Ian Bremmer’s quick take: Hey everyone. Ian Bremmer here with a quick take to kick off the week. There’s a lot going on, especially the big elections. The French election results are in. The UK election results are in. The Iranian election results are in. Of course, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the United States. My biggest takeaway is that this is the worst time for an incumbent.
This is a really difficult question. A big reason why people don’t really talk about it is because the pandemic is already behind us. If I’m talking to you right now, your life has been changed a lot by the pandemic in ways that you never imagined, right? I mean, we’ve all had to deal with social distancing and wearing masks and getting vaccinated. And not only that, but of course the global economy stopped, people didn’t move around for several years. Huge amounts of money, trillions of dollars, were spent, and we got through an incredibly difficult time. But behind the scenes, all of a sudden, there was no money given to everyone, and we had inflation because the supply chain and demand suddenly moved. These are costs that people are paying, people don’t have the checks that were coming in during the pandemic, and if you’re working or middle class, those savings have already been spent. And people are starting to move again. Not just from city to city, but all over the world. So migration is really on the rise. And you don’t want to be the leader that’s going to be held responsible when something like that happens. This is definitely a big part of what happened in France. It’s a big part of what happened in the UK, South Africa, India.
A lot of these elections are due to people being dissatisfied with the current government because it’s an unprecedented situation, and people are having a hard time dealing with that. Don’t get me wrong, there are other issues. And certainly in the UK, this is happening against the backdrop of Brexit and the perceived incompetence of successive Conservative Prime Ministers who were elected by the party, not the people. Labour did as well in 2024 as they did in 2019. I think they elected 33% to 34% of the total population. It was never a landslide victory, but the Conservative Party collapsed because the people were dissatisfied. And that’s really the story. The incumbent government is not doing well.
Macron’s approval ratings are not good. He lost a lot of seats in France, and the far-right has doubled in parliament. The far-left and Macron’s non-centrist left-wing coalition are also doing much better than expected. In fact, Macron’s centrist party is number one. Percentage-wise, it’s Macron, the centrist, who is collapsing in France. That’s the big lesson. It’s not that the far-right is doing well or badly. It’s just that some of the far-left are doing well or badly. Whoever the incumbent president is, they’re really hurting. And that’s what’s causing the big problems in the US.
November is coming. The elections are too long. They are too expensive. But, you know, four months in, we are really starting a binge season in the United States. And even if Biden were a very strong and reasonably popular candidate, he would struggle in this environment. And of course he is not. He is by far the oldest person to have run for this position in the United States. And his age is showing. It is becoming more and more evident with each passing day. Of course, for him and all those who support him, I am worried about that because it doesn’t seem like he is going to step down. But of course, if he is going to continue to fight until the moment he changes, I have to say so.
On the other hand, Trump is historically unpopular in the United States. If this was another candidate on the Republican side, this would have been an easy call. It would be a Republican landslide victory. And Biden or whoever the Democrats field is going to have a really hard time. And that’s because, you know, the immigration issues, the inflation issues, the anti-incumbency issues are so strong in this environment. But it’s actually still pretty close because Trump himself is so unpopular and polarizing. And most polls show that we’re talking about a small number of swing states and a very small number of voters. And if you’re Biden, you can convince yourself in that environment, “Hey, I’m as useful a guy as anybody else. It’s too dangerous to bring in another candidate this late in the campaign.” I agree with that. If you really believe that what you saw in the debate was a one-off event and not on the terms that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, then you would. I don’t think so. I certainly don’t think so, based on my conversations with CEOs, heads of states, heads of multilateral institutions, senators and congressmen who have engaged with Biden on a regular and daily basis.
Now, that’s not what the Biden campaign staff is saying. They’re on message. They’re very loyal, and they’re all saying Biden can do it. You see, if you look at the schedule, he’s very forceful, very active, and he’s working on it. But the outsiders who aren’t being paid to be completely on message are saying Biden has serious problems. And in that respect, I think it’s very likely that this won’t go away and that his major weaknesses will get worse. So, if I was in the room advising him personally, and he was going to listen to me, I would tell him to step down. That being said, I would have said that a year ago. But, you know, that’s the reality.
We’ll see what happens at the NATO summit this week, where we’ll have a bunch of world leaders who are very concerned about what’s going on in the United States, and we’ll also have the Republican convention coming up soon, and the Democratic convention coming up, and everyone will be watching intently what’s going on in the United States.
Anyway, I’ll talk to you all again soon.
