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Will Germany Return to Its Nationalist Past?

“Think of Europe today as an unexploded bomb, its detonator intact and functional, its explosives still live,” Robert Kagan warns us in Foreign Affairs, raising the possibility that Germany could return to its nationalist past, awakened and untethered in a Europe filled with nationalism and populism. The Proclamation of the German Empire, Anton von Werner, 1882 Germany has been a model of peace and liberalism in the post-World War II system, but the constraints are fading: Nationalist parties are on the rise, the free-trade system is threatened, and President Trump has thrown America’s security guarantees into question. It’s a frightening thought, but Kagan suggests Europe’s economic powerhouse could return to a natural state of nationalism and ambition, if this carefully laid system falls apart. If one were devising a formula to drive Europe and Germany back to some new version of their past, one could hardly do a better job than what U.S. President Donald Trump is doing now. Overtly hostile to the EU, the Trump administration is encouraging the renationalization of Europe, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did in Brussels at the end of 2018, when he gave a speech touting the virtues of the nation-state. In the European struggle that has pitted liberals against illiberals and internationalists against nationalists, the Trump administration has placed its thumb on the scales in favor of the two latter groups. It has criticized the leaders of the European center-right and center-left, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to French President Emmanuel Macron to British Prime Minister Theresa May, while embracing the leaders of the populist illiberal right, from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Marine Le Pen in France to Matteo Salvini in Italy to Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland. It was in Germany, of all places, where the U.S. ambassador, Richard Grenell, expressed in an interview the desire to “empower” Europe’s “conservatives,” by which he did not mean the traditional German right-of-center party of Merkel. Besides encouraging right-wing nationalism and the dissolution of pan-European institutions, the Trump administration has turned against the global free-trade regime that undergirds European and German political stability. The president himself has specifically targeted Germany, complaining of its large trade surplus and threatening a tariff war against German automobiles in addition to the tariffs already imposed on European steel and aluminum. Imagine what the effects of even greater pressure and confrontation might be: a downturn in the German economy and, with it, the return of resentful nationalism and political instability. A burning poster of Angela Merkel in a Nazi uniform outside the Greek parliament in Athens, May 2013. Now imagine that Greece, Italy, and other weak European economies were teetering and in need of further German bailouts that might not be forthcoming. The result would be the reemergence of the economic nationalism and bitter divisions of the past. Add to this the growing doubts about the U.S. security guarantee that Trump has deliberately fanned, along with his demands for increased defense spending in Germany and the rest of Europe. American policy seems bent on creating the perfect European storm. Whether this storm will descend in five years or ten or 20, who can say? But things change quickly. In 1925, Germany was disarmed, a functioning, if unstable, democracy, working with its neighbors to establish a stable peace. French and German leaders reached a historic pact in Locarno, Switzerland. The U.S. economy was roaring, and the world economy was in relatively good health, or so it seemed. A decade later, Europe and the world were descending into hell. Today, it may well be that the German people and their neighbors in Europe can be counted on to save the world from this fate. Perhaps the Germans have been transformed forever and nothing can undo or alter this transformation, not even the breakdown of Europe all around them. But perhaps even these liberal and pacific Germans are not immune to the larger forces that shape history and over which they have little control. And so one can’t help but wonder how long the calm will last if the United States and the world continue along their present course. Across Germany, there are still thousands of unexploded bombs dropped by the Allies during World War II. One blew up in Göttingen a few years ago, killing the three men trying to defuse it. Think of Europe today as an unexploded bomb, its detonator intact and functional, its explosives still live. If this is an apt analogy, then Trump is a child with a hammer, gleefully and heedlessly pounding away. What could go wrong?

