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In divided America, anything goes in the name of “protecting democracy"
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your Monday morning. Let's talk for a moment about the state of US politics, US democracy. It's the one thing that almost all Americans today can agree on, and that is that their political opponents at home are fundamentally opposed to democracy.
Now, that is actually something I think that unites Americans in kind of a weird way. If you are a Biden supporter, you believe that Trump and MAGA supporters are fundamentally opposed to democracy. If you are a MAGA supporter, you believe that Biden and the establishment Democrats are fundamentally opposed to American democracy. It is incredibly dysfunctional. It is no way to operate a government.
It is no way to build a nation. And that means, you know, when you believe that your political opponents are opposed to democracy, you take away their value as people, you think that their political views are wrong and they need to be erased. They don't need to be engaged with sensibly. You also believe that anything that you might do to ensure that your opponents don't take power is justified because you're fighting over something very essential. And so it's kind of Machiavellian. It's the ends justify the means. Any means are justified if your opponents are fundamentally opposed to your system. And I mean, I certainly have political views of who I think is and is not appropriate. And I've said that historically, and I will continue to with this election. But this piece is not about this.
This piece is about the need not to jump into “the ends justify the means” in American politics, not believing that every slight or perceived slight is an 11 on a ten point scale. I think that Trump has committed real crimes, in my view. I look at his unwillingness, for example, to respond to the FBI and efforts to obscure, actively obscure where his classified documents were and weren’t and get his people to move them and lie about it. It's never the crime itself. It's the cover up of the crime that really gets you in trouble. That does, I think, make a real difference in the way that the classified documents case plays out for Trump as it did for Biden, who should not have had documents in many places but was completely forthcoming in responding to government requests.
I also think that for Trump, the Georgia case, in attempting to overturn to find votes in an election, a state election that was administered by, run by members of his own Republican Party, that's a serious issue. I think it would be impeachable. But impeachment no longer functions as a check on the executive in the United States. That part of the US political system is broken, has become politicized. It should be tried in a court of law, is being tried in a court of law. But there will be no conviction, in my view, certainly not before the election is over. And it's been mishandled by the prosecutor for her own ethical lapses. Now, that case does not make me feel that all cases against Trump are legitimate or should be pursued.
Some of them, in my view, are ridiculous. The fact that a bond was set for almost half a billion dollars and then a New York court said, no, actually 175 million implies that the original setting of that bond was politicized against Trump. A felony charge in New York would have been misdemeanor for any other citizen, politicized by a district attorney that was looking to make a name for himself politically in a state that is overwhelmingly anti-Trump. Take Trump off the ballot in Colorado or other states too. Ridiculous. Not in accordance with rule of law. And thankfully, a divided Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that that should not proceed. Nonetheless, there were lots of intelligent people in several states, in the United States in positions of authority that believed that they should take Trump off the ballot.
Because if someone is trying to destroy democracy, anything you do against that person is acceptable. We see these kinds of things being promoted in the political hit jobs that are being done across the board by cable news and in social media. The headlines you would think you were in two different countries. The people you follow, you'd think that they reflect two different worlds, never mind world views.
This happened yet again. This Easter weekend. Here I was minding my own business, candlepin bowling with the family on Easter Sunday, and turns out that it is proclaimed by Biden that Easter is the Transgender Day of Visibility. Easter Sunday. Can you believe that? What he or she is risen? Is that what we've come to as America? I mean, you can just imagine that the anti-Biden folks were apoplectic that he could do that. And of course, it turns out a little bit of research. That's not what happened at all. Actually turns out that the Transgender Day of Visibility is not new. It's been going on for over a decade. It's always on March 31st, which is only Easter Sunday. Every seven years, give or take a leap year. And there are literally hundreds and hundreds of days all throughout the year that get proclaimed as various days. And nobody really cares or pays attention except that we're in stupid season right now in a country where the most important thing politically is that you are able to score a point and take a piece off of your political opponent.
And the more we do that, the less we can talk to our fellow citizens. And it's not the country that any of us actually want to live in. It is being driven by political entrepreneurs that use that violent political sensibility to stay in power, to achieve power, to make money. It's being driven by media organizations that are having a hard time raising money to continue to feed their shareholders.
And so as a consequence, they are much more willing to drive anything, any headline for clicks. And of course, it's being driven by algorithms and social media that only give you the things that you agree with or that are going to make you very angry and to drive more and more engagement. And every one is very easily shaped by that.
Even if you spend only a little bit of time on politics. But that time is always being pushed in favor of you and your political tribe and opposed to the tribe that you want to defeat, then there is no common ground. There's no sensibility. Anything they say is wrong and should be used against them. Anything you and your team say is correct. And if you believe that and if you're following people who only engage in support in one side of the partisan divide, then you are part of a propaganda bubble. You are being misled politically, you're being spun up, you're being taken advantage of, you're being used. And increasingly that is the dominant theme in this very long, very expensive US election.
And I am going to continue to do everything I can to refuse to play ball in that easier, since I'm not a member of a political party and I've never been in a political position. Harder in the sense that everyone's going to whack you one time or another if you irritate their sensibilities. But at the end of the day, I'd be unhappy with myself if I did anything else, and that kind of matters, right? So anyway, that's my view for this election. I'm sure I'll come back to this theme again and again. But it seems to have been a lot in the headlines of late, so I thought I would make mention of it.
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When did people stop trusting the media?
There was a time, not so long ago, when people trusted the media, and not just their specific corners of it. Walter Cronkite. Edward R. Murrow. Dan Rather. These were people all Americans relied on to understand the world, and they did so without suspicion. Today, we live in a different reality (or multiple realities, in fact). But according to media historian Nicole Hemmer, the war on trust began decades ago.
