Why the Left Can’t Win and the Joy of Football in England
Happy Sunday Fam Bam,
It’s been a fortnight but I’m back. This week we have some unanswered questions from my Comparative Government class, some insights from my recent travels about the differences between life in the US and England, and an unendorsement of Netflix’s Beef.
My students are taking their AP Comparative Government & Politics exam on Wednesday. In the course, we examine the systems of government in six states: the UK, Russia, China, Iran, Mexico, and Nigeria. We spent this week reviewing material and concepts from the year. My feelings about the exam and the College Board in general are mixed, at best, and I recently detailed them on the TG2 Blog. But despite my personal reservations about the org, I’m a professional and make sure students are prepared for their exams. They’re reviewing the major and some more niche concepts from the course, from how Nigerians elect their legislature to how the Chinese Communist Party limits the independence of the judiciary.
On Thursday, we discussed the term-limit system in Mexico. To prevent the entrenchment of figures like Robert Byrd (he represented West Virginia in the US Senate from 1959-2010, a gobsmacking 51 years), Mexican politicians are denied the right to serve consecutive terms. Notably, the Mexican president is elected to a single six-year term with no chance for reelection. The current Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will leave office in 2024 and Mexico will elect a new leader (along with the US—the cycles sync every twelve years). AMLO is a singular figure in Mexican politics. He served as the former mayor of Mexico City in the 2000s. He ran for president unsuccessfully in 2006 and 2012 before winning the office in 2018 with 54% of the vote. He is a left-wing populist figure and leader of the MORENA Party.
AMLO’s populism became a topic of a rabbit hole conversation in class. My students couldn’t seem to get their heads around the inability of left populists, like AMLO, to get a foothold in the US and throughout the Anglosphere: Canada, UK, Australia, and NZ. I was unable to help them and I have been thinking about it for the last few days. I realize the answer I gave them Thursday is “man, it’s really complicated” is both a copout and correct.
In contrast to the US, left-populists have found electoral success to our south. In addition to AMLO, there are figures like Evo Morales who was elected as the President of Bolivia in 2005 and led the country until 2019. He was a former farmer and labor leader who campaigned on a platform of economic justice, indigenous rights, and anti-imperialism. There was also Rafael Correa. He served as president of Ecuador for twelve years. He was an economist who advocated for socialist policies and investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Even Lula in Brazil, who resumed office in 2023, is considered a populist.
No such equivalent figures have risen in the US (or elsewhere in the Anglosphere for that matter). The easy answer is to blame corporate media coverage or capitalism, but while each of those play a role, they absolve people on the left of their culpability and unforced errors.
I have my thoughts, but they’re largely grounded in Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, but I am curious about yours.
Take your best shot at answering my students’ question: Why are left-populists more successful in Latin America? Why do you think left-populism is so unsuccessful in modern US politics? Why is it that populist figures like Trump and Johnson (in the UK) were able to win power but similarly populist left figures can’t seem to get traction? I’d love to hear your thoughts* hit my inbox and I’ll share some responses next week.
Recommendations and Bits for the Week
This week on the podcast we have a conversation with Austin Patjens, a banker with Heritage Bank. In the episode, we talk about the period of fragility many regional banks seem to be experiencing and why despite the tumult your deposits are very likely incredibly safe. It comes out Monday but here’s a link to the audio.
There was no newsletter last week because Hope and I made a quick trip to England. Here in the Gulf, it was Eid-al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. So we used the time to peace out to England for afternoon tea and to take in Liverpool vs Nottingham Forest at Anfield. We had a great time and I want to fire off some takes about the experience.
England feels a lot like the US, at least the part of the states I’m from. The four hours of highway between London and Liverpool feel like the I-5 corridor that runs south of Olympia to Vancouver, Washington. Put another way, there was more familiar than unfamiliar. London feels like a giant Vancouver/Seattle and London is more similar to Seattle than Seattle is to Miami or Tuscon. The biggest difference I perceived is the extent to which late stage capitalism is permitted to sink its teeth into society. It appears that people in the UK are unwilling to let as many of their fellow citizens live in abject poverty as Americans are and provide the commensurate social support to meet that goal: the NHS, public housing, etc. There’s still poverty. There’s still homelessness but there’s less of it—by miles.
Next, being in England on a Saturday during football season is special. The streets, trains, motorways, and rest stops were filled with supporters headed to matches. Imagine if every highschool, college, and NFL game happened on the same day every week, in the same six hour window: Friday Night Lights, College Gameday, Monday Night Football, all happening at once.
On the way to Liverpool, we got swamped at a rest stop by charter buses of Cityzens headed south from Manchester to Wembley Stadium for their FA Cup Semifinal match versus Sheffield United. The footballing culture thrives on the short distances. In West London, we realized the distance from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge to Fulham's Craven Cottage is 1.7 miles, roughly half the distance from Lincoln to Stadium in Tacoma. It’s one thing to know that Liverpool and Everton share a city, it’s another to realize the distance between Anfield and Goodison Park is less than the distance across your typical US mall.
Lastly, every joke you’ve ever heard or made about food in England is true. There were zero culinary bangers this trip—not one. Even the fried pork in Chinatown was meh.
A closing note: in the last edition of the newsletter, I gave a hearty endorsement of Netflix’s Beef. In light of recent revelations, I want to rescind that endorsement.
As always, thanks for reading the newsletter. If you'd like to opine just hit reply on the email. I welcome your feedback (especially if you think I am wrong about something) and if you like the newsletter, share it with somebody you love.
See you next week!
*One caveat: I may catch hell for this but the “Bernie got screwed by the DNC” meme isn’t real. Bernie was my preferred candidate in 2016 but the reality is he garnered fewer votes (13,210,550 to 16,917,853) and delegates (1865 to 2842) than Clinton. He didn’t get screwed—he lost and lost again in 2020.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.