Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: A view of the world that is not U.S. centric
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Mark Hertling/Bulwark:
I Commanded U.S. Army Europe. Here’s What I Saw in the Russian and Ukrainian Armies.
The two armies at war today couldn’t be more different.What can you learn about a military from its band? Usually, not much. But putting on great performance requires some of the same skills as conducting a military operation. It requires recruiting the right people with the right talents (and many militaries, including the American military, use bands as a recruiting tool). It requires equipping those people with the right technology—often highly specialized—so they can do their job. It requires training those people to work together to perform complicated tasks with impeccable timing. It requires developing young leaders, managing logistics, and maintaining high morale. The sergeant I spoke to observed that what came through in the Ukrainians’ performance is that they wanted to be there, they wanted to be great, and their leaders were inspirational.
Mélenchon’s far-left voters become France’s reluctant kingmakers
There’s only one problem. It’s not clear that Mélenchon or his supporters really want to appoint a king.
While Mélenchon himself is a staunch Le Pen opponent, there has long been an overlap between his voters and the far-right leader’s followers, something the veteran politician is acutely aware of. Both him and Le Pen have campaigned on cost of living, targeting voters who have felt sidelined by globalization and who increasingly resent Macron’s economically liberal agenda.
In admitting defeat late Sunday, Mélenchon — unlike several other losing candidates from mainstream parties — pointedly avoided telling his followers to back Macron on April 24. The farthest he would go was simply imploring them to “not give a single vote” to Le Pen.
We see that problem in the US, which is how Republicans stay competitive. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and vote against the fascist, not just sit home.
Philips P O’Brien/Twitter on logistics for resupplying the Russians:
More logistics attacks inside Russia by Ukrainian forces? Here is a railway bridge between Belgorod [Russia] at the Ukraine border near Kharkiv that definitely looks intentionally damaged (explosions pushing upwards). Exactly the targets Ukraine should be prioritising.
CNN has a good overall on the French election:
Emmanuel Macron to face Marine Le Pen in French presidential election runoff
“However much they may dislike Le Pen, there is a world of difference between her and Macron, and how she would disrupt European and global politics.”Le Pen is the daughter of another famous far-right presidential candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The elder Le Pen made it to the runoff against Jacques Chirac in 2002, but Marine Le Pen has managed to perform better than her father in the first round of each of the past two presidential elections.Le Pen has tried to portray herself as a very different candidate to the one who lost to Macron in 2017, when she attempted to position herself to the forgotten French working classes as her country’s answer to then-US President Donald Trump. While her economic nationalist stance, views on immigration, euroskepticism and positions on Islam in France are unchanged, Le Pen has sought to broaden her appeal.
Here are two cultural explainers on what’s going on in Shanghai (currently under COVID lockdown) by Naomi Wu/Twitter:
One:
So…my cautious thoughts Shanghai/COVID-Zero-in-China. Yes, I am self-censoring on this one, so this is one of those threads where those of you who need explicit statements and can’t read implied meaning and nuance are going to have a tough time.
Two:
So Shanghai is locked down and cases are still going up.
1. Everyone is still in surgical masks- local government could distribute KN95s, won’t.
Even though COVID was first declared airborne in China, and our scientists *know* it’s airborne, average Chinese still think droplets.
Aaron Blake/WaPo:
Why people get Biden’s job numbers wrong
Americans’ perceptions of the jobs picture aren’t very accurate, but perceptions that we’re actually losing jobs appear to mostly come from people who already don’t like Biden. And that 1) is as it ever was, and 2) mostly comes from people who don’t rely on mainstream media outlets for their news.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll released this weekend asked a similar question as the aforementioned poll (The Washington Post avoids citing surveys conducted by partisan groups). A majority — 51 percent — correctly said jobs had increased over the previous year, compared with 23 percent who wrongly said they had decreased. Twenty-six percent said the jobs picture hadn’t changed.
Similarly, the Pew Research Center in January asked people whether they thought the “availability of jobs” was better or worse than a year ago. Even more, 57 percent, said it was better, while just 19 percent said it was worse…
None of which is to say the media’s coverage of this has been exemplary; contextualizing the current economy, in particular, is difficult. Critics point to stories that reference the jobs picture but then layer it with other indicators that don’t reflect as well on Biden’s economy, or simply mention the public’s general dissatisfaction.
But those layers matter: We simultaneously have one of the lowest rates of unemployment in recent history, and one of the highest rates of inflation. Which economic indicator is going to be most readily apparent to broad swaths of the country? Unless you or those you know are gaining or losing jobs, you might not have a good read on the country’s overall jobs picture. But you see gas prices and other costs rising. So you might think “economy = not good” and assume people are worse off in other ways, too. If you’re predisposed against the Biden administration — or perhaps if you get your news mostly from outlets that are disinclined to mention those jobs figures in a positive light — that’s not a big leap.