Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this seventh in our series of US election discussions, and the one that I’m very pleased that our US Americas team labelled Early Reflections on the Presidential Election, because reflections is probably the right thing to be able to undertake on what has been well, what is the morning over here in the UK after a very mobile, tempestuous, and still dramatic US Presidential election and congressional set of elections that have been taking place in the United States Tuesday, now into Wednesday.
Before I do various introductions, just to remind you all that this is a on the record meeting, it’s being livestreamed as well, and we are going to have a conversation, or I’m going to moderate a conversation with our three speakers, panellists, guests, with us here today. And then I’ll move over after about 20/25 minutes, maybe half an hour tops, to take questions from you, and comments, if you wish, as well. But do please use the ‘Q&A’ function. Do not use the ‘Chat’. Do not use the ‘raised hand’. Get your questions into the ‘Q&A’. We’ll keep a track of them. If I’m able to call one or two people to go live with their questions, we will. Otherwise, I will sift through the set of questions in the middle, and I really look forward to them because I’ve been scratching my head, trying to think of my own earlier reflections on how to manage this conversation. I think we’d always known and – that this was going to be an unpredictable election. But, nonetheless, it’s turned out to be, I think it’s fair to say, a lot narrower than others had predicted.
And to be able to talk about what is going on, what just happened, and what may be happening looking forward over the coming weeks and, ideally, into 2021, let me say we’re very pleased to have with us Megan Greene. Megan is the Dame DeAnne Julius Senior Academy Fellow with Chatham House on International Economics, and is also a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and I think – I’m sure many of you read her column in the Financial Times, and somebody who is a very astute Analyst, Commentator, and forward-looker on the global economy and the US economy as well. And I think that dynamic will be especially interesting, and maybe one that’s been neglected a little bit in this conversation. So, Megan, great you could be with us at the moment, and I’m – I have this horrible feeling it’s very late at night or very early in the morning where you are; not too early in the morning, getting a little bit better by now. But I don’t know how much sleep you’ve had.
And the same would go for John Micklethwait. John delighted you could join us. John is now – has been since 2015, the Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News, which covers all of Bloomberg’s news outputs and platforms and also, Bloomberg Intelligence. He was, from 2006 to 2015, as you all know, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist and he’s been a regular Author of books with his colleague, Adrian Wooldridge, and I obviously was going to mention today a very appropriate one for this conversation, The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How We Can Fix It. The fixing bit is going to be all the more interesting after this particular US Presidential election, and I’m sure some of those dynamics about strength of the state and so on, John, will be something you can touch on. But I do want to remind our guests today that John was also the Author away back, in 2004, with Adrian Wooldridge of the book The Right Nation: Why America is Different and trying to explain the takeover of the Republican Party by those on the more Conversative right back in the days of George W Bush. So, John, we’re going to be trawling through your mind on those issues and insights for today.
And then my colleague, last but very much not least, Leslie Vinjamuri, who is the Director of our US and Americas Programme, Dean of our Queen Elizabeth Academy, Author or Co-Author, along with a number of our other colleagues, of our latest report on US foreign policy priorities. I think it was well-crafted, I remember, Leslie, you know, before the election so that you gave yourself room, you and your colleagues, to be able to think about how America’s foreign policy would change more broadly, not just dependent on one outcome or another of the election. And that will make your input to this conversation all the more valued.
So, thank you very much, all three, for joining us. I’m going to jump in the deep end, Leslie, you are, as a colleague of mine, I’m afraid you’re going to have to take it first on the chin, as they say. I’m trying to think how to phrase this question, and the best I could come up with is, what just happened because I know it’s still happening, and so that’s probably an unfair question? I’ll let you unpack it. But the only stat I want to put out there right now, and I know there is counting going on, obviously, and these numbers will change, and we don’t know the result yet. But the one number that does strike me, and I’m sure many others, is the popular vote right now seems to be 50.2% for Joe Biden, and 48.3% for Donald Trump and that’s pretty narrow, compared to all of the polling. Even if you were to halve the main polling predictions from their 8% to 4%, to end up at 2% really takes us back into the territory of the 2016 election. So, I’m just going to use that as my setup, and throw the ball over to you, Leslie. Share a few of your thoughts, and we’re going to have the conversation, so we’ll keep coming back to different parts of it. Over to you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, so the first thing is, it’s not over. It’s really not over. We are really in the middle of this. The second thing is, you know, election day is a misnomer. Election day is the day on which the polls close. The polls, as we know, have been open for a very long time, and we have seen a historic turnout. I think it’s probably the most significant thing, apart from the result, about this election. This is the highest turnout that we’ve seen in the United States since 1900. 66.9% of those who are eligible to vote have voted. That’s the data that we now have. That is extraordinary.
But the thing that’s significant about that is we have all sorts of assumptions about what that means, about who’s voting, and the fact is, we don’t know. So there are a lot – the thing that probably I have found most upsetting and unsettling about the last – certainly the last eight hours, but far more than that are the number of claims that people are making, having been schooled for weeks by those who have run the polls not to make claims not only about results but, you know, we don’t yet know who – we don’t know – we don’t yet know the popular vote, even in states that we pretty much know the outcome. There are many, many ballots still being counted.
In Pennsylvania, there are 1.4 million ballots still to be counted. So, there are any number of things that we don’t know, in terms of demographics. We have all sorts of hypotheses. We have data that are pushing at confirming some of those. But, you know, we need to be deeply empirical about evaluating this election ‘cause it’s extraordinarily significant, not only because it’s taking place in a pandemic, not only because America’s changing demographically, not only because Donald Trump is one of a kind, but because we’ve been warned, right, and we know the scenarios.
The second thing I would say is, at some level, we’re exactly where we’ve been warned that we would be, which is that, you know, a lot of people thought, wow, Texas is changing. Look at the demography. They’re getting out the vote. Maybe it will flip. But, you know, that was a bit of a long shot. And in any number of states, even though in a lot of battleground states, the polls predicted that Vice President Biden had the lead, it was never a sure thing, and there were so many scenarios. You know, remember the Bart Gellman scenario that said it’s going to come down to the Upper Midwest three states, maybe Arizona, which has become very interesting, any two. My home state, Arizona, AP says it’s flipped, and any two, it’s flipped. So those are two very interesting things. But, really, you know, a lot of people thought it would come down to these three Upper Midwest states, and it has.
