France, the United States and the United Kingdom each have their own unique political system, but they are still pretty similar in that they all have representative forms of government and are part of the western alliance that developed in the aftermath of World War Two. They have very developed economies backed by strong and stable legal systems and operate at least partially within a variety of international organizations built on consensus postwar principles. They all have imported cheap labor from developing or Third World countries and they all have aging native populations that aren’t reproducing at replacement level. Add to this, they’ve all just come through a series of shocks, which include most prominently the financial crisis on 2008, the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and high levels of inflation.
Finally, they all have important elections occurring in 2024. In France, the first round of parliamentary elections took place on Sunday and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party was crushed. The far right fascist party took a strong plurality of the vote. But if you think this signals a right-wing backlash in the United Kingdom, that’s not what the polls indicate. When the British go to the voting booths on Thursday, it’s expected that the Conservative Party, known as The Tories, will be slaughtered.
The Conservatives have faced one challenge after another since they took power in 2010. First there was the fallout from the global financial crisis, which swelled Britain’s debt and caused the Tories to impose years of austerity to balance the budget. They then led Britain out of the European Union, battled one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in western Europe, and saw inflation soar after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Regardless of the circumstances, many voters blame the Conservatives for the litany of problems facing Britain, from sewage spills and unreliable train service to the cost-of-living crisis, crime and the influx of migrants crossing the English Channel on inflatable boats.
On top of that, the party has been tarred by the repeated ethical lapses of government ministers, including lockdown-busting parties in government offices. The scandals chased former Prime Minister Boris Johnson from office and ultimately from Parliament after he was found to have lied to lawmakers. His successor, Liz Truss, lasted just 45 days after her economic policies cratered the economy.
The Tories currently hold 345 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, but projections show them holding fewer than a third of them and possibly as few as 61. Brits are unhappy about inflation, even though it’s now under control, slow economic growth, poor social services and immigration. It’s a very similar set of grievances to what we see in France and shares several similarities to public sentiment in the United States.
The commonality really shows through in an anti-incumbent attitude. Even the people from each country share similar concerns, we don’t see them voting for the same policies or the same ideologies, but rather they are just in favor of putting someone new in charge. The United States is in the strange position of having the incumbent president running against his predecessor. Trump isn’t an incumbent, but he’s not a fresh face and he doesn’t represent reform or change. This is probably the main reason the American people are basically split on who to elect, where the French and the Brits are clear about throwing the bums out.
What should be clear, though, is that Biden and Harris are swimming upstream against a broad anti-incumbent sentiment that is afflicting much of the western alliance. I’d argue that Trump is tapped into some of the anti-establishment resentment, like on immigration, but he’s still running for a second term. I think he also suffers from a desire for change that he can’t meet.
This is the reason why I believe that the Republican Party would benefit from a different candidate. It’s only more true because Trump is set to be sentenced for committing 34 felonies on July 11. But the same is true on the Democratic side. Almost any candidate not named Biden or Harris would probably get an immediate bump in the polls simply because they’re new.
We’d all like to think people vote on policy, but the elections in France and the U.K. demonstrate pretty clearly that they can vote simply out of frustration with how things are going, even if it’s likely to result in even worse outcomes on the policies they care about. If Biden and Trump are the candidates, one of them will win and pundits will argue that they ran a good campaign. I think the winner will just be considered the least bad choice, and that they would have lost to almost any other candidate.
In this environment, I don’t think either Trump or Biden can really make people want to elect them no matter what they do. No matter where you look, the voters want something new.
Yes, this is likely the best explanation. I don’t get into the weeds of whether and how to replace Joe Biden. It just ain’t my call and I have a lot of other things to worry about. I imagine myself as something like in a Greek phalanx. My main job is to hold the line and not break and run. Keep knocking doors, keep doing whatever else I can.
But this seems to indicate that a Gavin Newsom may pick up more votes than polls indicate if Biden retires and someone other than Harris steps in.
Harris might do as well as anyone else too. It’s all way above my paygrade. I’m just holding my place in the line.
I don’t see it. To me there are far more differences than similarities between US, UK and France situations.
Joe Biden’s problem isn’t some general anti-incumbent feeling, it’s specific criticisms about his age and fitness. And unlike Macron or the Tories, Biden has actual positive accomplishments to point to.
Joe Biden has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected.
In a vacuum, Biden certainly deserves to be reelected, but there’s a real serious concern about whether he’s up to four and a half more years in the job. That’s hurting his support badly, but I believe even a more vigorous president, from either party, would have difficulty getting reelected in this environment. Trump gives him a fighting chance, because he suffers from the same problem. He’s also old and old news.
At the very least, he doesn’t deserve to be put in the any category with negatives equivalent to Trump’s.
Since I’m violently opposed to fascism, I’ll vote for whomever is running as the Democrat in any and every election.
That said, if we’re going to dump Biden, do it right. Get Jon Stewart and make it the entire fucking story for the rest of the election. He’d probably get elected in a landslide. VP probably wouldn’t matter, although I’m sure Stewart would be able to pick one by himself.