Alexander Clarkson

Of all the bbc presenters, Webb’s politics are the easiest to read - because he puts them in newspapers and doesn’t even try to hide them in broadcasts His politics are also mind numbingly predictable

Trump has made ICE way less popular than the IRS www.pewresearch.org/fact-sheet/h...

In today's Russian papers, surprise at the the defeat of Moscow ally Aleksander Vučić in Serbia. One paper: “Russia can expect nothing good from this.” Another: “The results benefit the EU.” But several point out: “The Serbs are dependant on Russian gas.” #ReadingRussia

By all accounts this is what most of the recent Reform media events have looked like. Bubble well and truly burst

Der „klassische“ und recht barbarische Beschuss mit ballistischen Raketen. Die erste Welle kurz vor 22 Uhr, die zweite dann etwa um 3:30. Wie gesagt, ziemlich typisch für die Lage in Kyjiw zuletzt. Die Aufteilung dieser Angriffe auf vereinzelte Wellen dient auch der psychologischen Kriegsführung.

The Brazilian Centre Right to the Bolsonaros:

The closest case might actually be Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro was a famously useless legislator prior to taking power. His attempts to consolidate power were repeatedly stymied by an inability to competently suborn the center-right majority in Congress. His election theft attempt was poorly planned.

The biggest reason his would-be regime has basically been stillborn is that he's not capable of the long-range straegic planning necessary to do regime change. Most of his closest subordinates are also either incompetents or fanatics. Hence the persistent overreach and obviously-doomed endeavors.

The competence of the authoritarian side isn't usually analzyed because the paradigmatic cases feature talented political minds — Orban, Chavez, Modi, Netanyahu, and (early) Erdogan. The US case is exceptional. Trump is a savant at controlling the GOP but a total policy idiot.

I agree with this in broad strokes, but the underlying connective tissue here is more of a character problem: this administration is simply bad at authoritarianism. Their policy judgment and execution has been ham-handed and incompetent because *they* are ham-handed and incompetent

Kyiv is under ballistic missile attack. Unscheduled power cut. A new EcoFlow (portable power station) was delivered a few minutes ago as the previous one was saying goodbye. Life.

With the closure of the Black Sea demand for transporting freight by roan in Russia rouse with the costs for the route from Turkey to Russia rising by 50-100% and for the Chinese one by 15-20% but due to higher taxes and fuel price it's not really more profitable.

Why haven’t I done a very deep dive into recent American foreign policy moves? For the same reason I don’t like slasher films. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/american-f...

Sometimes democracy needs someone who does not forgive and forget

In sum, it's not insurmountable, but it's also not simple to address and might become a point of contention in any future accession process /end

Given centrality of € to EU identity, are MS willing to leave doubt around UK commitment to core activity? Especially giving the UK's history of, well, leaving altogether. 11/

Leaving aside whether £ could ever usefully meet € convergence (and do go spend some time in the archives for extensive debate about this in the 1990s), the Commission would be obliged to note in its opinion on an accession application that the UK did not appear to meet Copenhagen 9/

The issue is that while we have 3 MS who use the ERM-loophole to not meet convergence criteria, they all committed to Copenhagen at the time of accession The UK would potentially be coming in without that intention 8/

Under the Art.49 TEU accession process, new member states are required to meet the Copenhagen criteria that have been in operation since 1993 eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-con... 6/

Das Bündnis GenZregelt ruft zum 31.10. zu deutschlandweiten Demonstrationen auf. Die CDU droht mit Demoverboten, die Polizei will keine Gnade zeigen & die JU Berlin denkt über einen Bundeswehreinsatz im Inland nach. Klingt schon stark nach mangelndem Demokratieverständnis & Extremismus. Komisch.

👀 Max Kettner @ HSBC, the most reliably upbeat analyst I can think of, is spooked "We've been max OW stocks and max UW sovereign bonds since mid-March. Given the constant narrative bingo we just can't have the same level of conviction any longer. Tactically neutral equities and OW DM sovs"

Ever notice how you don’t really get any think-pieces whenever a bunch of left wing parties get elected all at once?

Instead we should focus on which messages, ideas, and visions beyond "we need to beat the far right" have mobilized large parts of society. We should understand the organizational structures behind these victories and acknowledge that they are about more than defending the status quo.

We need to stop always making the far right the subject of political agency and the object of voter decisions in our analyses of contemporary politics. The success of the far right is not inevitable. But single elections do not signal the end of the far-right threat to our democracies.

Well you can't get much clearer than that. Restore are Putin stooges.

Today's diversion: how the EU might handle UK non-participation in the Eurozone tl;dr understandings bump into obligations 1/

Different countries, different elections. But a year that has seen Orbán, Bolsonaro and Vučić defeated (and the GOP likely routed at the midterms next week) doesn't exactly fit the narrative of a relentless rightwards shift. Good candidates, campaigns, movements can still win.

Lmfao Glem was anti Lula.

Kleiner Tipp aus Serbien. Es ist sehr gut eine korrupte ultrarechte Mafiaregierung zu stürzen. Noch besser ist es, solche Leute gar nicht erst an die Macht zu lassen.

Via Brian Winter on the other site:

Of course a win for non-authoritarian leaders or movements does not automatically mean all problems are solved or that authoritarian forces can't come back in future. But it is worth maintaining hope and optimism, because if people succumb to nihilism and apathy then democracy cannot survive.

The successful fightback against oligarchy probably started when the Brewers swept the Dodgers

I guess a lot of people who wrote thinkpieces about how Latin America was on an unstoppable wave to the Right now might need to do some quick edits before they get published tomorrow

Has to be said that a great thing about Lula is he is a champion grade hater