Mohamed Bouazizi did not seize the world’s imagination because he was handsome or rich or powerful. Instead, the Tunisian fruit vendor, whose self-immolation kicked off the “Arab Spring” in 2010, inspired tens of millions of Arabs because they empathized with his despair and sense of humiliation.
We often think of politics in binary terms: right versus left, rural versus urban, north versus south. However people come to identify themselves, their political identities are products of circumstance and belief, with some sort of calculation at their core.
Widespread humiliation gives rise to a different kind of politics, one with far less calculation and much more emotion. Today, as COVID-19 guts global economies and takes an especially grim toll on those with the least security all across the world, the politics of humiliation will rise globally. And the impacts of these politics will last for years.
ADVERTISEMENT
What is at issue is not the politics of the poor. The world’s perpetually immiserated often suffer in silence, as the toll taken by years of struggle for mere survival breeds passivity and disengagement.
The humiliated are, by their nature, not passive. They recall an earlier status, or they aspire to a sharply better one. Their humiliation can follow a massive change — for example, a defeat in war, or exile, or economic collapse — or a rising consciousness. The humiliated may suffer individual traumas, such as the torture that al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and former ISIS head Abu Musab al-Zarqawi suffered in prisons.
Whatever the cause, part of what drives the humiliated is a deep belief that their low status is a product of injustice. Their humiliation ignites an emotional reaction that, like a wildfire, burns hot and burns wide through communities. When enough people in any given populace feel humiliated, their humiliation spreads into politics. There, they not only raise the temperature of politics; they raise the stakes. The politics of the humiliated quickly become existential.
Given the depth and global nature of the current economic slowdown, even optimistic scenarios put normalcy as being months away. We will not reach a new equilibrium for quite some time, and it will be different from what came before. In the meantime, and even afterward, suffering will be widespread.
It is hard not to imagine that there are whole classes of people — in the United States and around the world — for whom the COVID-19 pandemic will be a humiliating flame. As uncertainty and restrictions linger for months or years, sharply rising unemployment among service workers — in food service, hospitality and retail — will throw middle-class families into poverty, and poor families into crisis. Government subsidies will run out, and financial markets will soften. Governments will face budget crises, their capacity will diminish, and their ability to afford the sorts of infrastructure and construction projects that often undergird economic stimulus programs will evaporate. Millions could liquidate their lifetime savings, lose their housing, and go hungry.
ADVERTISEMENT
What hits hard in the Western world will hit even harder in the developing world. There, social safety nets are even weaker, and even larger segments of the workforce either work for small businesses or in the “informal” sector. They have tighter margins, and there is even less assistance on which to fall back. Even more so, governments lack the ability of their Western counterparts to ease burdens, to save jobs and to provide shelter.
We already have seen governments such as India’s back off coronavirus-related restrictions because the economies cannot handle a nationwide shutdown. In places such as Iran that were slow to impose restrictions until the disease was well dispersed, the economies are reopening despite sharply rising infection rates. The seeds of the future crisis are already being sown.
It is optimistic to think that the politics that will emerge from COVID-19 will be gratitude toward infectious disease experts and public health experts whose admonitions saved societies from even further despair. Technocrats always hope that their wisdom will be appreciated.
Much more likely will be an emotional political search for those responsible for widespread misery. Governments are likely to be on the receiving ends of that rising hostility.
Governments that can afford to do so will seek to co-opt the humiliated, acceding to their demands for greater benefits. The U.S. government has so far committed $6 trillion to recovery, and the government of Japan recently devoted $1 trillion to the effort. They will hope to take the emotion out of politics.
Governments that cannot or will not commit such sums may seek to harness the emotion that has been unleashed, diverting the blame to some other scapegoat, surviving to fight on. Some governments likely will seek to be increasingly repressive, hoping that the humiliated will transition into being merely immiserated, recognize that resistance is futile, and struggle for survival rather than for changing the system.
For the United States, the domestic landscape is likely to be different, and the global landscape even more so. Here, political polarization is likely to increase, as shrinking government resources and growing demands pit interest groups against each other and squeeze state and local governments. Sustained restrictions on immigration will be enacted. The international outlook that the United States adopted reluctantly in the midst of World War II and embraced robustly in its aftermath will diminish. Meanwhile, a reckoning is ahead for U.S. military spending, and for U.S. commitments around the globe.
Overseas, wealthier countries are likely to muddle through, while most middle-income and poorer countries will suffer from rising misery and political turmoil. Politicians will seek to rally constituents around common enemies, be they sectarian, religious, national or ideological. We could see a resurgence in both civil wars and cross-border wars, and with that, a rise in terrorism.