And then, the other thing that we were told was it’s going to take time, and on election night, we’re going to see a red mirage. It’s going to look like it’s going Republican, and then over time, as the mail-in ballots come in, it’s going to take time, they’re going to look blue. And guess what? We knew that. We’d been told it. And everybody, myself included, saw it in the middle of the night and, for those of us who want one result, we panicked, even though we knew that this was where we were heading. So, it is very interesting.
The – part of this is exacerbated by the fact that The New York Times, CNN, AP, Fox, are calling things at very, very different points in time. Arizona has – was called by Fox very early. The President was very upset. AP called it much later. The New York Times and CNN, I don’t think have called it. So, there are lot of – there’s a lot of uncertainty, and people are making – they’re using a different metric for when to draw that line.
In terms of where we’re going, it now looks like, and, again, you know, it looks like but we do not know – it looks like in Wisconsin and Michigan things are beginning to turn more blue as more of those mail-in ballots come in. Nevada, they’ve said there’s – there are going to be no updates until tomorrow. They’re just holding on that. Pennsylvania’s going to take quite some time, and I think Arizona is likely to be confirmed. So, what does that mean? A lot of people say, think that even though it’s a much shorter margin than perhaps a lot of people had hoped for or thought there might be, people seem to think that, you know, on a knife edge, it’s heading towards an electoral victory for Vice President Biden. But what we know is, it is an unusual election, and it is very, very far from over.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well, thank you, Leslie, and so just keeping our feet on – well, putting our feet back on the ground, for those people who have been sitting up late at night or who have been glued to their phones or screens this morning, trying to make head or tail of it. I think the way you put it there, and just like the reports have indicated that the – certainly the Biden campaign had always felt that that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania access was going to be critical, whatever happened. As you said, in a way, there haven’t been that many surprises in where the states have been going so far, although the margin appears a little closer. And just one point, I think, and very important, you were just saying there about people overinterpreting data. I’m certainly hearing a lot of commentary about exit polls yesterday evening and as somebody noted, it’s rather hard when you do exit polls, yet in a lot of states, the votes have been at least 50% either done early or mailed in, and therefore, there’s been no exit on that particular group of people. So, this is a very difficult, as you said, election to read, as it’s not a day, not even a week. It’s been more than a month.
I’m going to come over to you now, John, because I think – I’m just wondering what your takeaways are right now on my opening, kind of, easy question, what just happened? And have you taken away any particular lessons just from this febrile night, and the way that the cookie seems to be crumbling this morning, something that you did not think before you went into it, last night? What are you taking away from the moment? And I’ve got a couple of follow-ups I can do on it and, in particular, the, kind of, shy Trump vote, if you see what I’m saying. But I’m just wondering, what would you share with our guests today, and our audience about what you’re taking away as being different?
John Micklethwait
Well, I think in – I agree with a lot of what Leslie’s just said, for what it’s worth, on the Biden side about just whilst we’ve been on air, so to speak. In Michigan, it’s just flipped to Biden being in the lead, but as the mail-in votes come. So, at the moment, you would say, with all the usual massive caveats, that it mildly favours him, if there is no clear result. I think it’s worth remembering and having sat in my previous job, I think, up for five consecutive – well, maybe it was more than that, six or seven consecutive Wednesdays at The Economist, waiting for things to go through, or Thursday night, you know, this – it takes quite a while for these things to reach the Supreme Court, let alone beyond. But, at the moment, if Michigan and Pennsylvania, the mail-in things are coming Biden’s way, it would give him quite a strong position.
I think the second point is really easy is that the polls were not good. In some ways, they seem to be worse than they were, and I’d have to check the exact numbers. They appear worse than they were last time because this time, they can’t claim quite such as much of a surprise about where Trump voters are. But on this, I think, last time, they weren’t that inaccurate. They were, sort of, saying a Hillary win of three to 4%, and she won the popular vote, at any rate, by 2.3%. It looks like, this time, that the lead might be narrower, so that everything about it is probably wrong from that thing, so there’ll be inquests in there.
I think it does show, and I’ll make two, sort of, bookish points that are obviously, entirely egotistical. But one is it does – I think, it does show the, kind of, underlying strength which, to be honest, even I’m slightly surprised by of the, kind of, Conservative America. There is still a bedrock of people who are very, very supportive of Conservative policies in America, and it’s worth considering how much, you know, what would’ve happened without COVID. And it now seems, I think, much more likely that Trump probably would’ve won without that.
The other point, to go in the opposite direction in terms of, sort of, waking up the West, I think that, you know, the thing which must be wrong, and this is where I disagree with Leslie a bit, is I think it’s just – it looks terrible. You know, we – this thing about it’s wonderful that 66, you know, 69 – 66% of the people voted, well, really, is that such a large amount? It doesn’t – it’s great by American standards, but it’s lousy by anybody else’s. And what on earth are we doing waiting all this time for things to happen, and for the machinery to be out of date? And I think it underlines just how, you know, bad the public sector is. The American state does need to be reformed, and that’s obviously what we’re now writing about. But that’s – but that, I think, all those things, sort of, slightly come together at the moment. But in terms of being able to forecast it, nobody would put all their money on one horse.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, and just on that business about the – this election exposing once again some of the insufficiencies of American public administration or, at least, seeming to do, running an election as complex as this, does it disguise in a way a discipline, in your opinion, on the right? You know, however this election pans out in the end, it is fair to say, I think, that the Democratic Party community or Democratic supporters are a very diverse set of communities and individuals and viewpoints, and, in some cases, are quite divided, as we saw in the primary election. And there was a lot of questions for those of you in the UK from Andrew Neil in a rather combative interview on British television, asking one of the Democratic Pollsters and Commentators last night, “Why can’t you guys get it together? You’ve got the majority on everything, you know, it’s growing minorities. There’s more young people. There’s 13 million more college-educated people right now.” He kept hammering them on this ad I’m just wondering, John, you know, do you feel there’s something about the way the right coalesces, and maybe Democrats can be more divided in their outlooks? Is there some big story here or some big truth here? What do you think?
