How to lose an election

Foment an avoidable war. Publicly splurge money on it while telling your countrymen that there is not enough for healthcare or education. Who would re-elect such a government?

Normally wars are great for a leader. You would rarely come across a country that would change its leader in the midst of a war - No matter how incompetent.

George W Bush got re-elected in no small part because of the war in the Middle East.

Roosevelt was replaced because he died! Neville Chamberlain was replaced only because the UK wanted to rebrand its stance toward Hitler.

You see the British hate Jews. They did not want Jewish refugees so badly that they cut out a piece of their “empire” and gave it to the Jews, it’s called Palestine a.k.a. Israel. Even today, only 0.5% of the British population is Jewish.

This was part of the calculus in appeasing Hitler and then he launched Operation Sea Lion.

In the past few months, in quick succession, the incumbent governments in France, Britain, Germany and the US have fallen.

Why?

The war came home - in the form of price.

The US was needling Russia unnecessarily over Ukraine. Russia wanted an undertaking that Ukraine would not join NATO; the US insisted on the opposite. An invasion started. It was the only way for Russia to keep NATO out of Ukraine. The US went to incredible lengths to stop a cease-fire. It kept sending weapons and spent about $183 billion on keeping the war hot.

In addition to that Germany has spent 37 billion euros; France has spent 3.8 billion euros; and Britain 12.8 billion pounds.

The US thought its sanctions would cripple Russia - instead, it was a boomerang that went straight for the pockets of its own people.

Since Europe is a part of NATO it had to fall in line with an octogenarian’s harebrained scheme. Germany cut off the Russian gas supply and had to buy radically more expensive oil from the Middle East. The oil shock that followed pushed inflation through the roof across the world - particularly in the West. They were left with a handful of, what they like to call, dictators that they could turn towards. Oil prices shot up.

Effectively the West had sanctioned itself!

There was a time when supply used to have proximity to demand and goods were produced close to their points of consumption. Now it is normal for an apple to have circumnavigated the globe before you consume it. All transport depends on oil and hence everything got expensive.

Here is the thing about inflation. When it comes down, things don’t become cheaper. They get expensive - a little slowly. The last couple of years have been the worst for the poor.

Biden’s election pitch was supposed to be that he has delivered economic growth, unlike anything anyone has seen. GDP growing, low inflation (now), and lowest unemployment rate. But it catered to the rich and ignored the poor.

The current pay hike protest at Boeing was about getting a 40% hike over the next 3 years. Boeing settled for 38% over the next 4 years. The average inflation in the US in 2022 was 7.1%. Do the math. Workers asked for 13% per year and got 9% per year.

What would have cost $100 in 2021 cost $107 in 2022 and now costs about $114 including the 4% inflation during 2023 and 2.6% in 2024. That is 14% from 2021 to 2023. These workers will get 9% a year to offset that while the prices continue to climb.

So when Boeing offers a hike, the workers get poorer a little more slowly!

This is at the heart of what is causing every government to fall. While they hear that their economy is growing, they keep getting poorer and they do not know why.

They are not unemployed, but they are underpaid.

Across the pond, in 2022, Germany had an inflation of 7.9%; France, 5.2% since they still depend a lot on Nuclear and the winner - the UK at 11.1% inflation.

Had the US not fomented war in Ukraine, all of these governments might have been in with a shot at re-election. But they must spend their trillion-dollar defence budget and then some.

For all of the vilification, RFK Jr is undergoing currently, he makes a lot of pertinent points in his speeches. I am particularly moved by what he says about the wages of war. The violence in society and the deteriorating mental and physical health are the wages of war. When a society sends war outside it comes back to the society that perpetrates it.

The price rise is one of those wages that the West has paid. Obviously, it does not hurt the rich. In fact, they make more money through shrinkflation and price gouging.

The poor get hit. To add insult to injury, they are told the economy is growing and things have never been better.

Linkin Park wrote an entire album called ‘Minutes to Midnight’ during the George W Bush Iraq war, which took direct aim at the inequity of the war. In the song ‘Hands Held High’ they say -

My brother had a book he would hold with pride

A little red cover with a broken spine on the back

He hand-wrote a quote inside

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die"

At one of the election rallies, Obama was poorly delivering the lyrics of ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem. He forgot the song had an intro -

If you had one shot, one opportunity,

To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment

Would you capture it or just let it slip?

The poor (read not the top 10%) took their shot! If the incumbent is not serving them then maybe the other guy would…