Background Briefing: October 30, 2023

On By gram

How the War in Gaza is Impacting U.S. Electoral Politics

We begin with an analysis of how the war between Israel and Hamas is impacting electoral politics in the U.S. as a new poll indicates a drop of 11% among Democratic voters in support for President Biden since the war began in early October. Joining us from the UK is Andrew Payne, a lecturer in foreign policy and security at The City University of London and formerly departmental lecturer in international relations at the University of Oxford, where he was previously the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations and a William Golding Junior Research Fellow at Brasenose College. He serves on the board of Chatham House in London and is the author of the new book, War on the Ballot: How the Election Cycle Shapes Presidential Decision-Making in War.

 

With the New House Speaker a Champion of the Big Lie, How Do We Deal With the Challenges Ahead From Fake News and Deep Fakes?

Then with the new House Speaker, a champion of the big lie, having rallied more than 100 of his colleagues to question the integrity of the 2020 election, and still to this day will not say whether Biden won the election, we speak about the challenges ahead with disinformation flooding into the coverage of the war in Gaza from X, enabled by Elon Musk, and how the 2024 election with be impacted by fake news and deep fakes. Joining us is Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council and coauthor of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media. He is an expert in the fields of disinformation, terrorist communication, and internet policy, and recently led an initiative to secure the integrity of the 2020 U.S. election. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he studied U.S. defense policy.

After Big Wins For Labor, the UAW Seals a Good Deal With the Big Three

Then finally we look into the big wins for labor recently topped by the UAW getting the Big Three automakers, Ford, GM and Stellantis, to agree to new contracts that deliver significant pay raises to end the strike. Joining us is  Steven Greenhouse, a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation who was previously a reporter for The New York Times where he covered labor and the workplace for 19 years. He is the author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker and Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, and we discuss his article at The Guardian, “U.S. unions winning big gains amid ‘Great Reset’ in worker power.”