Overall, most of these changes serve to raise China’s global influence while diminishing that of the United States. Governments in trouble will look admiringly to China’s authoritarian model, and the benefits of associating with the United States — economically, politically and militarily — will diminish. The Chinese government makes few demands of its partners, and it has few qualms about how they operate internally. As a country with literally no allies and a generally pessimistic view of human nature, a Hobbesian global future is one for which China feels prepared.
The United States cannot prevent such a future, but it can make it less likely. The United States needs to grasp the present circumstances and refocus on the unique abilities the United States possesses to influence the global environment. No country or collection of countries has the leverage of the United States, both in terms of coercion and co-optation. For decades, the United States has been unfocused about its interests and its means to advance them.
The opportunity available now to the United States is not about money or guns – the obvious tools that U.S. government officials seek to deploy around the world. The opportunity is about the ability to lead, the ability to define, and the ability to inspire. The United States needs to be about something bigger than itself, and it needs to point toward a future to which billions of other people aspire, and also see a pathway to achieving. The United States is not seizing this opportunity, and if missed, the results will echo for decades to come.
Jon B. Alterman is senior vice president, Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank focusing on defense, national security and international relations issues.
The New Brunswick Liberal Party has won a majority government, and Susan Holt will become the first woman to lead the province.
Here’s the latest from election night. All times are ADT.
10:15 p.m.
The results of the New Brunswick election are in, and with virtually all of the ballots counted, the Liberals won 31 seats out of 49.
The Progressive Conservatives won 16 seats.
The Green Party won two.
Voter turnout was about 66 per cent.
—
10 p.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has congratulated New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt for her party’s victory in the provincial election.
Trudeau says on the X platform he’s looking forward to working with Holt to build more homes, protect the country’s two official languages, and improve health care.
—
9:48 p.m.
During her victory speech tonight in Fredericton, New Brunswick premier-designate Susan Holt thanked all the women who came before her.
Holt will become the first woman to lead the province after her party won a majority government in the New Brunswick election.
The Liberals are elected or leading in 31 of 49 ridings.
—
9:30 p.m.
Blaine Higgs says he will begin a transition to replace him as leader of the Progressive Conservatives.
After being in power for six years, the Tories lost the election to the Liberals.
Higgs, who lost his seat of Quispamsis, says, “My leadership days are over.”
—
9:17 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that Blaine Higgs, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick since 2016, has lost in the riding of Quispamsis.
Higgs, 70, has been premier of New Brunswick since 2018, and was first elected to the legislature in 2010.
—
8:45 p.m.
When asked about the election results, Progressive Conservative chief of staff Paul D’Astous says that over the last 18 months the party has had to contend with a number of caucus members who disagreed with its policy.
D’Astous says the Tories have also had to own what happened over the last six years, since they came to power in 2018, adding that the voters have spoken.
—
8:39 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that David Coon, leader of the New Brunswick Green Party, has won the riding of Fredericton Lincoln.
Coon, 67, has been leader of the party since 2014, the year he was first elected to the legislature.
—
8:36 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that the New Brunswick Liberal Party has won a majority government in the provincial election.
Party leader Susan Holt will become the first woman premier in the province’s history.
—
8:20 p.m.
Early returns show a number of close races across the province, with the Liberals off to an early lead.
Liberal campaign manager Katie Davey says the results will show whether party leader Susan Holt, a relative newcomer, was able to capture the attention and trust of the people of New Brunswick.
Davey says she believes voters have welcomed Holt and her message, which focused on pocketbook issues, especially health care.
—
8 p.m.
Polls have closed.
Eyes will be on a number of key ridings including Fredericton South-Silverwood, where Liberal Leader Susan Holt is vying for a seat; Saint John Harbour, which has been competitive between the Tories and Liberals in recent elections; and Moncton East, a redrawn Tory-held riding that the Liberals have targeted.
At dissolution, the Conservatives held 25 seats in the 49-seat legislature. The Liberals held 16 seats, the Greens had three, there was one Independent and there were four vacancies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
FREDERICTON – A look at Susan Holt, premier-designate and leader of the New Brunswick Liberal party.
Born: April 22, 1977.
Early years: Raised in Fredericton, she attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and then spent a year in Toronto before moving abroad for three years, spending time in Australia and India.
Education: Earned a bachelor of arts in economics and a bachelor of science in chemistry from Queen’s University.
Family: Lives in Fredericton with her husband, Jon Holt, and three young daughters.
Hobbies: Running, visiting the farmers market in Fredericton with her family every Saturday.
Before politics: CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce, CEO of the New Brunswick Business Council, civil servant, business lobbyist, advocate, consultant and executive with an IT service company that trains and employs Indigenous people.