Elections Hit Erdogan Where it Hurts

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has enjoyed a firm grip on power, but results in municipal elections have hit him where it hurts—his story—writes Selim Koru in The New York Times. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party is contesting mayoral results in Istanbul and Ankara, but opposition candidates may have won in both cities. They’re important to the narrative of Erdogan’s political career, Koru writes: Erdogan launched his rise as mayor of Istanbul, when he and a then-allied mayor of Ankara created “islands of good governance” that set them apart from the ruling elite. The potential losses, then, not only cut into Erdogan’s base, but into his origin story. Less than three weeks before March 31 local elections, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken his animosity towards the opposition to new levels, opening a court case against opposition nationalist Good Party leader Meral Akşener on charges of insulting the president. Akşener, who faced Erdoğan as a rival in last year’s presidential race, can be directly tried since she does not have a seat in parliament or, consequently, parliamentary immunity. Not that this did much to help Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who had his immunity stripped after being detained on terror charges in November 2016. Demirtaş has remained in prison since then, despite the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling demanding his immediate release. Instead, Turkish courts rejected his appeal and upheld his four-year and eight-month prison sentence on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda and also banned Demirtaş from politics. Since the sentence is less than five years, he cannot take his case to the Court of Cassation. The treatment of the former HDP co-chair may be a sign of what is in store for Akşener. Erdoğan has been on the campaign trail supporting his Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidates in a series of meetings since the beginning of February, and the president has used these occasions to launch fierce attacks on opposition parties, accusing them of working with terrorist organisations. The Good Party and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), he said, have entered a secret alliance with the HDP, which Erdoğan has called the equal of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey, the United States and the European Union all list the PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey since 1984, as a terrorist organisation The president has said the opposition parties are taking orders from both the PKK and the Gülen movement, an Islamist former ally of the AKP that the government accuses of plotting the July 2016 coup attempt. Akşener’s response to these accusations landed her in hot water. At a joint rally organised by the CHP-Good Party alliance in Denizli in southwest Turkey, the opposition leader greeted the crowd by asking them, “How are all the president’s terrorists from Denizli?” “Are you well, all you terrorists, whose only wish is to bring bread to your table? Even as a joke, it hurts. The president of this country has called CHP and Good Party voters terrorists. A president who calls close to 18 million voters terrorists,” Akşener said. Akşener’s words evidently struck a nerve. Erdoğan felt compelled to respond during a rally, denying that he had called opposition voters terrorists and explaining he had only meant party leaders. It was then that the president announced he had called in his lawyers to open a case against Akşener. Even after this announcement, Akşener refused to back down. Instead, she repeated her greeting to voters at another rally, this time speaking to voters in Aydın in western Turkey. In the criminal complaint against Akşener, Erdoğan’s lawyers attempted to clearly draw the line the president had indicated in his speech, explaining that he had been “emphasising the CHP-Good Party alliance’s relationship with the PKK and Gülen movement, and inviting voters to act sensitively according to that information.” In a later speech, Erdoğan made references to imprisoned figures from the HDP and the Gülen movement, indicating that a jail term was a very real possibility for Akşener. It was a “significant setback” for Erdogan,and he acknowledged that his party has lost support.”We, as the AKP, have lost some of the municipalities,” Erdoğan said in a speechlate Sunday. “We will accept that we have won the hearts of our people in the places where we won, and we were not successful enough in the places where we lost, and we will decide on our action plan accordingly.” Preliminary results show the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Mansur Yavaş is set to win in Ankara, with Turkish broadcasters already declaring a clear opposition win in the capital on Sunday night.writes Politico Europe’s Zia Weise, while Reuters’ Dasha Afanasieva says it’s bad news for Turkey’s economy, as Erdogan will likely feel pressure to seek short-term fixes that won’t heal Turkey’s current recession. Amid Turkey’s first recession in a decade, local issues took a back seat during the campaign as the municipal elections turned into a litmus test of Erdoğan’s popularity. For years, Erdoğan successfully cast himself as the guarantor of prosperity and growth, but as living costs soared — with inflation at around 20 percent and food-price increases hitting above 30 percent — discontent grew widespread, even among the AKP’s conservative voter base. The president himself described the elections as an existential test for his country, calling the vote “a matter of survival.” In his speech on Sunday night, Erdoğan highlighted that the AKP and its allies, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), won a majority of the nationwide vote share. Combined, they received 52 percent of votes at 99 percent of ballots opened. But neither Erdoğan’s rhetoric nor his government’s subsidized vegetable scheme were enough to convince voters in many of Turkey’s cities — even with the playing field skewed firmly in favor of the president, whose allies control the vast majority of mainstream media outlets. Ankara was not alone in swinging to the opposition: The AKP-MHP alliance also lost Adana, Antalya and Mersin — all among Turkey’s 10 largest cities — and a number of Anatolian provinces, according to preliminary results. The CHP, on the other hand, defended its strongholds on the Aegean coast, including Turkey’s third-largest city of Izmir. Voters in the eastern Anatolian province of Tunceli, meanwhile, elected a mayor from the Communist Party, handing the Communists control over a provincial capital for the first time in Turkey’s history. The opposition’s municipal victories may be unlikely to loosen Erdoğan’s tight hold over Turkey; since winning reelection last year, he governs as executive president with sweeping powers. But they are still a severe blow to Erdoğan — signaling that after 17 years in power, his popularity may be declining. Sunday’s results will also breathe new life into the long-stagnant opposition.

