future shrouded
Forecasts mixed these days
As I have mentioned, I read a variety of things every day to prepare this column. I don’t believe it intellectually healthy to consume only a single source of news, though I respect not everyone has as much time (or stomach, depending on the topic) to read for hours. Some of my sources are foreign while most are domestic but they are all staffed by professional journalists to the best of my knowledge. Yes, I am sure they err at times but I view journalism as a profession with ethics that true practitioners respect. I don’t read anything for the distinct purpose of promoting partisan views, in other words, but am realistic enough to know every single person has a bias as that’s human nature. It’s my job to factor that into my thinking while also triangulating between many sources to see how topics appear.
Enough explanation but in through all these things, I was fascinated to note two completely opposite data points in world voting. It’s human nature to seek an easily digestible explanation for our world so we can move on to something else. Today’s news illustrates why that isn’t nearly as simple as it sounds nor is it useful as we ponder the world ahead.
I have said repeatedly that I don’t believe straight-lining outcomes is either effective or desirable though we do it. These two cases illustrate why that is hard on the macro level. Then I toss in a few additional observations.
Romania had a peculiar outcome yesterday when Calin Georgesçu became the frontrunner the presidential run by relying on TikTok adverts rather than by earning the backing of a major party. He likely could not entice support from one of the major parties at least partly because of his declared warmth for Russia, not always a good move in Central Europe. But Georgesçu’s strong position as a conservative voice in this country of 19 million shook up the race by casting the Kremlin’s leader in a decidedly more positive light than most other world leaders (Viktor Orban and Donald Trump excepted). Most relevant for our perspective, since the power resides in the Prime Minister rather than Romania’s head of state, is that people embracing demonstrably anti-NATO (even as an Alliance member for just over two decades) canddiate may not strengthen Putin’s hand in undermining the post-World War II system we so closely identify with upholding but is there any chance this vote be a canary in the coal mine?
Georgesçu may well not win the position in the the run off but he is a figure considerably more conservative than the the pro-western Prime Minister who westerners expected to win the presidency. A victory by Georgesçu would not guarantee he fulfilled a campaign promise to withdraw aid from bordering Ukraine but would certainly be further strain as the pro-Ukrainian global coalition already looking less firm with President-elect Trump’s election earlier this month. The incoming U.S. president is simply less keen on Ukraine as worthy of our commitments.
Simultaneously, Uruguay held a presidential contest where left-of-center Yamandú Orsi Martínez, a left of center presidential candidate, leads with 46% of the vote after an initial ballot. Perhaps sobering, the news report I first read in Semifor.com noted the vote transpired without much tension, unlike recent regional votes in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil; I would add the United States where many predicted (incorrectly as we know) civil strife. That we would have to comment on normalcy versus chaos or reneging on voting results is not what we expect to hear in 2024. A run off will occur in the near term which Orsi Martínez seems likely to win with the overall trends here for several decades.
Uruguay represents an underappreciated success for democratic rule over the past forty years. Second smallest physical footprint of any state in Latin America as a nation smaller than the state of Washington, the country suffered tremendous violence inflicted by the Tupumaros attempting revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The military eradicated the guerrilleros but inflicted repression between 1972 and the mid-1980s at which time the population ousted the so-called “national security” regime in favor of a re-embracing long-standing democracy. Uruguayans in the capital Montevideo can watch the lights of Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata but surely are relieved to eschew the financial, political, and social chaos so often true to the south over the past century.
A primarily pastoral, export economy, Uruguay largely embraced left-of-center politics after sending the armed forces packing in 1985. Long a nation known for its resourcefulness in protecting international banking, Uruguay has found a way to navigate its own course between its two gigantic neighbors of Brazil and Argentina while amiable with all regional states. Yamandú Orsi Martínez would appear likely to retain similar policies for this population of 3.5 million, overwhelmingly city dwellers. One other curiosity about this country is that Roman Catholics are only the plurality with several other Christian sects practicing side by side.
