- 16 Apr 2024 22:50
#15312258
Great german commentary: https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=113640
Translation using DeepL:
This confirms to me again what I've said very often before, and what is known to english speakers as "Its the economy, stupid". Even if that statement is unprecise: its the economic situation of the individual. Telling people the economy is going great when their own personal financial situation is bad doesnt work too well. Thats a VERY popular trick in the USA which keeps using it, despite average people not participating in gains from the economy since the 1970s.
I wasnt even aware that Biden has actually good approval ratings compared to many other rulers in the west. Thought thats probably mainly because of the strong opposition of some people to Trump ?
This doesnt make much sense in absolute sense because the US population suffers probably the worst in the western systems. Problems such as bankruptcy because of medical bills are unknown in other western countries. And, as I said before, the lower 90% of the US population looks at stagnant wages after inflation since the 1970s.
Translation using DeepL:
The Western system is slipping into a crisis of legitimacy
A new president will be elected in the USA this year. With an approval rating of 39%, incumbent Biden is the most unpopular president since such polls began. But Biden is not alone. On the contrary. In none of the 20 major Western democracies does a head of government have an approval rating of more than 50% - and this is not a snapshot, but has been a consistent trend since the beginning of the 2020s. Incidentally, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron bring up the rear with 22% and 23% respectively.
There are many explanations for the majority's loss of confidence. It seems that the West can no longer keep its promises to its own people. If no head of government in the western world has the approval of the majority of the population, the system is in a crisis of legitimacy. The global picture is different, by the way - the heads of government of the West's competitors usually have excellent approval ratings, regardless of whether they are democracies or autocracies.
Olaf Scholz has managed to go down in history as Germany's most unpopular chancellor. Even Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder were not as unpopular at the end of their time in office as Scholz was in the middle of his term. There are, of course, many reasons for this, many of which have to do specifically with national politics. However, the trend can be observed across the board in the entire West. Biden is even more unpopular than Ford or Nixon - which is something you have to achieve first. Macron has been more unpopular for many years than any French president before him, and against the British Rishi Sunak, even the late Margaret Thatcher and the colorless Gordon Brown were almost darlings of the population. The situation is similarly dramatic in "smaller" Western countries such as the Czech Republic, Norway, the Netherlands and Austria. The East Asian democracies of South Korea and Japan are also experiencing a very deep crisis of legitimacy. The current Japanese head of state, Fumio Kishida, even has the lowest global approval rating at 17%.
This trend has been observed for a good twenty years. Since the beginning of the 2020s, Giorgia Meloni has been the only head of government of the twenty largest Western democracies to briefly manage to receive approval for her policies from more than half of the population in polls and thus achieve over 50% approval - Italy, of all places, a fascist, one might say. In the meantime, however, her star is falling and she only has 43% approval.
The situation in the Global South is almost diametrically different. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is often criticized as an "autocrat" in the Western media, has an approval rating of 78%. His Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is also frequently criticized by the West, has an approval rating of 63%. There are no comparable figures for Russia. If you take the data from the Levada Center, which is considered to be reputable, as a basis, the approval rate for Vladimir Putin has fluctuated between 60% and 85% over the last ten years - it was not Putin's foreign policy, which is sharply criticized in the West, but his pension reform that pushed the figure down in 2018. Since the escalation of the war in Ukraine and the invasion, the figures have risen above the 80% mark again.
Only for China is there no methodologically comparable data. However, no one seriously doubts that Xi Jinping has very high approval ratings among the Chinese despite Covid lockdowns and a losing economic momentum. However, exceptions also prove the rule for the West's competitors. South African President Ramaphosa, for example, has an approval rating of 27%, a figure that is otherwise only found in Western democracies, while Turkish President Erdogan and Brazilian President Lula da Silva also remain below the 50% mark.
Why is it that the majority of Western heads of government are rejected by their populations? As this is a global phenomenon, the national debates, which are certainly also relevant, should be ignored. However, all Western democracies also have some factors in common that are partly responsible for the trend.