Brexit Hits Its Nadir

For all the chaos of Brexit, things have never been this bad, writes David Allen Green in the Financial Times; with an April 12 deadline looming, the country is unprepared for a no-deal Brexit, Parliament is unable to support any other plan, and Britain has no solid case for another extension from the EU. Prime Minister Theresa May is making such a case, nonetheless, but Green says European countries have already braced themselves for a no-deal Brexit and might not agree this time. Still on the table is the “nuclear option” of revoking the UK’s Article 50 withdrawal—i.e., canceling Brexit—but that would only make sense as a stall tactic, buying time for a new referendum or general election, writes Carnegie Europe’s Peter Kellner, and Green says it might encounter legal problems to be done in time. However, such a deal would also limit the UK’s ability to strike new trade deals with other countries. That was one of the main objectives of Brexit. To abandon it would justifiably rile all those who campaigned for Leave and many who voted for it. What is more, the UK would have to abide by new EU trading rules and agreements, but without having any say in them. Far from “taking back control,” as the Leave campaigners demanded, the UK would have less say on many things than it does now. Even that assumes that the EU would agree to keep the UK in the Customs Union. My guess is that it would—but that it would demand a high price: continuing payments into the EU’s budget, and alignment with most current and future single market rules (again, with the UK having no say in them). Other ideas for a “soft” Brexit, such as one known as “Common Market 2.0,” suffer the same essential defect. They would save the UK from economic ruin, but at the price of political servitude to many of the most important EU decisions. The downsides to both a general election and a soft Brexit mean that Mrs. May still has an outside chance of securing a majority in Parliament this week for her withdrawal agreement—perhaps accompanied by a promise to MPs to give them a greater say in the negotiations in the months ahead over the UK’s long-term relationship with the EU. Alternatively, Parliament might build a majority for a combined proposal: a soft Brexit of some kind, subject to a “confirmatory vote.” A referendum would give voters a clear choice: go ahead with that form of Brexit or stay in the EU after all. This could attract both pro-Remain MPs (who want a referendum) and pro-soft-Brexit MPs (who want a closer relationship with the EU than what Mrs. May’s deal proposes). If neither proposal is agreed this week, then the chances of a no-deal Brexit next week will grow. I do not believe this will happen. MPs oppose it by nearly four to one. Business leaders and trade unions are appalled by the idea. It would be simultaneously catastrophic, absurd, and avoidable. I cannot believe it will happen, although I am not quite sure how it will be averted. Perhaps the nuclear option of revocation will be needed—or a national cross-party coalition government, mooted over the weekend by former Conservative prime minister John Major. Whatever happens, Britain and the EU have a fateful fortnight ahead.

How to Regulate Tech Giants: Make Them Share Data

As the world wrings its hands over how to regulate the Internet, the idea of data mobility seems to be gaining steam. Earlier this month, a UK government panel recommended allowing users to move their personal data between services—something Mark Zuckerberg endorsed—and for the big firms to make user data accessible to smaller competitors. “I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators,” he wrote. “By updating the rules for the Internet, we can preserve what’s best about it – the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things – while also protecting society from broader harms.” Zuckerberg’s missive was the most comprehensive the Facebook CEO has ever been on the issue of government regulation. His call comes as US federal prosecutors are reportedly probing Facebook’s data sharing deals with a number of large technology companies. The US Federal Trade Commission is said to be in talks with Facebook over a possible record fine. And European officials continue to scrutinize the company. Facebook was roundly condemned this month when it failed to stop a live stream by the suspect in the New Zealand terrorist attack that killed 50 people. The platform has also faced a litany of scandals, ranging from hate speech to privacy, and criticism over the spread of fake news, especially during national elections. “Every day, we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks. These are important for keeping our community safe,” he wrote. “But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t ask companies to make these judgments alone.” Zuckerberg called for regulators to hold internet companies “accountable for enforcing standards on harmful content,” an idea that has served as a point of contention in the United States and other countries where social media platforms have long been immune from such legal punishments. He also mentioned Facebook’s efforts to patrol political content, much of which was done after the platform was linked with the spread of misleading information ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. “Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards for verifying political actors,” he said. Zuckerberg also called for a “global framework” for data privacy regulations modeled on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. That law, which went into affect in May last year, threatens fines for internet companies that improperly share data about their users. His support of that regulation comes one year after details emerged about Cambridge Analytica, the now-shuttered company that was accused of trying to influence American voters using information gleaned from 50 million Facebook users. The CEO said data portability — which he described as the ability for users to move their data between social media platforms and other services — should be guaranteed.”True data portability should look more like the way people use our platform to sign into an app than the existing ways you can download an archive of your information,” he said. “But this requires clear rules about who’s responsible for protecting information when it moves between services.” It was the second op-are from a Facebook executive this weekend. Sheryl Sandberg wrote in the New Zealand Herald that the company had to get better at policing its platform. Sandberg said the company was considering restricting who can stream live video on its platform after the suspect in the New Zealand attack broadcast the massacre live on Facebook. A new paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics echoes that recommendation. The concentration of user data in big firms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon “is at the root of a worrying power imbalance between dominant internet firms and the rest of society,” it finds. Massive data collections allow them to develop AI faster than competitors, bar new entrants, and add to the risks of consumer-data breaches. One answer, the paper suggests: Break up their data monopolies.

