11 NOVEMBERFirst things firstAs world leaders continue to congratulate President and Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the historic nature of the ticket is starting to sink in. At inauguration in January 2021, Biden will be 78 years old, making him the oldest president to take the
office. His wife, Dr Jill Biden has indicated that she will continue in her occupation as an English professor, which would make her the first US First Lady to continue working outside the White House. She would also be the first to bring a professorship to the role. For all these firsts, it is Vice President-elect Kamala Harris who broke the largest barriers in this election. She will be the first woman vice-president, after being only the third woman
to run in the position on a major party ticket. She will also be the first person of colour to hold the vice presidency. Her husband, Doug Emhoff is also set to be the United States’ first ‘second gentleman’. Moreover, this election has made history in terms of turnout. Roughly 150 million votes have been counted, with more to come. This equates to 62 per cent of the eligible voting population, eclipsing turnout in 2008 and on track to level rates from the turn of the 20th century, before all women were allowed to vote. This record turnout, along with population growth, means Joe Biden has won more votes in an election than any other presidential candidate. President Donald Trump also massively increased his turnout, including among minority voters.
VIDEOElection Watch
US politics web series with special guests Jeff Bleich and Chelsey Martin
NEWS WRAPIn the firing line - Esper dismissed | Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has been the first of what many experts expect will be a potential purge by President Trump during his remaining days in
office. President Trump announced the dismissal on Twitter and confirmed Christopher Miller, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, would step into the role of Acting Secretary of Defense. READ MORE HERE
- Challenging times | Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has joined other top Republicans in backing Donald Trump's bid to legally challenge the presidential election results. President Trump is pursuing litigation, alleging instances of electoral fraud, while federal prosecutors were given the green light to pursue allegations of "vote tabulation irregularities" by Attorney General William Barr on Monday. READ MORE HERE
- Vaccine hopeful | Pfizer announced the COVID-19 vaccine it had been developing with German partner BioNTech SE was 90 per cent effective based on early analysis of its late-stage trials. The pharmaceutical company has said that the relevant safety data needed to apply for emergency use authorisation could be available by next week. READ MORE HERE
- Curbing COVID | Soon after his electoral victory became apparent, President-elect Joe Biden released a statement outlining plans to meet with his new coronavirus task force, moving quickly on his campaign promise to tackle the pandemic. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Non-Resident Fellow Associate Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott warned consistency in messaging would be vitally important at a time of intense polarisation would be vitally important to any strategy. READ MORE HERE
- Trade-in | Experts say a Joe Biden presidency could be highly beneficial for Australian businesses, with his election expected to have a marked impact on trade. In an interview with the West Australian, Director of Trade and Investment Dr Stephen Kirchner said the biggest change would be seen in the reduction of uncertainty in economic policy which featured heavily in the Trump administration. READ MORE HERE
While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris
Election victory speech
7 November 2020
Throughout the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, Joe Biden spent significant time reassuring American allies around the world that Trump’s America is not “who we are” and pledging “we’ll be back”. Now that he’s the president-elect, those who were most worried about another four years of “America First” foreign policy are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief. Much has been written about a Biden presidency being focused on restoration, or as David Graham of The
Atlantic put it, returning the United States to its rightful place before (as he sees it) the current president came onto the scene and trashed the joint.
The old world order doesn’t exist anymoreThis idea has revolved
around restoring the post-1945 liberal international order - a term subject to a lot of academic contention. The US played a central role in creating and leading the order around key institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the like. However, there is now no shortage of evidence that many of these institutions have come under extreme strain in recent years and have been unable respond to the challenges of the 21st century geopolitics. For one, the US no longer wields the relative economic power or influence it had in the middle of last century. There are also increasingly vocal critics in the US — led by Trump — who question America’s foreign commitments. Moreover, nations themselves are no longer the only important actors in the international system. Terror groups like the Islamic State now have the ability to threaten global security, while corporations like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook have such economic power, their combined revenue would qualify them for the G20. Equally, the so-called liberal international order was built on the idea that a growing number of democracies would be willing to work within institutions like the UN, IMF and WTO and act in ways that would make everyone in the system better off. Clearly, that has not been the case for the past 15 years as democracies around the world slowly eroded, from European Union states like Hungary and Poland to Brazil to the US.
This is an excerpt from the Dr Grgic's latest publication in The Conversation.
Click below to read the full article.
BY THE NUMBERSMajority believe votes counted fairlyCounted fairly 74% | Not counted fairly 26% While questions of voter fraud became a key issue during the election campaign, President-elect Joe Biden's projected victory sparked further allegations of voter fraud from President Donald Trump and his supporters. According to the USSC's State of the United States polling conducted prior to the election, the overall sentiment regarding votes being counted fairly was largely positive with the majority of voters believing votes were counted fairly either "fairly often" (45 per cent) or "very often" (29 per cent), with only 18 per cent believing it happened "not often" and 8 per cent "not often at all". The largest group of those who believed votes would not be counted fairly listed Donald Trump as their preferred candidate, however, they only represented 9 per cent of his supporters. Voters who preferred neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden or were unsure of their preference represented the largest overall group of respondents who perceived votes being counted fairly not often or not often at all (33 per cent).
Read more about American attitudes to electoral integrity and legitimacy in our State of the United States poll.
VIRTUAL EVENTChina’s Belt and Road Initiative A US-Australian assessmentTo carry out China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China promises to spend more than US$1 trillion on new ports, railways, fibre-optic cables, power plants, and other connections across more than one hundred and thirty
countries. The United States has cautioned that the BRI, President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign-policy effort, amounts to “debt trap diplomacy”, “white elephants”, and an unprecedented expansion of Chinese military power. Yet some have said the United States and allies have failed to provide a sufficient “alternative” to BRI. How should the United States and allies like Australia respond? The conventional wisdom is that a more skeptical view of China is bipartisan in the United States but would a Biden administration’s response to BRI be substantively different from the Trump administration’s? Please join us for a discussion of the United States, Australia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative with Jonathan E. Hillman, author of the recently published The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century (Yale University Press, 2020), in a conversation with the Australian Financial Review’s Lisa Murray.
WHEN:
Tuesday, 17 November 2020, 11:30am AEDT (Sydney) 8:30am AWST (Perth)
Monday 16 November 2020, 7:30pm EST (Washington, DC) COST:
Free, but registration is essential
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