Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Graphic Truth: America's podcast boom
Is 2024 the Podcast Election? For the first time, US presidential candidates are sitting for lengthy interviews on popular podcasts, while doing fewer traditional spots with mainstream media.
Donald Trump, for example, has appeared on pods hosted by, among others, controversial gaming streamer Adin Ross, YouTube influencer Logan Paul, pro-wrestler The Undertaker, comedian and actor Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman and, of course, Joe Rogan, who boasts the largest podcast audience in America.
Those all cater chiefly to young men – no accident given Trump’s focus on that demographic in an election increasingly shaped by notions of gender.
Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has appeared on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy,” the top women-focused podcast, as well as “Club Shay Shay,” hosted by pro Football hall of famer Shannon Sharpe; “All the Smoke,” hosted by two former NBA champs; and “The Howard Stern Show.”
Whether the vice president too will appear on Rogan is unclear. As of Tuesday, Rogan said she hadn’t met his terms, a striking illustration of the podcaster’s power: Most traditional media would leap to accommodate a sitting VP.
Why the pod? One answer is: In a polarized environment where the credibility of traditional media has cratered, podcasters reach large subcultures of American voters who see them as authentic and trustworthy. And the conversational podcast setup is generally friendlier to candidates than traditional media interviews.
Another answer is: Because lots of people listen to podcasts now. Here’s a graphic showing the staggering growth in podcast listenership since the medium first arose in the mid-2000s, and a breakdown of listenership in 2024 alone.
How will the podcast shape the election? That remains to be heard, as it were – but we, like nearly half of America these days, are listening more closely than ever.Graphic Truth: BRICS economies eclipse the G7
In 2001, a Goldman Sachs economist coined an acronym for the four largest and most promising “emerging market” economies: Brazil, Russia, India, and China became known as the “BRIC” countries.
Five years later, reality imitated art when the countries decided to begin meeting regularly at “BRIC summits,” with the latest occurring in Kazan, Russia, this week. The subsequent inclusion of South Africa upgraded the “s” to a capital letter: the BRICS.
The group, which lacks formal treaties or binding obligations, has always been united more by what it opposes — US dominance of global financial systems — than by what it supports.
After all, it’s a hodgepodge: energy exporters (Brazil and Russia) and importers (China and India), democracies (India and Brazil) and non-democracies (China and Russia), allies (Russia ❤️China) and adversaries (India x China).
But the economic clout of the group is, on paper, formidable. With the addition of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates this year, the BRICS+ economies account for 36% of global GDP – while the G7 group of wealthy democracies amount to just 29%. But, of course, there’s a catch: China and the US each contribute more than half of their respective group’s GDP.
Here’s a look at the economic size, and breakdown, of the BRICS+ and the G7 group it hopes one day to eclipse — not only economically but also geopolitically.
Graphic Truth: Biggest contributors to UN peacekeeping
UN Peacekeeping is all about helping countries navigate the often rocky transition out of violent conflict, with the hope of laying the groundwork for a lasting peace. For over 70 years, peacekeepers have been deployed around the world to help maintain security, protect civilians and human rights, and oversee peace processes. There are currently 11 active peacekeeping missions around the world.
Canada played a central role in the early development of UN Peacekeeping. In 1957, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his vital role in establishing a UN Emergency Force that helped resolve the Suez Crisis of 1956 in Egypt.
UN Peacekeeping is financed by UN member states — and has a budget of roughly $6.4 billion — with countries like the US, China, and Japan among the top financial contributors. Meanwhile, the biggest contributors of personnel to UN Peacekeeping are Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. Do you think UN Peacekeeping is worth all that goes into it? We’d love to hear from you!Graphic Truth: How many countries can fit in China?
China’s population, once the largest in the world, is now gradually shrinking. The problem has become so acute that the authorities last week raised the pension age by up to five years due to fears that there might not be enough working-age people to support the country’s pension system.
Still, even as the world’s second most populous country – India is now first – China boasts a vast population of some 1.4 billion people.
To put that in perspective, the country is home to nearly one out of every five earthlings.
In fact, of China’s nearly three dozen primary administrative districts, the two most populous – Guangdong and Shandong – alone contain more people than 99% of other entire countries.
Here is a look at China’s provinces expressed (give or take a few million people) as the populations of other entire countries.
For more on the challenge that China faces in maintaining its population, see here.Graphic Truth: Hurricanes US and Canada
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is shaping up to be exceptionally active, with forecasts predicting 17-25 named storms, including 8-13 hurricanes and 4-7 major hurricanes. This surge in activity is driven by unusually warm Atlantic waters and El Niño conditions.
Hurricanes are becoming increasingly expensive for the US, with recent storms like Ian in 2022 and Ida in 2021 causing over $113 billion and $75 billion in damages, respectively. This trend is exacerbated by climate change, which intensifies storms and raises sea levels, amplifying coastal flooding.
Graphic Truth: Big bombs get big budgets in 2023
The world’s nuclear powers increased their spending on these apocalyptic weapons by a record 13% between 2022 and 2023, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Cumulatively, they spent a cool $91.4 billion on building, maintaining, and researching nuclear weapons.
Well over half of that spending came from the United States, to the tune of $51 billion. The next highest spenders were China and Russia, with comparatively frugal expenditures of $11 billion and $8 billion, respectively. The increases were not driven by building new weapons — arsenal levels remained fairly stable, according to a different study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — but instead by developing new technology to target and launch the weapons.
The US and UK, which saw the largest increases in nuclear spending, are developing new rockets and submarines that they hope will help deter attacks. The US, UK, Russia, China, France, India, and North Korea are also reportedly developing so-called hypersonic missiles, which can travel over five times the speed of sound to avoid interception.
That amount of spending comes to $2,898 every second — roughly what the average global household makes in three months. As if spending vast amounts on weapons that could effectively end the world in about two hours wasn't tragic enough, in countries like North Korea and Pakistan, endemic poverty and economic stagnation mean every dollar spent on nukes is one less spent on food, fuel, and medicine.
The Graphic Truth: America's racial wealth gap
Juneteenth celebrates June 19, 1865, the day the last Black slaves in America were emancipated after the end of the Civil War. In the century and a half since, segregation, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of overt discrimination against Blacks have all contributed to a persistent wealth gap between Black and non-Black Americans. Here, we take a look at a few indicators that illustrate the divide.
Graphic Truth: Asian American population boom
Asian Americans had the highest population growth rate among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States between 2000 and 2019, rising roughly 81% to about 24 million people. The boom – driven mainly by immigration – is projected to continue, rising to 35.8 million by 2060, more than triple their 2000 population.
Historically, Asians have been subject to exclusionary policies in the US thanks to racial prejudice and economic fears. This began with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers and denied citizenship, and the 1924 Immigration Act, which banned all Asian immigrants. The US began relaxing immigration restrictions in 1943, culminating in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished racial quotas and allowed more diverse Asian immigration.
Today, the Asian population in the US is complex, tracing its roots to more than 20 countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. But discrimination is still rampant. With the outbreak of COVID-19, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, there was a sharp rise in physical attacks against Asian Americans. Today, 87% of Asian Americans say they face societal discrimination, and 26% say they fear someone might threaten or attack them because of their race or ethnicity.
As we mark Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — officially proclaimed for the first time in 1990 — we look at the growth of the Asian American population over the past century.