Iran Plays the Waiting Game, Looks East

Stung by US sanctions, which have cut Iranian oil exports by 1 million barrels per day, Iran appears content to wait out the Trump administration in the hopes that a Democratic replacement will reinstate the 2015 nuclear deal, Barbara Slavin writes for The Interpreter; it hasn’t pulled back from regional partnerships and has shown no interest in negotiating with President Trump. Iran has undoubtedly taken notice that half a dozen Democratic candidates for president have pledged to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if elected in 2020. Meanwhile, pro-JCPOA analysts at US think tanks are already providing road maps for resumed US compliance and new negotiations on a “more-for-more” agreement. (The Brookings Institution is the latest.) The Trump administration has described its policy on Iran as “maximum pressure”. But US ability to further squeeze Iran in the next 18 months is constrained by a number of factors. While sanctions have cut Iran’s oil exports by about a million barrels a day and are causing obvious pain to the Iranian population, Iran is still selling enough oil – about 1.2 million barrels – to get by and has the benefit of about $100 billion in hard currency reserves unfrozen after implementation of the JCPOA in 2016. In May, the Trump administration must decide whether to renew waivers to a half dozen countries permitted to buy Iranian oil without threat of US sanctions. A failure by the administration to renew waivers to key importers such as China and India risks spiking global oil prices at a time when Venezuelan crude exports are also restricted by US sanctions. In recent weeks, oil prices have flirted with $70 a barrel – a level that appears to worry President Donald Trump. It is also unlikely that the US will seek to punish the European Union for trying to maintain minimal economic ties with Iran. The EU has come up with a mechanism called INSTEX to facilitate trade in food and medicine with Iran. The Europeans are waiting for Iran’s parliament to pass anti-money laundering legislation before activating INSTEX later this year. The US must also balance conflicting interests with regard to Iraq, which shares a long border with Iran and relies on Iranian natural gas for nearly half its electricity. The Trump administration recently renewed waivers for Baghdad to keep importing Iranian natural gas for another three months. The last thing the US wants to see is more unrest in Iraq this summer because of electricity shortages and climate change-goosed high temperatures. On a recent visit to the Middle East, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Iraq to clamp down on Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias that took part in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group. Iraq has instead put these militias on the government payroll. A US decision to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group – reportedly being pushed by Pompeo – would put Iraq in an extremely difficult situation given the guards’ strong ties with Iraqi militias and politicians. It could also put the few thousand US troops in Iraq at greater risk. The Trump administration claims to be building a global coalition against Iran’s “malign” activities. But while many Western countries would like to see Iran pull back from regional interventions, curb its ballistic missile program and treat its own citizens better, US policy is strongly supported by only a handful of Iran’s rivals in the Middle East. In an interview on 28 March, Pompeo acknowledged: We’ve got the Gulf states and Israel sharing our view of the threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ordinary Iranians are caught between their own government’s malfeasance and a hostile Washington. They are angry at their government’s poor performance, as evidenced in poor preparation for recent floods, but derive little comfort from an aggressive US propaganda campaign that seeks to blame every problem on Iranian officials. In the meantime, it’s looking East: To soften the blow, Iran has sought deeper ties with China, through a series of recent visits, including one by its parliamentary speaker, in an attempt to restart a gas-development project in which China had invested, and to spur trade and oil sales, write Masha Rouhi and Clement Therme of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran was China’s fourth-largest supplier of oil and China was the top buyer of Iranian oil in 2018. But as the US moved to re-impose sanctions in November 2018, the value of Chinese imports of Iranian oil fell to US$628 million in October from US$1.78 billion in August. Imports did recover to US$1.06 billion in December – this was down to a US waiver scheme under which China and a handful of other nations are permitted to keep importing limited amounts of Iranian oil. (The intention behind the scheme is to limit Iran’s oil revenue, while averting the risk of an oil-price spike.) Nonetheless, the presence of Zangeneh, the oil minister, on this trip is a clear indication that trade and especially oil sales to China remain a priority for Iran. There are some expectations in Tehran that China could play a leading role in the further development of Iranian oil and gas resources. A decade ago, Iran gave an ultimatum to Total and Shell to complete phases 11 and 13 of South Pars, the largest gas field in the world. Uncertain that such a deal would ever come to fruition, Iran signalled that it was more likely that Asian companies, and not European ones, would ultimately develop the field. Neither deal materialised at the time, but the JCPOA paved the way for the signing of a new contract to develop South Pars in July 2017 with France’s Total, China’s CNPC International and Iran’s Petropars, a of NIOC. China’s state-owned oil company CNPC had a 30% stake in the US$4.8bn deal, but Total, which held a 50.1% interest, withdrew in 2018 as the threat of renewed US sanctions loomed large. In November 2018, it was announced that CNPC would replace Total, but CNPC in turn suspended its new deal in December, again as a result of US pressure.

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The Border Asylum Crisis “A genuine crisis is building at the southern border as the perverse incentives of U.S. asylum law invite a surge of migrants that is overwhelming border security,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes. “Immigration has picked up over the last year as word has spread that parents with children who claim asylum can stay for years and perhaps forever . . . At the current rate, border apprehensions will exceed one million this year—the most since 2006—as human smugglers become more ambitious and reduce prices to entice more migrants.” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said last week that the border has hit “a breaking point” amid a rush of families from Central America. More than a strong U.S. economy is driving this influx. Between 2000 and 2017, apprehensions dropped.