John Micklethwait
I think the right is a more cohesive unit. I think that generally is true and when I say that I do not mean it is a cohesive unit because there are massive divisions within it. But I think the divisions on the Democratic side tend to be slightly larger. I think one of the great mysteries is how come that with Big Tech having so massively supported the Democrats, and with certainly Obama being the first person to really use Facebook and all these things, how come, in a weird, strange way it’s the populist right who keep on being able to use this? Because, you know, if you look at the way that Trump has run COVID which, by any measure, has not been a great success, the fact that he’s still here fighting, in with a chance, is an amazing tribute to that bit. And it’s partly due to the, you know, America is deceptively more Conservative, but it’s not how many people in Europe want to look at it, you know. We’ve always argued that. But the second point is that it’s also to do with the fact that the right seems to be better at campaigning in some things, both in the high arts, the tech bits, and possibly in the low arts as well.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I like the note to the low art, and I – we’ve got a lot of questions coming in already, some of which I don’t think need to be unmuted and asked, and I’m just going to ping one really nasty one over to you, John, that, actually, you probably won’t mind, given where we are right now. But Andrés Rozental, who I presume is in Mexico City, asked a quick question, “Why was The Economist so far off?” And, of course, you can – with loyalty, even to your last publication…
John Micklethwait
Well, you should address that to The Economist. It’s a very good…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
But do you think there’s something going on?
John Micklethwait
It’s a very good magazine, is what I would say, and it’s very well – it’s much better edited than it used to be.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah. Maybe I’ll ask you later how Bloomberg was calling you on your thing, but I’ll let you prepare your answer to that one. Megan, let me come to you because I think there’s another dynamic here and, again, I most definitely do not want to overinterpret things I was hearing last night, especially when there were some of these from exit polls. But there’s got to be some element of truth to it, even if it’s skewed. But the issue that seemed to be most of the top of the mind of those who turned up on the day to vote, which we know is half, maybe, of the total voters, I don’t know the precise proportion, but it is not, you know, it is not overwhelming, let’s say, majority, but is that they’ve put the economy at the top of their worries, and issues such as the coronavirus, even race relations came lower down. And I’m just wondering whether you feel there’s a dynamic here that maybe is not as appreciated in London or in UK or around Europe or other parts of the world, the extent to which – how has America’s economy been doing pre-COVID, and whether you think there are many Americans who, kind of, trust Trump or a Trump Administration to manage the recovery from the COVID crisis better? What’s your sense? Do you think the economy has been a player in the way this election appears to be a little tighter than people thought?
Megan Greene
Yeah, so I think that’s a fair point. According to a recent Pew Research poll when voters were asked what issues were crucial in helping them determine their voter choice, 79% said the economy, and that was the biggest issue. Healthcare was number two. Coronavirus made it fourth on the list, which was a surprise to me. But the old adage “it’s the economy, stupid” I think certainly was part of – it has been part of the results here. Now, when people were polled on who was doing a – who they had more confidence in, in managing the economy, actually Trump was a little bit ahead of Biden there.
But what was the economy looking like going into this election? I’d say it was a tragedy in three acts, pretty much, our experience through this crisis. First, we had this precipitous decline, as we all shut down from March to mid-June. Then we had this incredible bounce back. We just got the third-quarter GDP figures. The US grew by over 30% annualised, best growth ever certainly, but from the worst bottom ever. And then, the third act is what we entered, I’d say, about a month, month and a half ago, which is the long, hard slog and there, if you looked at all the high-frequency data, it was going sideways.
So, the labour market has really recovered, but it’s still very much recovering, and it’s harder to get the last 20% of workers back in jobs than to get the first 20% back in jobs. So, we shouldn’t be surprised the number of long-term unemployed is set to triple in the next two months. So, it will be even harder to get them back in jobs and when they do, they’ll have lower wages, according to most research. Consumer spending was going sideways. The mobility data was going sideways. So, our recovery’s very much petering out, and that’s no surprise, given that most of the support that Congress put together for workers and small businesses expired at the end of July and early August. So, the US has been just running on fumes, and the fumes have been the savings that businesses and people have put away, and they’ve just been running ‘em done, which is not at all sustainable.
So, in terms of management of that going forward, Joe Biden’s platform put forward a plan to spend $7 trillion over the next ten years. The two biggest envelopes were healthcare, that was the biggest package, and then, secondly, was infrastructure and climate change. So, there was a plan to launch a massive green infrastructure project that would create a whole bunch of high-wage, high-hour jobs for workers, so it would address sustainability, and also, upgrade the US workforce pretty significantly.
How are we going to pay for this? The plan was to hike taxes on corporates and wealthy individuals. That was Biden’s platform. But keep tax cuts for the middleclass. That was going to cover four trillion. The other three, we’ll just borrow it. Borrowing costs are, you know, in real terms, negative, actually. So, the Government gets paid to borrow at the moment, so that’s, sort of, a no-brainer.
Trump’s platform is a little bit less well fleshed out. I’ve done a lot of presentations on Trumponomics versus Bidenomics, and I’ve had to go through a lot of Trump’s speeches to figure out what his policies are. And, for the most part, it’s just, kind of, more of the same. That’s generally what we can expect on the tax front. We know that there will be tax cuts if Trump is re-elected. We just don’t know for who, or which taxes, or by how much. The capital gains tax he wants to cut to 15%, so that’s a detail we do know. But, aside from that, we don’t have that many details. We just know he stands for lower taxes.
I think we can expect deregulation to be a priority for Trump. So, his plan for the labour market is to create jobs by deregulating and cutting taxes, and then, hopefully, companies will have more profits that they can then plough into hiring people. You know, why they would do that instead of just engaging in stock buybacks and dividends, that’s unclear. But that’s, sort of, been his labour market agenda all along.
