| | | | As Congress moves forward with impeachment, one question seems ubiquitous: Why does this feel foregone? The New York Times asks it in a long editorial accusing Republicans of following President Trump off a democratic cliff; The Wall Street Journal implies it in its own editorial, casting impeachment as a self-congratulatory Democratic ploy that will end in acquittal.
But in Politico Magazine, Joshua Zeitz writes that it's not the first time things have felt this way: In 1860, as the House launched an effort to impeach Democratic President James Buchanan, acquittal seemed certain in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and partisan media gave divergent accounts. The House ultimately decided not to impeach, and Buchanan wasn't interested in running for reelection, but Zeitz writes that the House's investigation was meaningful, uncovering kickbacks and payment schemes.
It didn't singlehandedly turn the next election, but it "reduced seemingly different stories to a powerful meta narrative in which Democrats were willing to break any law, violate any norm or leverage any tool in their single-minded pursuit of slavery's extension," Zeitz writes—a counterargument against the "knock" that fact-finding investigations in a partisan climate are "all for show." | | Is Netanyahu Nearing His Political End? | | Israel is heading toward a third attempt at forming a government, with new elections slated for March, and Haaretz Editor-in-chief Aluf Benn asks in a Foreign Affairs essay whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political career might finally be approaching its end. He's not sure of the answer, but Benn writes that Israeli party allegiance is polarized, the electoral map is complicated, and "given that Netanyahu's back is against the wall of indictment, the coming campaign stands to be the nastiest playing-for-keeps contest in Israel's history."
That Netanyahu has held on at all, as he faces a looming indictment, is a testament to changing politics, Aaron David Miller writes in an NPR column: Challenger Benny Gantz has assembled a team of generals who represent Israel's old right, Miller argues, but Netanyahu's staying power is underwritten by a broader rightward shift. | | What the UK Election Says About Trust | | UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is renowned for stretching the truth, but that didn't seem to hold him back in Britain's election, according to Will Jennings, Gerry Stoker, Daniel Devine, and Jen Gaskell. The results, they suggest at Political Quarterly, say something about trust: It matters less whether a politician like Johnson is trustworthy overall—and more that voters trusted him on the issue they cared about.
"On delivery of Brexit, Boris Johnson is trusted. He can deliver and he wants to keep his word. If leaving the EU was your number one issue, then the leader of the Conservatives passed with flying colours," they write, noting that Leave-supporting districts swung most aggressively in the Tories' favor. | | Despite the US Pressure Campaign, Maduro Is Still There | | For all the US efforts in 2019 to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, his reign has persisted. At Global Americans, Andrés Cañizález cites a lack of coordination by the international community; the US, for all its tough talk earlier in the year, "has no coherent policy to propitiate the democratic transition in Venezuela, and even less, the ability to cooperate with other countries, like its neighbor Canada, to find a solution," he writes.
Offering a look at what's next, Cañizález predicts a chaotic January: Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly president recognized by some countries as Venezuela's legitimate leader, will stand for reelection on Jan. 5, but other opposition factions may not support him, and leftist ideology has made a comeback in parliament. The election will determine whether Guaidó remains the face of opposition, or whether a new movement emerges while the international community delays renewing its push for change. | | Can China Pull Off a Semiconductor Revolution? | | With the Huawei ban, America has barred China's tech champion from buying critical US-made semiconductors, exploiting its centrality in tech supply chains. In turn, Bloomberg's Shuli Ren writes, China is pushing to develop its own semiconductor industry—an effort that will test Beijing's state-capitalist model.
Fareed has written that the tech war could be China's Sputnik moment, prompting a wave of Chinese tech advancements, and that's what Beijing appears to be seeking. "More than 50 large-scale semiconductor projects have sprung up across the country, with a total of 1.7 trillion yuan [$242.5 billion] of investment pledged, online media outlet Caixin estimates," Ren points out. But China is years behind other producers, and it's left the initiative to regional governments. Now, Ren writes, "bureaucrats from regions rich and poor are vying with each other to produce a national champion, seeing that the project is close to President Xi's heart"—a poorly planned effort that could pile up more debt than breakthroughs. | | | | | | |