Media amplified Schiff’s voice, shouted down the truth “The job of newspapers was once to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ Today, that job seems to be to give voice to liars and shout down the truth,” Charles Hurt writes in The Washington Times. “No one has been given more airtime and ink to spread his lies than Rep. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and chief prevaricator. That anyone this dishonest is allowed to hold a position of such importance and power in Congress tells you all you need to know about Washington these days.” It also explains how a vulgar outsider and political novice like Donald Trump won the election in 2016. Sure, Mr. Schiff should step down from the committee chairmanship. He also should be stripped of all security clearances by Democratic leadership. Don’t hold your breath. In reality, he should be kicked out of office. By the good people of California’s 28th Congressional District. Conservatives should dump him for all the obvious reasons. Democrats should dump him for lying to them so relentlessly for the past two years. But the lying politicians are not the only ones deserving our contempt and scorn. Merchants of lies in the media deserve even more contempt and scorn. The New York Times and The Washington Post led the way. Dunces at CNN and MSNBC trotted right behind. Used to be that reporters took enormous pride in the depth of their skepticism. They would talk about how finely tuned their “BS-detectors” are. They had a nose for when somebody was peddling lies. All that evaporated in the Age of Trump, when anything goes — so long as it slimes the president.

Vice President Mike Pence: Returning to the moon in five years is a goal worthy of America In Fox News, Vice President Mike Pence writes that President Trump’s mission for NASA to return to the moon in five years is a worthy goal for America. At the president’s direction, federal regulators are modernizing out-of-date rules to unleash America’s innovative space companies. We are partnering with them to create new technologies to explore space farther, faster, and at a lower cost to the taxpayer. And to protect these vital investments in space, the president has taken executive action – and called on Congress – to establish the sixth branch of our Armed Forces: The United States Space Force. “The president believes that, to be worthy of our great nation, our space program must pursue great things, including, above all, being the first nation to send astronauts to the moon in the 21st Century. And our administration will do whatever it takes to succeed.” If the Washington Post’s Editorial Board believes that sending the first woman or the next man to the moon is not worth the cost – or that there’s nothing to be gained – that would likely put it at odds with the vast majority of Americans who welcome the president’s commitment to renewed American leadership in human space exploration.

Michael Knowles: Trump’s best week ever – Dems’ politics of fantasy collapse “Conservatives have not had so triumphant a week since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Michael Knowles writes for Fox News. “The past two years have offered many successes, from President Trump’s victory in 2016 to the successful confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. But none so thoroughly demolished so dominant a leftist narrative as the collapse of the Russia collusion hoax.”The week’s subsequent triumphs only further vindicated the central conservative consolation, more comforting than any discreet political victory: reality, eventually, reasserts itself. During a 1963 speech before the Irish Parliament, President John F. Kennedy quoted the playwright George Bernard Shaw. “Other people,” said Kennedy, “see things and say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’” Kennedy’s brother Robert liked the line so much he made it the theme of his 1968 campaign for president. Countless Democrats have since regurgitated the quotation, all apparently unaware that the line comes from Shaw’s play Back To Methuselah, and the serpent utters it to tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden. The left relies upon the politics of fantasy to tempt voters. Some see President Trump’s victory in 2016 and ask, “Why?” Others dream Russian collusion that never was and ask, “Why not?” According to the politics of fantasy, mankind is on the verge of perfectibility, if only we give the government just a little bit more money and power. The world will end in a dozen years if we fail to pass a freshman congresswoman’s first bill. “Some men have uteruses,” insists Planned Parenthood, the same left-wing behemoth that denies the humanity of human babies. The major television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, promoted the Russia collusion narrative for a combined 2,285 minutes, according to the Media Research Center. That comes out to an average of three minutes per night for 791 consecutive nights. Left-wing cable networks peddled the lie nearly 24 hours per day. Current and former high-ranking government officials accused the president of treason. None of it had any basis in reality. The politics of fantasy offers the left a significant short-term advantage, appealing variously to voters’ fears, desires, perversions, and pride. It contrives any narrative, abides any lie, and courts any convenience – truth be damned. In the long run, however, those who trade reality for fantasy make a deal with the Devil, and the Devil will have his due.

Poll: 50% of Hispanic voters approve of Trump, GOP regains ballot lead “As President Trump doubles down on his pledge to build a southern border wall, Hispanics are showing broad support for him, according to a new survey,” Paul Bedard reports for the Washington Examiner. “Some 50 percent of Hispanics approve of the president’s job, according to the latest McLaughlin & Associates poll of likely general election voters.”What’s more, the Republican Party has regained its edge over Democrats in the generic congressional ballot. Pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin suggested that with the end of the Russia collusion probe aiding the president and Republicans, they are poised to come back in the poll and win re-election in 2020. “The results of this new national poll show that President Trump and the Republicans are poised to take advantage of the great opportunity afforded by the president’s vindication by the final release of the Mueller report,” they wrote in an analysis for Newsmax. Among their findings: Fifty percent of Hispanics approve of Trump’s job, and 47 percent have a “favorable” opinion of him. Trump has the support of 80 percent of the GOP going into his re-election bid. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich is at 5 percent, and William Weld is at 1 percent. Fifty-one percent say the economy is improving. Some 23 percent of voters who disapprove of the job Trump is doing say the economy is getting better. Republicans lead the generic ballot for Congress, 47 percent to 43 percent. The polling duo said that Trump should broaden his re-election campaign to target independents and some Democrats. They wrote in Newsmax, “The president’s upcoming campaign should look to broaden his base from the solid Republican majority to a decisive extra-partisan majority as Ronald Reagan created in the 1980s. The president can win among independents and position to attract disaffected Democrats.”

