PERIÓDICOS ALIAZON: Tim Walz, ‘Prairie Populist’?

miércoles, 7 de agosto de 2024

Tim Walz, ‘Prairie Populist’?

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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August 7, 2024

Tim Walz, 'Prairie Populist'?

In picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has catered to her party's left wing, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board writes, citing a litany of Walz's left-leaning policies: raising taxes, making undocumented immigrants eligible for driver's licenses, offering free college tuition to low-income students (including undocumented immigrants), ensuring paid family and medical leave funded by a state payroll tax, and more.

While drawing ire from conservatives, much of that will likely please Democrats. So has a particular attack line Walz has deployed against former President Donald Trump and his supporters, whom Walz has called "weird." (The Economist prefers this "needling" to President Joe Biden's "sombre approach" of warning that Trump is a danger to America's democracy and national soul.) The Sacramento Bee's editorial board calls Walz "spicy," writing that he "may be the most potent Democrat on the campaign stump to go after Trump both personally and politically."

Perhaps most important to Democrats, so far, are Walz's Upper Midwest cultural roots. The Sacramento Bee dubs him "pure Middle America." The New York Times' Michelle Cottle observes that Walz, who was born in Nebraska, "looks natural rocking a camo baseball cap and grubby T-shirt—a big plus for a party that has trouble relating to regular folks."

Some argue Walz could enhance the Democratic ticket's appeal in parts of the country shaded deep red on recent electoral maps and mitigate some of the party's perceived coastal bias. In a New York Times guest opinion essay, rural Kansan author Sarah Smarsh—who penned the 2018 bestseller "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth"—writes that many rural Americans have no natural affinity for Trump, a city slicker who reminds Smarsh of salesmen and property speculators who would show up at her family's farm.

"Imagine if the type of person you most loathe became the symbol for your people and place," Smarsh writes. "It has been, for me and so many others, excruciating." Walz, by contrast, "embodies the earnest, humane, rural people who shaped me and the prairie populism that shaped the progressive foundations of the Great Plains. ... [T]he rural white working class is not a monolith. Among them remains a large and consequential minority of sensible people who even in their vulnerable economic state remain unmoved by charlatans blaming immigrants while amassing corporate wealth. In recent decades, the Democratic Party has made little direct appeal to them, such that Mr. Walz's rural background seems downright transgressive on the top ticket."

Britain's Riots Aren't Over

Anti-immigrant riots have swept Britain, fueled by disinformation about the suspected perpetrator of a stabbing attack on children. As the BBC reports, authorities are bracing for further unrest, and counter-protesters have gathered in some places.

The Spectator's political editor, Katy Balls, writes: "The hope among ministers is that, as individuals are named and sentences handed out, it will start to act as a deterrent against those considering taking part in further disorder in the coming days. More than 2,000 extra riot police are on standby. As the riots drag on, [new Labour Prime Minister Keir] Starmer is facing further criticism of his handling of the situation, including from a former [London police] Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson who suggested too much from Starmer has been rhetoric over action."

X owner Elon Musk has feuded with the Labour government over the riots, tweeting that "[c]ivil war is inevitable" in Britain and drawing a rebuke from Downing Street for it. Noting the spat, The New Statesman's Finn McRedmond writes that the riots have offered a real-world reminder of social media's political toxicity.

What's Next for Venezuela?

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was officially declared the winner of his country's election, held two Sundays ago, but few seemed to believe the results were real.

On Sunday's GPS, Fareed spoke with exiled Venezuelan opposition activist and politician Leopoldo López, who said Venezuelans want a transition to true democracy—and that such a change would ease a crisis that has seen millions flee the country in recent years.

Bangladesh Steps into the Void

"Until she fled Bangladesh on Monday," New York-based author Salil Tripathi, writes for Foreign Policy, "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina governed as if she still had full legitimacy, even as students and protesters had been on the streets for days asking her to resign. The trigger for the demonstrations—civil service job quotas for Bangladeshi freedom fighters and their families—had become a distant memory. Collective anger about years of human rights abuses, corruption, and rigged elections had coalesced into an uprising." CNN's Helen Regan notes heavy Gen Z participation in the protests and reports that government forces killed about 300 people in response.

The military has installed an interim government, naming as its chief adviser Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, a microfinance pioneer known as the "banker to the poor."

Bloomberg columnist Karishma Vaswani calls for a quick democratic transition that can restore confidence in Bangladesh's economy. It's not clear what will happen to Bangladesh's political system, The Economist writes, noting the main opposition party suffers from similar cronyism to the just-ousted ruling order. "The final question is the extent to which outside powers seek to influence Bangladesh's direction," the magazine writes. "Under Sheikh Hasina it aspired to be the archetypal swing state, balancing China, India and the West in order to extract the maximum concessions from abroad and guarantee the minimal level of interference. Having backed a decaying autocratic regime, India may now be more minded to push for a deeper political reset. And although America and Europe often turned a blind eye to Sheikh Hasina's abuses, they have some leverage over the country as major markets for its garment exporters, and as potential sources of financial assistance. Ultimately, however, Bangladesh's destiny after Sheikh Hasina lies in the hands of its citizens."

How Mexican Moves Have Reduced US Border Crossings

After a consultation with US officials, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government made significant and effective efforts this year—a presidential election year for both countries—to slow migration through Mexico to the southern US border, Michelle Hackman and Santiago Pérez write for The Wall Street Journal.

In June, US southern-border crossings fell to their lowest totals since early 2021. July figures are expected to be even lower, Hackman and Pérez write. In Mexico, "security checkpoints dot highways. Mexico's National Guard patrols the southern banks of the Rio Grande, aiming to prevent mass concentrations of migrants. Thousands of asylum seekers caught heading north have been put on buses and sent back to southern Mexico near Guatemala. Aid organizations liken the busing strategy to the board game Chutes and Ladders, as migrants are moved around the country. The policy aims to discourage them from heading north. Many decide to return to South America, migrants say."

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