions about the solar system's early history.”
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
Most weeks I’m faced with the challenge of selecting the best podcast to recommend. That has not been the case this week as interesting podcasts have been few and far between (at least with respect to the ones I typically listen to). The only one worth recommending is Bari Weiss’ interview of Seth Frantzman and John Spencer. Frantzman is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post and an Adjunct Fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Spencer is a military expert who has served in the US army for 25 years, including two combat tours in Iraq. He is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast.
Their topic was: Can Israel Actually Win This War?
As those who read my article on Just War know (see link below), this is an important requirement for a war to be considered just. Both interviewees think th e answer to the question is “yes” but the results are not a foregone conclusion.
If you’re interested in an intelligent show that does not preach to you, I recommend Dark Matter.
Bowman may have lost by a wide margin, but let's not look past the fact that in a primary race (so not about left versus right) 42% of the voting members of the constituents in his district were okey dokey with his rampant anti semitism and racist views.