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A Liberal Thaw in Eastern Europe

“Anti-populist” reformer Zuzana Caputova has offered a “ray of hope” for liberalism in Eastern Europe, the Financial Times writes, after the anti-corruption lawyer won Slovakia’s presidency with 58% percent of the vote in a runoff over the weekend. She’ll become the country’s first female president. But Caputova’s connection with journalist Kuciak’s case began long before his death. The lawyer previously waged a 14-year legal battle with a company represented by accused businessman Marian Kocner that planned to build an illegal landfill in her home town, Reuters reported. Caputova won the case — and the Hollywood-inspired nickname “Slovakia’s Erin Brockovich,” after the environmental campaigner played by Julia Roberts in the film of the same name. During the election campaign Caputova, a divorced mother-of-two, turned her back on issues that have worked so effectively for populist parties in neighboring Hungary and Poland, such as migrants and family values.In Slovakia, a country where same-sex marriage is illegal, Caputova called for greater LGBT rights. Her “values could not be more antithetical to those of populist strongmen in power” elsewhere in the region, the FT writes. Her social politics cut against the grain, too: She supports gay marriage and abortion rights at a time when Europe sees a sharp cultural divide across the former Iron Curtain. Voters apparently liked what they heard, and Caputova gained just over 58% of the vote in a second-round run-off against 52-year-old European commissioner Maro Sefcovic, according to state-owned Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS). Pro-European Union campaigner Sefcovic conceded defeat Saturday to Caputova, a member of the liberal non-parliamentary Progressive Slovakia party, which has no seats in parliament. Some extreme candidates for the presidency — which is a largely ceremonial role although the president does appoint the prime minister — were eliminated after the first round of voting on March 16. Now as all eyes turn to the upcoming European Parliamentary Elections in late May, Slovakia — which has traditionally had one of the lowest turnouts in the election — may have shown that populist parties might not triumph, as so many analysts have predicted.

In Ukraine, a Comedian Upends the Political Order

It’s a “resounding slap in the face to an entire Ukrainian political class,” The Economist writes: Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy took the leading spot in Ukraine’s first round of presidential elections on Sunday, capitalizing on “total disillusionment” with politicians and assembling a broader coalition than his rivals while saying “almost nothing about his politics.” Volodymyr Zelensky, who plays a history school-teacher accidentally propelled to the presidency, won around 30% of the votes, according to exit polls. With around two-thirds of the ballots counted, the actual results are indicating a similar outcome. In second place is Mr Poroshenko with 16%; Ms Tymoshenko is currently third with 13%. Mr Zelensky will now face either Mr Poroshenko or Ms Tymoshenko in the second round scheduled for April 21st. He looks likely to win then. Zelenskiy will advance to a runoff, and we shouldn’t dismiss him as a solid choice to run the country, Michael Bociurkiw writes: Zelenskiy is intelligent, has a team of reformist advisers, and might be Ukraine’s best chance at a different direction, after politicians have let the country down for decades, he argues. In trust surveys, Ukraine’s politicians have traditionally ranked at rock bottom — a March Gallup Poll showed that just 9% of Ukrainians have confidence in their national government, a world low. Having crowdsourced most of his policies on social media, Zelenskiy has made a key campaign promise of stripping the president, lawmakers and judges of immunity — a surefire way to ignite voters. So too will a pledge to run for just one term. Even if he doesn’t get the presidency his newly formed political party, Servant of the People, appears to be in strong position for the fall parliamentary elections. As Ukraine is a crucial buffer state between Europe and an increasingly belligerent and aggressive Russia, what happens there over the next weeks and months should be everybody’s business as it turns another page in its slow transformation from oligarchic pluralism to real pluralism. After five years in power, propped up by billions of dollars in Western loans and assistance, and with no notable progress in either the war on corruption or bringing an end to the war with Russia, Poroshenko has demonstrated he is not the right man to fix the seemingly insurmountable problems of this nation of 44 million people. Sure, Zelenskiy is an unproven leader. But after all, American voters managed to send an immigrant actor and former Mr. Universe (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento to manage an economy several times larger than Ukraine’s. And that didn’t terminate California — and that’s no joke!

