Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. April 7, 2024 | |
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On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET: First, Fareed gives his take on a phenomenon that may seem odd but in fact fits with our social and political times: Trump rallies taking on religious overtones. As Fareed outlines in his new book, "Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present," rapid secularization has been among the most significant social trends in America in recent decades. As religion recedes—and as strict doctrine becomes less prevalent within it—politics have stepped in to fill the void, Fareed says: nationalist, populist, authoritarian politics, specifically. Liberal democracy and modern life have given people freedom, wealth, and technology. For some, that's not enough to take the place of what religion used to provide, Fareed says—and replacing it with politics is dangerous. After that, Fareed talks with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about a crossroads for his country. Israel was believed to be behind a strike on Iranian commanders in Damascus this week, and fears of a wider war have risen. At the same time, US–Israel relations have reached a nadir. It was lowered even further by the Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen food-aid workers. Fareed asks Bennett about all of that—and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's future. Finland has been neutral since World War II, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine spurred it to join NATO. (The two countries share a border that stretches more than 800 miles, after all.) Fareed talks with the Nordic nation's new president, Alexander Stubb, who was in Ukraine this week. Finally: nationalist online anger in China. After vitriolic online campaigns against Chinese businesses and businessmen, Fareed asks The Spectator's Cindy Yu, host of the magazine's "Chinese Whispers" podcast, what these episodes say about China today. |
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Six Months Ago, Oct. 7 Shocked the World. Where Are We Now? |
On Oct. 7, Hamas's brutal massacres changed the Middle East. Writing for CNN Opinion about what has transpired in the six months since, Frida Ghitis argues neither Hamas' attack nor Israel's military campaign in Gaza has produced any winners—only suffering for Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians, damage to the US–Israel relationship, and questions about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership. "If there's any glimmer of hope in this dispiriting landscape," Ghitis writes, "it is that the young Abraham Accords—which normalized relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors—have survived the toughest of stress tests. That augurs well for the long run … It opens the door to the possibility that once this war is over, once the post-war phase—whatever that looks like—also comes to an end, there could be a new architecture that leads to peace. For that to happen, however, two of the many losing protagonists in this conflict, Hamas and Netanyahu, cannot remain in power." |
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Just when you thought US politics couldn't get any weirder, the 2024 presidential election might be upended by a political-black-sheep Kennedy scion, an environmentalist and vaccine skeptic seeking the White House as an independent alongside VP candidate Nicole Shanahan, a Bay Area lawyer and believed-to-be-very-wealthy ex-wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s politics are hard to calibrate—as is his mathematical bearing on the 2024 race. That he's a longshot to win is an understatement, but his insertion as a wildcard could be very disruptive to the anticipated Biden–Trump showdown. Quinnipiac polling shows RFK, Jr. pulling in 13% support nationwide, when included as an option. In Michigan, debatably the most important state in Electoral College maps and math these days, Quinnipiac shows RFK, Jr. taking 10%. Due to the poll's margin of error and the inclusion of fellow third-party candidates Jill Stein and Cornel West, it's unclear whether Trump or Biden would benefit from RFK, Jr.'s presence. The billion-dollar question (adjusted for inflation and the rise in campaign spending) is: From whose base, Trump's or Biden's, will RFK, Jr. attract more voters? Which way could he tip the race? As for the candidate's own hopes, Kennedy told CNN's Erin Burnett this week that he sees Biden as a greater threat to US democracy than Trump. Examining how things might play out, at Politico Magazine, Jeremy B. White writes that it's hard to say whether RFK, Jr. will siphon more votes from Biden or Trump. Visiting a rally, he describes the fare from the stump: "Standard-issue campaign patriotism merged with darker warnings about government censorship, tainted food and corporate control." New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg talks to RFK, Jr. supporters, finding a mix of politically disaffected, formerly disengaged citizens whose sentiments borrow from both the left and right fringes. Goldberg writes: "Another Kennedy volunteer, Jaclyn Aldrich, a striking 43-year-old Black woman who sometimes works as a model, has never cast a presidential ballot, because she hadn't trusted any of the candidates. 'I didn't even vote for Obama,' she said. Among her fellow volunteers, she said, are some former Bernie Sanders voters, but 'it's mostly Trump people.'" Regardless of what direction RFK, Jr. pushes the race, he's poised to exert real force, New America's Lee Drutman writes for CNN Opinion. There's a big reason: the deep unpopularity of known entities Biden and Trump—and of both political parties and institutions, generally. "In a normal presidential election year, an anti-system third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would not be polling at nearly 10% at this point in the cycle," Drutman writes. "But this is not a normal year. This is an election year ripe for an anti-establishment candidate to create significant uncertainty—and potentially stir some even bigger changes to the US party system." |
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