The promise of economic advancement has been broken throughout the West. While ordinary people were still able to improve their own standard of living in the days of the more popular heads of state, the main concern today is to avoid slipping any further. In the second half of the last century, the western world has become more equal. The income and wealth gap tended to close. In the USA and the UK, the turnaround began in the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, in Germany somewhat later towards the end of the Kohl era.
Since the triumph of neoliberal policies and the increasing political influence of the financial sector, the income and wealth gap has widened to an ever more dizzying degree throughout the West. A head of government who fails to allow the majority to participate in economic development and to guarantee, if not fair opportunities for advancement, then at least far-reaching protection against economic decline, has lost his legitimacy. The population's declining approval of their respective heads of state is therefore not really surprising. The countries in which socio-economic stagnation is strongest - such as Japan, South Korea, Germany, France and the UK - also have the lowest approval ratings.
In addition, there is also a global erosion of democracy, which is accompanied by polarization. Whereas in the past people still believed in common ground and shared values despite all political differences, today division and a focus on differences reign. Disenchantment with the elite is growing in all Western countries. People do not feel included, not represented. This is the case in Japan, the Czech Republic, Germany, the UK, the USA, Spain and many other Western countries. Policies made by elites for elites are deepening the rifts instead of repairing them.
The arguments are the same everywhere - the golden age is over, we need to tighten our belts. But in none of these countries are the elites tightening their belts; on the contrary, the number of millionaires and billionaires is growing throughout the West, and excessive luxury is increasingly being met with widespread poverty. The number of millionaires and billionaires is of course also increasing in countries such as China or India, except that there - unlike in the West - the quality of life of the normal population is also rising. If everyone is better off, the population also seems to tolerate the disproportionate increase in wealth of the elite. If the socio-economic status of the broad middle class declines or is at least threatened, the tide turns.
Regardless of the respective political system, the global South naturally has the advantage that the base is lower and profits can therefore be distributed more easily in a way that is perceived as fair. A Chinese man who, thanks to his perceived good wages, can live off the meagre conditions in the countryside in a flourishing metropolis in the Pearl River Delta will naturally be satisfied with the political system and its leaders. The same applies to the Indian who is the first in his family to be able to afford a fridge and his own moped. Even if this is a horror for post-growth ideologues in the West, this is what improving the standard of living for billions of people looks like. Those who ensure this are supported. Our political debates are increasingly shaped by identity politics and have lost sight of socio-economic issues. You could aptly call them "First World Problems". Those who get lost in them also lose approval and legitimacy.
What is also remarkable when looking at the legitimacy crisis is the loss of importance of political alternatives. It doesn't matter whether a president or prime minister is right-wing, conservative, liberal, social democratic or left-wing - he is unpopular in any case and if there is a new president or prime minister from the other political camp after elections, he is also unpopular after a few weeks in office. It may be popular to focus on individuals, but it doesn't get you anywhere. An Armin Laschet or even a Friedrich Merz would be no more popular than an Olaf Scholz and if the future US president next year is likely to be Donald Trump again, he will probably not be able to surpass the low approval ratings of Joe Biden. The West is in a systemic crisis that has little to do with specific individuals or parties.
Whether the West can reverse this development is uncertain and rather unlikely. If the system can no longer fulfill its fundamental promises and approval continues to decline, an authoritarian rollback is more likely, whether under the umbrella of an eroding democracy or in the form of a new autocracy. Developments in this direction can already be observed in almost all Western countries.
This confirms to me again what I've said very often before, and what is known to english speakers as "Its the economy, stupid". Even if that statement is unprecise: its the economic situation of the individual. Telling people the economy is going great when their own personal financial situation is bad doesnt work too well. Thats a VERY popular trick in the USA which keeps using it, despite average people not participating in gains from the economy since the 1970s.
I wasnt even aware that Biden has actually good approval ratings compared to many other rulers in the west. Thought thats probably mainly because of the strong opposition of some people to Trump ?
This doesnt make much sense in absolute sense because the US population suffers probably the worst in the western systems. Problems such as bankruptcy because of medical bills are unknown in other western countries. And, as I said before, the lower 90% of the US population looks at stagnant wages after inflation since the 1970s.
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. - Warren Buffett
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