Quantifying Brexit’s Damage

Brexit has cost the UK 2.5% of its potential economy, the Centre for European Reform estimates, for an annual hit of £19 billion. The group keeps a running tally of Brexit’s economic cost, and the latest figures (through December 2018, when the British economy shrank by .4%) reflect continued losses, compared to a computer-selected group of similar economies representing how Britain would’ve fared without Brexit. The latest UK trade figures have brought little cheer. Britain’s trade gap with the rest of the world has widened in the last quarter as it bought more goods – including cars – from the EU. Imports from EU countries increased by £1.7bn in October-December, while exports increased by just £0.04bn. The rise in imports was due mainly to a £1.5bn increase in imports of machinery and transport equipment, of which £1bn was cars.  Photograph: ONS Here’s the key points from the ONS: The total trade deficit (goods and services) widened £0.9 billion to £10.4 billion in the three months to December 2018, due mainly to a £1.5 billion rise in goods imports. Rising imports of cars, material manufactures and chemicals were the main contributors to the rise in goods imports in the three months to December 2018; this was offset in part by falling imports of unspecified goods (including non-monetary gold) and fuels. The trade in goods deficit widened £1.6 billion with EU countries and narrowed £0.2 billion with non-EU countries in the three months to December 2018. Excluding erratic commodities, the total trade deficit widened £3.8 billion to £12.9 billion in the three months to December 2018. Removing the effect of inflation, the total trade deficit widened £0.6 billion to £7.1 billion in the three months to December 2018. The total trade deficit widened £8.4 billion to £32.3 billion between 2017 and 2018, due mainly to a £7.2 billion increase in services imports. Sky News have broadcast an interview with Philip Hammond, in which the chancellor warns that the failure to agree a Brexit deal is hurting the economy. Asked about the slowdown in growth to just 0.2% in the last quarter, Hammond replies: It’s a solid performance from the economy when you took at what’s happening globally and in other competitor countries. But of course there is no doubt that our economy is being overshadowed by the uncertainty created by the Brexit process. The sooner we can resolve that the better, and the quicker we can get back to more robust growth in the future. Ed Conway@EdConwaySky Chancellor @PhilipHammondUK tells me: “There is no doubt that our economy is being overshadowed by the uncertainty from Brexit.. this has gone on longer than we wanted” 4 7:15 PM – Feb 11, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy See Ed Conway’s other Tweets Hammond (a former Remain supporter who now favours a softer Brexit) also admitted that he’s expected an agreement to be signed by now. I’m afraid this has gone on longer than we would have liked. We would have liked to have been able to bank this at the back end of last year, but I’m confident that we will get it done, and that’s the important thing that business needs to hear. UK trade secretary, Dr Liam Fox, has blamed China’s cooling economy for Britain’s weak growth, rather than Brexit. Speaking in Bern this morning, Fox said: “Clearly there are those who believe that Brexit is the only economic factor applying to the UK economy. I think you’ll find that the predicted slowdown in a number of European economies is not disconnected from the slowdown, for example, in China”. He saw speaking after signing a trade continuity agreement to guarantee future trading terms between the UK and Switzerland after Brexit. Since the 2016 vote, uncertainty has put a “speed limit” on Britain’s economy, the group writes, with foreign and corporate investment in a slump—though a softer Brexit could bring some of it back.

Is China Taking the Lead in Social Media?

“Silicon Valley is now looking East,” writes Ashley Galina Dudarenok in the South China Morning Post, as Mark Zuckerberg seems to want Facebook to mimic Chinese social-media giant WeChat by shifting focus to messaging and privacy. It’s the first time a Silicon Valley tycoon has publicly mused that “a Chinese digital ecosystem is worth learning from and emulating,” Dudarenok writes. WeChat dominates social media in China the way Facebook does in the US, and its multifunctionality—it allows users to shop and make payments—has turned heads. It’s part of a larger trend, Dudarenok writes, expecting China to export more tech advancements to the West. Called Weixin in China, it dominates the country’s social media. Its interface is in Chinese and it can only be downloaded from within the country with a China-based phone number. It has far more functions and abilities than the international version. It can be used to shop, request a taxi, order food, buy air tickets, check in for your flight, book a medical appointment, pay utility bills and even file an application for a divorce in some cities. No one ever needs to leave the app. When one looks at statements that Zuckerberg has made and the initiatives the company has championed, it seems that one goal he’s had for Facebook is for it to be a smaller, more manageable version of the internet that people don’t leave … just like WeChat is now in China. In some ways, Facebook has succeeded. However, there’s been pushback over the years, especially against its Free Basics initiative, which offered free internet access in developing countries but only to a few sites, Facebook being one of them. Within China, WeChat has been able to achieve this not by restricting access (with the exception of competitors such as Alibaba and sites already blocked by the Chinese government) but by creating more pathways. It hasn’t created a smaller internet, but a more connected one, available in one place, centred on personal needs and daily use. China’s digital progress can also be seen in the app TikTok .The short video app is a leading platform in Asia, the US and the rest of the world. It has hit 500 million global monthly active users and was the most downloaded non-game app in the Apple Store in the first quarter of 2018. Two weeks ago, Google unveiled its cloud gaming platform, Stadia, joining Microsoft and Tencent in the gaming space. Silicon Valley is now looking east. And so is Berkshire Hathaway. At the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in May 2018, Charlie Munger mentioned WeChat as the potential cloud on the horizon for credit card companies such as American Express. For many years, globalisation has meant the global adoption of Western ways. Now it’s obvious that China is taking a leading role and repositioning itself on the world stage. According to a McKinsey report, a large part of China’s outbound investment focuses on manufacturing, AI and the internet of things. In the past decade, China’s internet giants have built their own AI labs and invested aggressively in AI companies around the world. China’s relentless focus and investment in data has paid off. With more people than anywhere else in the world and a gigantic trove of data, it has enormous advantages in this area and is using them to supercharge research and development, as well as industrial and medical solutions. The Chinese government is continuing progress on its “Belt and Road Initiative”, building infrastructure, investing in multiple countries and organisations, and racing ahead in 5G technology. Huawei, which claims to have the world’s fastest 5G commercial solutions, will deploy an ultra-fast 5G telecom network in a Shanghai railway station in a world first. Born in China but going global – is this the next trend?