In terms of trade, I think we could expect tariff man to stand. For the UK, actually, there’s a big difference between candidates in that Trump stands for bilateral trade agreements. Biden has a much more multilateral approach and given the EU is considered our ally, I think it would be more difficult for the UK to secure a bilateral trade deal with the US under a Biden Presidency than a Trump one.
There isn’t that much water between the two candidates though on trade policy, and so it surprises international audiences, I find. Ultimately, the difference between the ‘Make America Great’ strategy and the ‘Buy American’ strategy aren’t that huge, so I think we can expect industrial policy absolutely to reign under either candidate. So, much more spending, I think, under Biden, less spending under Trump, but kind of, a continuation of what we’ve seen.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you very much for that little take. It also provides, I think, some useful segues here to a couple of questions. I think I might as well start pulling them in right now because I think this question about how the US is going to be able to move forward with what appear to be quite different positions here, I’m wondering, Leslie, coming back to you for a second, when you look at the results of this vote, as John was noting, not a, necessarily, a particular high turnout by global standards in democracies, but certainly very, very high for the US, and there’s all sorts of dynamics to that. But do you sense here therefore, a country that is as deeply divided as it was, and therefore, one in which whoever takes the position up in the White House is going to struggle to be able to be an effective leader and carry the country forward, not least is we’re going to end up, I presume, at the very least, with a – you know, if Trump were to win, you would still have a Democratic House, and if Biden were to win, who knows? The Senate might still be Republican. You’ve really got this prospect of continued gridlock. How worried are you that this election, in a way, is just going to fan the conviction of both sides? Both sides are going, you know, “This was mine to win, and I lost it.” You know, is each side going to be more convinced than it was before? Are you worried about an even more polarised America, and more gridlocked?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You know, I think, yes, of course, America is deeply divided, we know this, on multiple lines: generational, gender, suburban, urban, rural. It’s partisan, you know, social values line up on either side of the aisle, along with economic values and all the rest of it, which is, you know, that is polarisation. So, clearly, this is an issue.
One thing that I have been wondering about if – you know, if it’s true what we are starting to see, which is Wisconsin and Michigan beginning to look more blue, Arizona staying there, Omaha having given, believe it or not, an Electoral College vote to Donald – to Vice President Biden that might matter a lot, and we have a President Biden, you know, by the end of the week, at least, announced, what does that do to the Republican Party, right? Does it give the Republican Party in the Senate, who, you know, looks like it may well continue to hold the Senate, does it give the Republican Party some breathing space to actually think about being part of a bipartisan moment? You know, Biden has got a deep history of caring about working across the aisle. He’s not – you know, he clearly has to speak to the progressive wing of this party. At the same time, he himself represents a certain, kind of, American. I mean, you know, he is heart and soul of Middle America, in many, many ways, even though many of his policies are much more progressive.
But it’s not clear to me that the Republican Party has loved having to bow to President Trump. I think there’s a silent majority of Republicans that would’ve liked to have more flexibility, and maybe, you know, maybe if we end up with a Democratic President, who’s moderate in many ways, maybe this gives the Republican Party the moment to think differently about their position. So I think we might see a lot of things change, and not least because, you know, the pandemic moment, whoever’s the next President is also going to be the person who leads the country through a virus, the therapeutics, getting back to work, new jobs, new economic stimulus. There are going to be so many good things. I know it’s very hard to imagine at the moment. But there are going to be so many good things. So, whoever’s in charge has the capacity, and I agree with you, John, it looks awful right now. It looks awful. Trust me, I think you can hold those two truths simultaneously. An extraordinary turnout with young voters on the street, and, my God, it looks awful. I think they’re both true. But there are going to be a lot of opportunities to move America, not easy, but to move it in a different direction and I think if we have Biden at the helm, I think we will see that begin to happen.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
John, just coming back to you quickly and, again, there’s some – I’m picking up that there’s a lot of questions, so not always calling on everyone by name on this. But there are some questions there about whether there is a part of America that will potentially reject this outcome if it is one in which, to use the metaphor that Leslie was putting in before, that the red mirage then gets overtaken by the blue tide, and maybe I added the ‘blue tide’ part in. But, you know what I’m saying, where there’s this sense that we had it, and then it was taken away from us, are you worried or do you believe this could end up firing up that conviction of separateness, that unwillingness to compromise? And that it might be even taken up by a Mitch McConnell, who’s back, you know, in the Senate? And if they have leadership of the Senate, could they afford to take that breathing time, in your opinion, that Leslie’s been describing to rethink what conservatism is about and what the Republican side is about? Or do you think it just doubles down?
John Micklethwait
It’s very difficult. It’s very interesting. I think the – and I think several things. I think, firstly, that I do agree with Leslie that, actually, in a strange way for Biden, a small victory might give him a, sort of, easier governing thing than a total blue sweep. You know, he is from the centrist part of the Democratic Party. He’s got a better record than many, in terms of reaching out to people from the other side of the aisle. He’s now the – he’s a, kind of, clubbable person, Joe Biden, if you’ve spent any time with him. You know, he’s liked, and that’s one big reason why he’s generally done better than Hillary.
But, on the Conservative side, it’s quite interesting. You could argue, in the short-term, I think you’re right. I think McConnell he’s a clever, kind of, negotiator, tactician. He will try to play this a bit. You know, he was not very helpful when Obama was around. You know, he can block and tackle quite a lot. Just to give one last thing on Biden, and then I’ll give the rest and assertives, is if you remember George W Bush, the last person to win under very, very narrow circumstances, and he was supposedly a moderate. And then he went fairly, kind of, gung-ho, and took the attitude that, you know, a win is as good as a win, and you get on with it.
But one last thing on the Conservative side, I think in a strange way, and written about this, some elements of the Conservative part of America do need to be rethought, and that’s, you know, I’m trying to look at it as much as possible from their point of view. You know, I think there is an element whereby they’ve got to work out exactly what they think they should do, in terms of running the country, the public sector particularly. I don’t think there is a Conservative theory really about government, beyond the fact they don’t like it, and that, in the end, doesn’t, you know, that didn’t work with COVID. It’s unlikely to work with other things.
And sometimes you need a, sort of, time to refresh and actually, from the Conservative side, you could argue that if they were going to lose, it would be better to have something which would really make them go away and think. Because, in general, you know, I think in both America and Britain, you go back to 1980, and since that time, you know, we could still say this because Biden isn’t in yet, there have only been four people who’ve not been Conservatives who’ve occupied either the White House or Downing Street and Obama and Clinton got in in America. Clinton got in by pretending to be a Conservative, you might argue and over here, you had Blair, who certainly pretended quite hard to be a Conservative, and Gordon Brown, who didn’t actually get elected.
So, you’ve had this, sort of, conservatism has been the great – it’s had most of the ideas. Many of the people on this call might not like that. But that’s the – you know, most of the ideas that have dominated the era in which most of us have lived have come from that side of the aisle. At this precise moment, it seems to be a little bit more short of ideas, and sometimes having a, sort of, a real period of opposition would sharpen it up again. So, no doubt, there’ll be very pleased if they hang on the Senate. But I think there will be a point at which it could be useful to have a little bit of a rethink.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, very interesting point. I want to just come a little bit of the international side now. We’ve got a lot of questions about what’s going to happen next, and so questions about Supreme Court and account and stuff like that. So, I’m just warning you that I, you know, and these are being liked up the list of questions, so I’m not going to ignore them. But I’ll let you be as armed as you can, when we get to these questions about the Supreme Court, and Electoral College, and that sort of stuff.
But let me just go to a big questions that Mark McKinnon of The Globe and Mail was asking, and I’ll bring you in on this one, Megan. You know, the world has changed massively since 2000 when we had the hanging chads, and the insufficiencies of Americans – American’s political system was revealed to the world. Can others take advantage of this moment? And maybe you could say a word or two about take advantage of it simply by leaving America stewing, and getting on with recovery? And you can imagine the country I’m thinking about when I’m asking this question. What do you – I mean, do you see this as a very different moment and, therefore, a vulnerability for America within that broader geoeconomic, geopolitical space? What are your thoughts on that, Megan?
Megan Greene
Yeah, thanks, so I do know what kind you’re talking about: China, and it’s no coincidence, I don’t think, that China came out with a huge announcement about Ant’s IPO, and also strengthened their trade restrictions with Australia to show some more muscle. I don’t think it’s coincidental that that happened this morning, as the US looks to be completely divided and dithering. I do think that there is an opportunity for other countries to be moving ahead, while the US necessarily has to do some soul-searching.
I think one lesson, whoever wins this election, and one lesson that we are learning is that Trumpism is here to stay. And so, if Biden wins the election, then I think the Republicans have big decisions about, you know, what the future of their party is. And, actually, I love Leslie’s optimistic view on this, but I’m much more worried that, actually, the lesson is Trumpism is here to stay. And so what we get is a much more rightward lurching of the party, so you get even more extremism with a Tom Cotton or Mark Rubio or Ted Cruz coming in to lead the party, and they’re very different beasts from President Trump, but they’re very right-wing and more extremist and much more clever about, and subtle, about how they go about it as well. So, I think that’s a big question that needs to be answered and if Trump wins, then Trumpism is here to stay for four years in a blatant way, anyhow.
I do think that there is an opportunity for other countries to just go ahead to put the virus first, to recognise that the virus will determine the shape and pace of all of our economic recoveries, to prioritise that while the US is, you know, still potentially figuring out who won how many votes in three states to determine the outcome of this election. So, I do think the – this is a real weakness for the US. Although I will say this election is so different from every other because of mail-in voting and early voting. It’s really hard to make comparisons with 2016 even. You certainly can’t compare it with 2000. I do think that mail-in voting and early voting are here to stay, so I think that the process of elections has been forever changed in the US. But we all knew it would take days potentially to count some of these votes, and we all knew that some of these results might be contested, and I think that we can expect that.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Just one quick follow-up economic question for you, Megan, if I can as well. Do you think it matters who’s in the White House for the United States to be able to do a rapid recovery from the trough of COVID? In other words, do you need a President who says, “Right, you know, I get what this is, and I’m going to organise around it”? But – or is this simply a case that you have to, you know, whatever you try to do from the centre, in the end it’s going to be America’s internal economic dynamism that drags it out of this crisis, irrespective of who’s in the White House? Do you think it really matters who wins to whether America is able to get itself back on the right track?
Megan Greene
I think it really matters, actually, and it matters not only who wins the Presidency, but who wins the Senate as well because the fate of and the size of the fiscal stimulus will be determined by that and I don’t really think of it as fiscal stimulus so much at this point as in catastrophe mitigation. Don’t think of it as, you know, extra stimulus to goose the economy. It’s filling in the hole still very much and, as I mentioned earlier, most of the stimulus that was passed by Congress earlier this year has expired already. So, there’s still a really big hole that needs to be filled pretty quickly, and so, you know, having politics even more divided off the back of this election than before it, that’s not a great sign.
As I mentioned, Biden had stood for a massive stimulus package, not just aiming to fill in the immediate hole, but with some longer-term goals like sustainability embedded as well. Trump’s spending plans are much more woolly. We don’t really know. We’ll get some kind of fiscal stimulus, certainly, off the back of these elections because we need it. But the composition and the size, I think, very much depends on who wins both the White House and the Senate.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I’m going to jump in with a couple, just ‘cause I know what’ll happen, we’ll run out of time at the end, with some specific questions, and there are so many about now that I keep from being Chatham House-like, and try to turn it into the big questions. But let’s go a little bit into very important where it’s not least as we’ve got one of our participants, one of the guest members on here, Lucy Blythe, who is actually writing to us. Well, I know she’s an absentee voter in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, very concerned about her vote being counted. And I’m wondering, Leslie, if you have any thoughts about how the integrity of this final part of the count, will it be protected? Can it be protected? Are you seeing things that make you feel reasonably confident that they’re being protected, or not?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
It’s exactly the right question and, by the way, I really respect the desire to stay right here in the middle of the now ‘cause it’s hard to describe, and we all know it. There is – it is a moment that there’s no reason to pretend that we’re not where we are.
I don’t have any private knowledge. I think what we’ve all seen, you know, the speech that President Trump gave this morning was deeply disturbing and, quite frankly, I think he was thinking on the spot. He was choosing his words as he was uttering them about, you know, “It’s fraud. We would’ve won. Actually, we have won. I’m going to go to the Supreme Court.” He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he’s certainly going to be thinking – his thinking will have developed a lot since that conference.
We have every reason to believe that people on the ground have been prepared for the eventuality in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and elsewhere to continue, and, remember, Georgia is still in play, unless something’s happened in the last 50 minutes, and could be very important, very important actually, have every interest and every reason to believe that they will continue to count until those votes are counted. Not only to determine the result, but because it’s going to be absolutely critical to us being able to understand what happened in this election, and to analyse those results.
Remember when we had the midterm elections, we saw a similar thing. Things changed over time. But we don’t know, right? We don’t know what the President’s going to do, and we don’t know how successful he will be, I mean, and I’d hate to try and guess. But my guess is, you know, if this drags on, and isn’t resolved soon, I would be pleasantly surprised if the President decides to lay low and accept the process and let it play out.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thanks very much for that. Let me turn a question, John, to you, and, again, if others want to comment on it, Megan or Leslie, just wave your hand at me, and let me know if you want to come in on one of these questions as well. But a question from Lesia Scholey, her camera’s not working properly, and she wanted me to ask the question. But she wanted to highlight the incredible influence of Fox News, how much of the time it’s created a rabbit hole into which moderate Conservatives disappear, and people end up, sort of, debating their own propaganda. So, you know, are we worried that this could be a lesson for Europe? Especially in the UK, the potential rise of GB News, this idea of correcting the left-wing bias doesn’t necessarily make for better debate, but for silos. And I think it picks up the point that was also asked by Trisha de Borchgrave, just underneath this, on the, kind of, prevalence of fake news that continues to circulate and is impossible to evict from the debate. What’s your sense, John, about these dynamics inside the radicalisation or polarisation of American politics? Can it be fixed?
John Micklethwait
Well, several things. I mean, firstly, in defence of Fox News, it’s always – they were the people who called Arizona, much to the annoyance of the President. Secondly, you know, they – a long time ago, they were probably the people who were toughest on Trump when he was the Presidential candidate and I do think it’s – you know, there is an occasional thing. There’s a very good quote by Charles Krauthammer on the original neocons where he was talking about Rupert Murdoch’s deep genius, possibly not appreciated by your questioner, that he managed to somehow spot this tiny, tiny niche in America, which was about 40% of the population, which strangely didn’t like PBS, NBC, CBS and so on. And so, I think there was, you know, yes, there are bits of Fox, which are a little bit of extraordinary, but it does – you know, they are catering at the core to quite a big part of America. And I think the bad news is that there are people who are more – far more extreme than that wandering around.
In terms of is it coming to Europe? I think not, because I don’t think there is a body of people for that and, you know, especially in Britain, I think you have a body of people around Brexit, but I don’t see a single thing that would unite people in a similar way.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And that’s maybe reassuring. I wanted to find out whether – a couple of questions about Electoral College and things like that. Can we unmute Mike Gapes, because I think a question by Mike Gapes about the Electoral College, and also, Rosella Cotton has also asked the question about this election will shape the future of American democracy and electoral processes. Rosella would prefer not to come on mic, onto the microphone. Mike, is Mike there? Otherwise I’ll just ask his…
Mike Gapes
Yes.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yes, go ahead.
Mike Gapes
I’m here.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Go ahead, please, ask the question and over to our panel.
Mike Gapes
Yeah, thank you. There’s been talk of changing the Electoral College to make it more representative. Is that now dead as a result of the votes for the Senate, or is that still a prospect for a Biden Presidency?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Who’s going to take that easy question? Leslie’s volunteered. I can see, oh, Megan, you’ve come in. Megan, go first, please, great.
Megan Greene
I was just going to say and the – I mean, the Electoral College system clearly pretty broken and antiquated. If we keep getting someone who wins the popular vote who doesn’t win the election, you’ve got to ask questions about whether the Electoral College should be revised or not. It should. The problem is that whoever wins has won that game, and so they’re less likely to go ahead. It’s like turkeys voting for Christmas. They’re less likely to go ahead and change that game because that’s how they got to where they got. So, I’m not hopeful for Electoral College reform.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Anyone else more hopeful listening?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I would just say one thing, you know, clearly, there’s a need for reform. It’s very unlikely to happen any time soon. The agenda, even the domestic agenda is going to be very, very long and, you know, choose the things where you can move the needle and make a big difference. Electoral reform isn’t going to be making that cut.
But the other thing I would say is, you know, I don’t think we should go from one extreme to the other, right? Having grown up in one of those so-called flyover states, there is a legitimate argument to be made for preserving the right of people in large territories with fewer people to have some proportionate, which isn’t proportionate control over decisions that are made that affect them that isn’t solely decided by population. They don’t want to be ruled by New York and California, and that’s very legitimate. But we’ve gone to the other extreme and if we – you know, if we try to go back and deny that basic feeling, then it’ll never go anywhere. So, it has to be very serious process that takes both arguments very seriously into account.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And there’s a question from Simon Burkitt here about likely outcomes for the Senate and the House. Who, on our wonderful panel, feels they want to take that one on? Wave your hand if you’re – John, are you following that, Megan, Leslie, the House and the Senate? John, over to you first.
John Micklethwait
And I can tell you what it looks like at the moment, and it looks like the Republicans will just, you know, the worst case is it might be equal Senate, but it looks like they’ll probably hang onto it and it looks like the Democrats have definitely, you know, very likely won the House. There was – there’s a [inaudible – 48:46], given where the Democrat – if Biden wins where he’s just scratched his lead in the Presidential side, but they don’t win the Senate seat there. So, it’s all up in the air. But that’s the best – with all the usual caveats, I’m giving Leslie and Megan a bit of a chance to hide behind me on this. There – with all the massive caveats, so we don’t really know, and it’s a long way to go. But that’s the best guess at the moment.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Either of you want to come in on that? No? Anything to add, Leslie?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
No, just that the obvious ones seem to have come through, if I’m not wrong. I think Doug Jones, you know, is out, and Colorado’s moved to Democrat, and I’ve now forgotten the other one that was the very obvious one. But some of the states that we thought might, you know, shift on Senate, North Carolina, I think Susan Collins got re-elected. Am I right there? I saw a tweet saying she was dancing in the street, so I think that means she must’ve been re-elected. So…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
So happy to be out of Congress, of course, that’s the other possibility.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You know, it’s – if you buy into the argument that a landslide isn’t going to do anything to deal with the issue of discontented, empowered people with very strong feelings about Donald Trump, then it’s not necessarily a bad thing not to have a landslide that just completely disempowers and disenfranchises part of the population. It might be the best possible outcome, even if it’s very painful for questions of governance in the short-term.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I’m going to ask – sorry, go ahead, Megan, yeah?
Megan Greene
Yeah, just really quickly, in terms of the markets, this is a weird election ‘cause usually the markets love gridlock because it means nothing can get done, and so they have much more certainty about their operating environment. This time around, as the blue wave seemed to be more likely based on the polls, actually, the markets rallied. So, I think this time around, the markets have been cheerleading a blue wave because it meant certain stimulus. Now, if we get gridlock, that stimulus is not nearly so certain, and so I think the market reaction – I think we could see the market swoon off the back of that if there is gridlock this time, which is the exact opposite of what we usually see.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, from a foreign policy standpoint as well, what happens in the US Senate’s going to be incredibly important for the, kind of, room for manoeuvre that the – whoever’s – the President has, and that, I mean, the Senate seems to me to have undertaken at times its own foreign policy, certainly on some of the issues like sanctions, which have not always been attuned with the President’s own view. So, it would be very interesting if we were to end up with a Biden Presidency, but you still had Republican control of the Senate. And I don’t think it will be just on domestic politics, this would have an impact, but potentially on the scope for foreign policy focus as well.
Frini Chantzi, Frini, are you able to unmute and ask your question, ‘cause it actually ties into Dina Mufti’s, which is top of the list, as Dina’s questions always seem to be, generally first and top of the list. So, Frini, come on in first, if you can unmute, otherwise, I will ask your question for you. Are you there?
Frini Chantzi
Yes, I’m right here, Robin, thank you so much. So, my question…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Please go ahead.
Frini Chantzi
Thank you. So my question is, because there was an article on The Guardian and The Economist so if, you know, peruse these newspapers were saying how Trump would challenge the outcome of the election, and especially The Guardian vote that came in by post, which, as Leslie, I think, mentioned, it’s, you know, the regular way of doing voting these days and it looks like it’s going to be the norm. So, my question is, how the US going to safeguard its democratic institutions against Trump’s attempt to undermine them? Thank you so much for giving me the time to ask a question.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Pleasure, Frini, and then let me just say I wanted to hook that, Leslie, Megan, John, to Dina Mufti’s question, which is a very straightforward one, “What role will the Supreme Court play in the outcome of this election?” You could say too early to say, but that’s Dina’s question. So maybe you could combine those two, and I imagine they’d fit well together. Leslie, you’re on mute.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Did I lose you? You know, and this is – we’re living through this winter, you know, this moment. I don’t have an answer. But, you know, what we’ve heard is that, well, you know, the states will have to look at this very carefully. If Donald Trump tries to contest it and go to a recount, then there are decisions to be made at the state level. He could take it to the Supreme Court, and we don’t know what would happen. I still imagine and believe that people will try to stick to the process as much as possible. If you watched the press conference today, when the President spoke, what was the most interesting part about it was that the Vice President did not mirror the words of the President. He very clearly did not claim that there was a result. He indicated that they, you know, that it was still in process. That is a very interesting move. Not everybody wants to do what Donald Trump has done.
When Donald Trump accepted the nomination on the lawn of the White House with all the people, and Ivanka stood up and gave a speech, you know. Whatever we think or whatever anybody thinks of Ivanka, good – to love her or not love her, she did say, you know, “Not everybody likes the way that my dad talks,” right? People know this. Not everybody wants to follow the hard Trump line, even, you know, we tend to caricature those people who support Donald Trump. And I can tell you and we can probably – on this call, you know, 150 people, I’m sure a lot of us have decent relationships with a number of people who, you know, the media would put into this strange box of Trumpistas and they’re not all, you know, they’re not all crazy. They’re – a lot of them are normal, really normal, solid people, who have chosen to ignore certain things because they – because there are other things that are more important to them. It’s not like everybody wants to suppress democracy in America. So, you know, it’s going to be fought out.
The other thing I wanted to just, kind of, slip in is that my concern about, you know, we keep talking about the disenfranchised Trump voter if Biden wins. That my concern on the Democratic side is the disenfranchised young voters who have turned out, who care so much and so passionately about democracy in America today because of Donald Trump and because of climate. And if Donald Trump comes out of this, and wins, and America’s now out of the climate, we are going to see young people so – not all of them, but a very large number of young people who are out of school, in and out of school, out of employment, deeply care about the climate, passionate, lining up to vote, taking their ballots in, and seeing that they’ve lost and I’m very, very worried about what that means for America.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thanks. But, Megan, come on in, and then I’m going to ask maybe a last question ‘cause I know John has to go bang on the hour, and maybe we all do. But there’s a very good question, which I’m going to get Domenic to ask after Megan’s come in, which I think is right up your street, John. Megan, over to you first.
Megan Greene
Sure, I was just going to say there’s some precedent. So, in Texas, there was a case that was launched to throw out a whole bunch of drive-through votes and the Republican Judge actually dismissed the case, saying that he didn’t think that it was valid. So, you know, it’s a sample size of one. We can’t necessarily extrapolate. But I think this will come down to state-level recounts rather than being kicked up to the Supreme Court, and hopefully, we just have to trust the Judges will do the right thing.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, that does seem to be the case in Pennsylvania as well. Domenic Carratu, if I’ve pronounced your name right, but I’ll let you do it. But it’s a question I think that goes to John’s book practically, so go ahead and ask your question. If you can unmute, Domenic Carratu, otherwise, I will ask your question for you. Are you there, Domenic? I’m not hearing Domenic. I’m going to ask his question. Okay, Domenic, I’m asking your question, here we go. “The West has struggled over the past 15 years or so years with legitimacy, COVID, etc., etc., and now we’ve had another shock election, deep divisions, you know. How do we now make a case for the Western system, in the face of Russia, China?” But, in any case, the Western system, the future of, how do we fix it or make the case for it, John?
John Micklethwait
Domenic is obviously an alias I use many times. But thank you, I have no idea, look. Well, yes, the answer is, go – please, go and buy the “Wake-Up Call” instantly, but – which is the book we’ve written about this. But, yes, I think that is one of the great things. I think if you look at this year, when Historians, and Robin Niblett’s of the future, come and look at 2020, despite everything we’re saying at the moment, you know, they might well regard what’s happened in this election is a symptom or a sideshow because they will say that 2020 was the year, when it looked as if Asia had begun to come back past the West, and reversing a process, which you could argue has gone on for 500 years, and the reasons are very simple. You’ve had COVID where Britain and America are up around, and I just looked, over 700 deaths for every million people. All these countries in Asia, many of them democracies, are around, sort of, 30, 40, 50 deaths, so 20 times better than us and places like South Korea are, you know, sprawling democracies, but then they’ve come up with better systems of government. You cannot imagine an election in, say, Singapore being as chaotic and as badly run as this one.
And I think people could look back at this year and say, well, this was the time when the West, especially the United States, lost the leadership, and people, Historians might come and actually say that the leadership was greatest in the 1960s ‘cause back then, America was dreaming of putting a man on the moon, whilst millions of Chinese, going back to what Megan and Leslie were saying earlier, millions of Chinese back then were dying of starvation. Now, in lots of ways, I deplore, they will be looking at this, and thinking something, something, something, you know, that this has been a year when they have pulled up and come ahead. So, I think people should be worried about this. But the thing about the West’s problems that they are all eminently fixable. It’s not difficult to run a competent election. Most democracies do it, and it’s just a matter of taking the public sector seriously, taking government seriously, and getting on with it. But that, you know, unless we do that, yes, that will be the way that people – they will add a somewhat embarrassing American election to COVID and all the other things that have gone this wrong this year.
And the other crucial point to say is, even if Biden wins, you know, that you cannot put down the list of the problems of this election to Donald Trump. He didn’t invent a healthcare system that is designed to look after the rich and the old rather than the poor. He’s not responsible for racist policing. That’s been going on for 30 years. I covered Rodney King. He’s not responsible for many of the things that have gone wrong with America. So, you shouldn’t expect Biden, if he wins, to be able to fix them. So, there is – I think the West does need, and the United States in particular, does need a much more systemic think, rethink. But thank you again for that wonderfully timed question, from my point of view.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thanks very much, John. Look, I’m going to pull it just a last comment or question to you and Megan to pull up on his point. I’ll finish up with Leslie. Megan, there was a very interesting question from Mary Dejevsky, “How much does the margin of victory affect the strength or weakness of the US President, or is it more about the composition of Congress than how the President actually performs?” Do you have a sense on that and any last closing comment?
Megan Greene
So, I think the electoral system means that we’re dealing in margins necessarily. The margin of victory though, I don’t think matters, at the end of the day, other than that it reflects a divided society. I think it’s much more about the composition of governments, though whether the Democrats can win the White House and the Senate or just the White House that, I think, the future for US policy is affected massively by that, much more than the margin by which a President might have won.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thanks very much for that and, Leslie, I’m going to give you the last shot, but there was two, I thought, interesting questions, which you might take, one from John Mason, “Has Biden and Trump’s positioning on foreign policy held and made any impact on this election? Is it a cleavage between the candidates’ support bases or is really foreign policy just irrelevant to where we are today?”
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, this is where I think polls are wholly inadequate, with all due respect to pollsters, you know, because when an American thinks about the economy, when they go and they tick off the box, right, when, yeah, if you’re a farmer, and you’re thinking about the economy, you’re thinking about soybeans and you’re thinking about China, okay? If you are, you know, thinking about, I don’t know, jobs, sometimes if you’re young and you’re thinking about jobs, you’re thinking about renewables, and you’re thinking about climate. So, there are any number of issues, trade issues, global economy issues, public health. You know, if your big concern is the pandemic, you have the pandemic and you have the vaccine in your mind, and absolutely, at some level, you’re aware that Oxford has this trial, and you wouldn’t mind getting access to whatever happens internationally. So, these are really, really arbitrary measures. Surveys are wholly inadequate. They don’t tell you what you need to know. So, I think…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, I think they should stick foreign policy out at some big, you know, label. We’ve definitely got to finish in a second. A last really easy question for you, Leslie, you can finish with this one, Tom, Thomas Hodson, “The best estimate when we will know who has won?” What’s your guess about when we’ll know who’s won?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Well, not until Britain’s lockdown. I think there’s something there going on. I think it’s going to be – I think we will know by close of business on Friday. I don’t know. I don’t know. But I think we’ll know by – I really don’t know. Close of business on Friday.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
There you go, but we won’t hold you entirely to it, but you have said it publicly and livestreamed. So, thank you very much, John Micklethwait, Megan Greene, Leslie Vinjamuri. Just great to have you with us on this crazy day. I know you’ve got a lot going on, and you’re jumping from this call to another one and great to have so many people join us for this. What was the lovely title again on this? Early something or other, at any case, yes, Early Reflections. So, we’ve been reflecting away, while we’re all scrambling at the same time. But I think to our Early Reflectors, big thanks for everyone on this call. See you again soon, thanks for joining us, and keep in touch with Chatham House’s work. Lots of good stuff going on in the US and Americas, so sign up to it if you’re not doing it already. Thank you very much, everyone. Bye. Thanks, John. Thanks, Leslie. Thanks, Megan.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you.