Politics: Worked as an adviser to former Liberal premier Brian Gallant. Won the leadership of the provincial Liberal party in August 2022 and was elected to the legislature in an April 2023 byelection.
Quote: “We don’t take it lightly that you have put your trust in myself and my team, and you have hope for a brighter future. But that hope I know is short-lived and it will be on us to deliver authentically, on the ground, and openly and transparently.” — Susan Holt, in her speech to supporters in Fredericton after the Liberals won a majority government on Oct. 21, 2024.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick voters have elected a Liberal majority government, tossing out the incumbent Progressive Conservatives after six years in power and handing the reins to the first woman ever to lead the province.
Liberal Leader Susan Holt is a relative newcomer to the province’s political scene, having won a byelection last year, eight months after she became the first woman to win the leadership of the party.
The Liberals appeared poised to take 31 of 49 seats to the Conservatives’ 16 and the Greens two.
Holt, 47, led the Liberals to victory after a 33-day campaign, thwarting Blaine Higgs’s bid to secure a third term as Tory premier.
The Liberal win marks a strong repudiation of Higgs’s pronounced shift to more socially conservative policies.
Higgs, meanwhile, lost in his riding of Quispamsis. In a speech to supporters in the riding, he confirmed that he would begin a leadership transition process.
As the Liberals secured their majority, Green Party Leader David Coon thanked his supporters and pledged to continue building the party, but he then turned his sights on the premier. “One thing is for sure,” he told a crowd gathered at Dolan’s Pub in Fredericton, “we know that Blaine Higgs is no longer the premier of this province.”
The election race was largely focused on health care and affordability but was notable for the remarkably dissimilar campaign styles of Holt and Higgs. Holt repeatedly promised to bring a balanced approach to governing, pledging a sharp contrast to Higgs’s “one-man show taking New Brunswick to the far right.”
“We need a government that acts as a partner and not as a dictator from one office in Fredericton,” she said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
Higgs focused on the high cost of living, promising to lower the provincial harmonized sales tax by two percentage points to 13 per cent — a pledge that will cost the province about $450 million annually.
Holt spent much of the campaign rolling out proposed fixes for a health-care system racked by a doctor shortage, overcrowded emergency rooms and long wait-times. A former business advocate and public servant, she promised to open 30 community health clinics across the province by 2028; remove the provincial sales tax from electricity bills; overhaul mental health services; and impose a three per cent cap on rent increases by 2025.
The 70-year-old Tory leader, a mechanical engineer and former Irving Oil executive, led a low-key campaign, during which he didn’t have any scheduled public events on at least 10 days — and was absent from the second leaders debate on Oct. 9.
Holt missed only two days of campaigning and submitted a 30-page platform with 100 promises, a far heftier document than the Tories’ two-page platform that includes 11 pledges.
When the election was called on Sept. 19, the Conservatives held 25 seats in the 49-seat legislature. The Liberals held 16 seats, the Green Party had three, there was one Independent and four vacancies. At least 25 seats are needed for a majority.
Higgs was hoping to become the first New Brunswick premier to win three consecutive elections since Liberal Frank McKenna won his third straight majority in 1995. But it was clear from the start that Higgs would have to overcome some big obstacles.
On the first day of the campaign, a national survey showed he had the lowest approval rating of any premier in the country. That same morning, Higgs openly mused about how he was perceived by the public, suggesting people had the wrong idea about who he really is.
“I really wish that people could know me outside of politics,” he said, adding that a sunnier disposition might increase his popularity. “I don’t know whether I’ve got to do comedy hour or I’ve got to smile more.”
Still, Higgs had plenty to boast about, including six consecutive balanced budgets, a significant reduction in the province’s debt, income tax cuts and a booming population.
Higgs’s party was elected to govern in 2018, when the Tories formed the province’s first minority government in almost 100 years. In 2020, he called a snap election — marking the first province to go to the polls during the COVID-19 pandemic — and won a slim majority.
Since then, 14 Tory caucus members have stepped down after clashing with the premier, some of them citing what they described as an authoritarian leadership style and a focus on conservative policies that represented a hard shift to the right.
A caucus revolt erupted last year after Higgs announced changes to the gender identity policy in schools. When several Tory lawmakers voted for an external review of the change, Higgs dropped dissenters from cabinet. A bid by some party members to trigger a leadership review went nowhere.
Higgs has also said a Tory government would reject all new applications for supervised drug-consumption sites, renew a legal challenge against the federal carbon pricing scheme and force people into drug treatment if authorities deem they “pose a threat to themselves or others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