India Is Awash in Fake News

Ahead of its upcoming elections, India is facing “information wars of an unprecedented nature and scale,” write Snigdha Poonam and Samarth Bansal in The Atlantic, as disinformation is running rampant on services like Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as smaller platforms. The message was posted to dozens of WhatsApp groups that appeared to promote Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, and seemed aimed at painting the BJP’s main national challenger as being soft on militancy in Kashmir, which remains contested between India and Pakistan, just as the two countries seemed to be on the brink of war. The claim, however, was fake. No member of Congress, at either a national or a state level, had made any such statement. Yet delivered in the run-up to the election, and having spread with remarkable speed, that message offered a window into a worsening problem here. raditional media continue to be the dominant source of information for Indians. Among those aged 15 to 34, 57 percent watch TV news a few days a week, 53 percent read newspapers at the same frequency, and about 18 percent consume their news on the internet, according to a 2016 study by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, a think tank based in New Delhi. But social media is playing a growing role. As many as 230 million Indians use WhatsApp, making the country the messaging platform’s biggest market. One-sixth of them are members of chat groups started by political parties, according to another CSDS study. These groups, ostensibly used to organize rallies, recruit volunteers, or disseminate campaign news, are capped at 256 members. In 2018, “horrified by terrible acts of violence,” WhatsApp limited the number of people that messages could be forwarded to in India from 256 users to five, and made it harder to forward images, audio clips, and videos. (Some of these restrictions have since been rolled out worldwide.) Many political groups use WhatsApp to distribute pure propaganda. Consider the description of BJP Cyber Army 400+, a WhatsApp group whose five administrators include Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s information-technology division: “This Group is Nationalists Group With Hindu Warriors Working To Save Nation From Break India forces Led politically by congress, communist And religiously by Islam and Christianity [sic].” Modi has campaigned on promoting good governance, but Hindu-Muslim polarization is also central to the BJP’s election strategy. The party’s messaging aims to consolidate the support of Hindus, who make up 80 percent of India’s electorate, by presenting opposition parties as pro-Muslim. For example, in the southern state of Telangana, several pro-BJP groups picked parts of Congress’s manifesto that promised government benefits to Muslims, such as free electricity to mosques and scholarships for Muslim students, and presented them as the party’s exclusive offerings. Such efforts are widespread. Based on research published in the Hindustan Times, eight of the 10 most shared misleading images in pro-BJP WhatsApp groups ahead of last year’s state elections were about the Telangana manifesto, and the claims that Congress favored only Muslims. Though other parties use similar tactics, the BJP has built the largest social-media system. Malviya, who did not respond to requests for comment for this story, has said that about 1.2 million volunteers will help run the party’s social-media campaign for the national elections. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, the BJP’s IT department has a six-tier hierarchical structure covering the capital city of Lucknow down to the most remote village. At what is known as the booth level, the last point of contact with voters, each party worker has been directed to create a WhatsApp group with at least 50 users, Brajesh Mani Mishra, the 39-year-old in charge of the party’s media and IT division in Gorakhpur, in Uttar Pradesh, told us.The strategy extends beyond WhatsApp. Another BJP staffer in Gorakhpur, Nitin Sonkar, told us how he was charged with, among other things, promoting downloads of Modi’s own smartphone app, known as NaMo. The app—which came preloaded in free Android phones distributed by at least two BJP-led state governments and in low-cost phones sold by Reliance Jio, a domestic cellphone operator—has been installed by more than 10 million people. It is used to promote the prime minister, and has a built-in social network with Twitter-like features. But it, too, is vulnerable to misinformation. Some of the falsities are being spread “by political parties with nationwide cyberarmies,” and platforms’ efforts to clamp down aren’t working—two disconcerting trends, as democracies figure out what to do about fake news worldwide.

Fareed’s MHI