The election results this year show some leftist wins and other rightist victories but the binary “win/loss” question hides some of the factors swirling across many electorates. President-elect Trump returns to the White House with a smallish conservative margin constituted of a more diverse Republican coalition than in past campaigns Romania’s future remains to be settled but the appeal of conservative ideas seems clear. Prime Minister Kishida is gone in Japan and his successor Ishiba was unable to assure the traditional LDP outright power, challenged by a female-led opposition demanding improvements in the “bread and butter” challenges so common in industrialized societies: housing and food prices along with an anorexic economy. Indian Prime Minister Modi kept the prime ministership in India with the opposition curbing some of his power in this year’s elections. Similarly, French President Macron’s decision to hold a snap election undermined his party’s position viz-a-viz long-time nemesis, the French rightists, the two sides split on immigration and the cultural norms for the nation.
Several conservative leaders like the Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol as yet face dreadful polling numbers. Only Prime Minister Netanyahu, by virtue of his perceived successes on the battlefield against mortal enemies in Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, seems bucking the trend but still faces harsh divisions in Israeli society so his reprieve in polling may be temporary.
On the other hand, more liberal leaders in Britain’s Keir Starmer celebrated a smashing victory while Orsi Martínez likely will win as well. Claudia Scheinman’s victory in succeeding Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a vote towards continuing his leftist policies but she has yet to provide too much evidence for quite how she will govern except assuring some discrete changes in administrative structure.
Voters also selected Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia and William Lai in Taiwan, neither fitting neatly into left or right categorization. I am not sure how to characterize nationalism on a political spectrum these days as traditional terms seem inadequate.
In short, as we near the conclusion of calendar year 2024, the word coming to mind about voters is fickle across the board. So, in this year of elections, the results are pretty mixed. Further voting extravaganzas will occur next year but I hesitate to predict some clear trend as nothing seems certain.
Yet global topics requiring much work loom. We see evidence of increases instead of decreases in carbon emissions from one of the two largest economies while the other huge carbon emitter seems more disinclined daily to worry about rising temperatures or seawater levels. Disappointing results at the U.N. climate talks closing last week remind all that one of the most pressing topics divides far more than it unites. Expanded global trade, that engine of socio-economic amelioration for billions of people, is similarly finding world leaders without much apparent appetite for working together, preferring instead to look only within borders rather than across them. It’s hard to imagine how another pandemic would be addressed yet we know it lurks as possible day in and day out. We were thus hopeful that conditions will incentivize improvements but evidence does not assure that.
Everything seems to be in slow motion, perhaps waiting for president-elect Trump to return yet watching two major regional conflicts continue in the Middle East and along the Russo-Ukrainian border. Neither conflict is near resolution as the world watches anxiously, always aware things could get far worse before they turn better as all parties dig in.
Actions create consequences whether immediate or ever so gradually. These new governing officials on the political stage of their countries play an immediate role in domestic governance but it’s not clear to me, at least, how they will situate their nations on the global stage, regardless of campaign promises. Turns out it’s much harder to change things when you really are accountable to the voters than when you’re hectoring ideas in a campaign. Time will tell, won’t it?
I genuinely hope you’ll weigh in today as this is meant to be a dialogue on complicated questions affecting all of us. Thank you for your time. Please feel free to correct, opine, question, or suggestion on any of these individuals or specific policy questions.
The Spa Creek flotilla arrived today! Ducks appear every winter on Spa Creek so I dubbed them the flotilla. Thank goodness they protect us from Canada geese or whatever it is that they see coming our way after the sailboats depart.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Sibi Arasu, Melina Walling, Seth Borenstein, and Michael Phillis, “A proposed deal on climate cash at UN summit highlights split between rich and poor nations”, APNews.com, 22 November 2024, retrieved at https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-cop29-climate-change-talks-baku-fossil-fuels-c0c88a55939837b6898df5cfbc640cfb
Brad Plumer and Mira Rojanasakul, “How China’s Soaring Emissions are Upending Climate Talks”, NewYorkTimes.com, 19 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/19/climate/china-emissions-fossil-fuels-climate.html
“Shocking Roumanian Election”, Semafor.com, 25 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/25/2024/semafor-flagship-using-fiction-to-plan-for-the-future?utm_source=newslettershare&utm_medium=flagship&utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered2
“Uruguay’s Center-Left Win”, Semafor.com, 25 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/25/2024/semafor-flagship-using-fiction-to-plan-for-the-future?utm_source=newslettershare&utm_medium=flagship&utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered5