The Economist (October 5)
If you add all the various signs up, “it becomes clear just how systematically the presumption of open markets and limited government has been left in the dust.” Free trade and other “classical liberal values are not only unpopular, they are increasingly absent from political debate.” In Washington DC, “you will be scoffed at as hopelessly naïve” for advocating free trade and, “in the emerging world, you will be painted as a neocolonial relic from the era when the West knew best.”
Tags: Absent, Emerging world, Free trade, Liberal values, Limited government, Neocolonial, Open markets, Political debate, Presumption, Unpopular, Washington
The Economist (December 7)
British voters are facing a “nightmare before Christmas.” They “keep being called to the polls—and each time the options before them are worse…. Next week voters face their starkest choice yet, between Boris Johnson, whose Tories promise a hard Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party plans to “rewrite the rules of the economy” along radical socialist lines.” Both leaders are unpopular and on Friday, December 13th, “unlucky Britons will wake to find one of these horrors in charge.”
Tags: Brexit, Christmas, Corbyn, Johnson, Labour, Nightmare, Options, Polls, Radical, Starkest, Tories, UK, Unlucky, Unpopular, Voters, Worse
Financial Times (November 24)
Britain might do better if it tried a page from the Athenians. “If, instead of a general election, Britain held an ostracism vote, there would be plenty of ballots bearing not only the prime minister’s name but those of other party leaders. We would be selecting the most unpopular individual rather than the most popular party—arguably a more precise method of improving the democratic landscape, given the potential for deterring bad leadership. Mr Johnson, take note.”
Tags: Athenians, Bad leadership, Ballots, Brexit, Democratic landscape, Election, Individual, Ostracism, Party, UK, Unpopular
Los Angeles Times (June 18)
The President consistently “runs through the talking points about the economy or judges as quickly as possible so he can get to the really important topic: Donald Trump. The problem for Trump is that if the central question of the election is him he will lose because he is not popular.”
The Economist (October 28)
Unlike Theresa May’s losing gamble, Shinzo Abe’s snap election “paid off handsomely.” The result of the gutsy move was hardly certain. “Rarely has such an unpopular leader won a free and fair election so lopsidedly. Only about one-third of Japanese people approve of Shinzo Abe” while “a whopping 51% disapprove. Yet on October 22nd his Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner kept its two-thirds majority in the lower house.” For this unusual outcome, he owes the opposition, which “imploded,” a debt of gratitude.
Tags: Abe, Coalition, Election, Imploded, Japan, LDP, Lopsided, Majority, May, Opposition, UK, Unpopular
US News & World Report (April 17)
“Clearly, Trump’s foreign policy, if it can be called that, is to ratchet up tensions and trouble and keep the world at bay, wondering what he will do next… Trump’s character is a terrible limitation as an unpopular president, yet it has taken him to the pinnacle of power.”
Tags: Character, Foreign policy, Limitation, Power, Tension, Terrible, Trouble, Trump, Unpopular