Starting back in the 1970s, Hemmer says, "...it was advantageous to the Republican Party to try to create an alternative to the mainstream media, an alternative to the Walter Cronkites...We see that with Fox News in the '90s, but also with the rise of talk radio, and then to some extent, the rise of alternative social networks that's happening now."
Hemmer joined media journalist and former CNN host Brian Stelter on a special panel interview for GZERO World with Ian Bremmer. The two discussed how the hyper-fragmented media landscape in which we find ourself has actually been decades in the making. And they look ahead to the 2024 election and consider how media companies can rebuild trust with Americans during such a crucial time for democracy.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: "Politics, trust & the media in the age of misinformation"
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
US Ambassador to Canada addresses concerns over Trump indictment and political turmoil
David Cohen, the US ambassador to Canada, doesn't seem too worried about the indictment of former President Donald Trump affecting his job. But that's not to say that US politics aren't stirring up some commotion in Canada.
In conversation with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, Cohen was questioned on how a potential Trump comeback could impact Canada, as well as the extent to which the US is exporting its political turmoil.
Canadian Ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman, chimed in, acknowledging that Canada has historically been sensitive to US politics.
With an appetite for American media, Canadians are not immune to the ripple effects of political unrest south of the border. The two ambassadors agreed on one thing: political polarization is a menacing global issue that poses a significant threat to democracy.
Note: this interview appeared in an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on April 10, 2023, "What the US and Canada really want from each other"
Students from the Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., hold hands after getting off a bus to meet their parents at the reunification site following a mass shooting.
Hard Numbers: Nashville school shooting, Rohingya flee to Indonesia, Deutsche disruption, America’s tumbling tolerance, white-collar AI wipeout
6: Six people, including three young children and three adults, were killed on Monday at the Covenant School, a private Christian primary school in Nashville, Tenn. Audrey Hale, a former student, was identified as the shooter. The 28-year-old was shot and killed by police during the attack, the 130th mass shooting in the US this year.
184: That’s how many Rohingya refugees landed in Indonesia’s western Aceh province on Monday. Each year, asylum-seekers flee persecution in Myanmar by making the treacherous voyage through the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to reach Muslim-majority Indonesia or Malaysia.
24: Transportation across Germany ground to a halt Monday in the country’s largest walkout in decades. Unions called a rare 24-hour strike to press for a double-digit rise wage hike amid soaring inflation — partly due to Germany kicking its Russian natural gas habit over the war in Ukraine.
58: So much for loving thy neighbor. A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll finds that just 58% of Americans believe that tolerance for others is very important, down from 80% four years ago. People in the US now prioritize money more than patriotism and religion. Why? Experts cite the economy, COVID, and fractured politics.
300 million: Generative artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT — which can create human-like content — could put a whopping 300 million people out of work within a decade in big economies. According to Goldman Sachs, lawyers and administrative staff are the most at risk, and two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe could be exposed to some form of automation.
Toxic social media & American divisiveness
Are America's social and political divisions a greater threat to its future than any external force? On this episode of GZERO World, tech expert and NYU Professor Scott Galloway argues that despite its geopolitical and economic strength, America's social fabric is fraying due to “a lack of camaraderie, patriotism, and connective tissue.”
He blames social media for creating the sense that things are much worse than they are and worries that artificial intelligence may only make a growing problem much worse.
Galloway suggests antitrust measures, criminal charges, and mandatory national service as possible solutions to the problems America is facing. “I don’t think this will get better until someone a, key executive at a big tech company is criminally charged and walked off.”
Watch the full interview with Galloway on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: The AI arms race begins: Scott Galloway’s optimism & warnings
The AI arms race begins: Scott Galloway’s optimism & warnings
As the world embraces the power of AI, there are growing concerns about the potential consequences of this double-edged sword. On this episode of GZERO World, tech expert and NYU Professor Scott Galloway sheds light on the darker side of AI, with social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok being used as espionage and propaganda tools to manipulate younger generations. But don't lose hope yet. AI can speed up search and help predict the next big trend, says Galloway. He emphasizes the potential of AI and language structure-driven search to revolutionize traditional search methods, and the value of social media data sets for decision-making.
Galloway also expresses concern about the negative effects of extreme political polarization and a lack of camaraderie in the US, which he attributes to social media creating the sense that things are much worse than they are. He proposes one bold solution: mandatory national service. But he also recommends efforts to bring young people together and to hold social media companies accountable.
And let's not forget about population decline - it's a big problem. Galloway thinks we can fix it with better job security and an open immigration policy to get the best minds on board.
Watch "GZERO World with Ian Bremmer" every week on US public television and on gzeromedia.com.
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Can sports fans save America?
You already know that America is getting more polarized by the day. Democrats and Republicans hardly live together, work together, or hang out together the way they used to.
But a new book called Fans Have More Friends argues that highly-engaged sports fans are less politically polarized, have greater trust in institutions, and generally live happier lives.
To learn more, GZERO's Alex Kliment met up with one of the book's authors, Dave Sikorjak, a marketing consultant who studies the motivations of sports fans. Where'd Alex and Dave link up? Where else -- at a tailgate in Philadelphia ahead of a game between the Giants and the Eagles. It all went great until Alex got taped to the front of a bus, but you'll get to that...
Back to divided government: Biden's silver lining from a Republican House
The GOP was gearing up for a red wave in the US midterms. But in the end, it was just a ripple, and while the Republicans narrowly won the House Democrats kept the Senate.
Why? Democrats turned out more voters worried about democracy and abortion, NPR's White House correspondent Tamara Keith tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Divided government with such tight margins, she says, now means two things. First, nothing much is going to get done in Congress for two years.
Second, Republicans will have a hard time overcoming dysfunction in the House.