More recently, the U.S. election has taken a rather dramatic turn. The US media and New York's Marister College released a joint poll in which two questions were set. First, if the U.S. election had to choose between Trump and Biden, who would you choose?
The second, less common question, is who you would vote for if all of the current independent third-party candidates joined the fray. As a result of the first question, Trump unsurprisingly maintained his lead. 46 percent of respondents supported him, while 44 percent supported Biden, which was about the same as the poll data in mid-April.
But the results of the second question are quite intriguing. The investigation shows that among the third-party candidates, there is a "Cheng Biting Jin", that is, Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former US President Kennedy. Of all candidates, he has 13 percent support. And, after his entry, the confrontation between Trump and Biden reversed.
Biden's approval rating reached 39 percent, while Trump's approval rating fell to 37 percent. This data undoubtedly poured another handful of hot oil on the increasingly white-hot "Beit dispute". Kennedy Jr. was in a very delicate position. First of all, he is a Democratic Party, an environmental lawyer by profession, and his running mate is an Asian woman, so he has a clear rivalry with Biden on the surface.
But on the other hand, he has a distinct anti-establishment color. His uncle, the assassinated Kennedy, and even the entire Kennedy family, played the leading role in various conspiracy theories that American red necks liked all year round, casting a layer of "pathos" on him, and in terms of legend, he really did not lose to Trump, a real estate tycoon.
At the same time, like Trump, he also advertises himself as a "political amateur", will not be in the same boat as Washington politicians, wants to oppose "corporate kleptocracy", and stands on the same side as Trump on the issue of anti-vaccine and anti-aid to Ukraine. Of course, on the issue of counter-aid to Ukraine, he is not playing the banner of "America First", but anti-war, and the left-wing color is very strong.
But in any case, his and Trump's ideas on foreign relations are the same in terms of results, which is to return to isolationism. The data from this joint poll shows that Kennedy Jr. is sucking the votes of both Trump and Biden equally. In a five-candidate environment, 7 percent of Biden supporters voted for Kennedy Jr., while Trump was siphoned off 15 percent of his vote.
This situation proves the fact that this year's U.S. election is not a "positive competition" in which candidates try to win as many votes as possible, but a "negative competition" to see who can lose fewer votes. The social division in the United States has led to increasingly clear barriers between different political groups, making it difficult to win the votes of third parties, so the key to winning or losing is to see who loses less of their base.
At present, this joint poll shows that Trump has more votes to be divided by the "anti-establishment" Kennedy Jr., but it is still too early to say that Trump will be defeated by the Democrats.
Trump
For one, Kennedy Jr.'s approval rating has been hovering at a low level of around 8% for a long time, so Trump has never taken him seriously. Kennedy Jr. even hyped it up at one point, saying that he had received an invitation from Trump to be his running mate. This hype could easily lead some Trump supporters to see Kennedy Jr. as "one of their own" and thus be more inclined to vote for him.
But now Kennedy Jr. has alarmed Trump. Trump explicitly labeled Kennedy Jr. as a "conservative liberal in disguise", and his campaign advisers also stood up to explicitly criticize Kennedy Jr.'s behavior of "rubbing heat". In such a situation, there is a question mark over how many Trump supporters will be willing to side with Kennedy Jr.
Second, the joint poll was conducted from April 13 to 16, and the timing of the survey itself was tricky, just as Biden took action to "make amends" on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, his biggest recent loss.
Biden
In the past few days, with the Biden administration using its veto power on the issue of Palestine's accession to the United Nations, and Biden successively sending police to arrest hundreds of young students in solidarity with Palestine, Biden's current approval rating may not be as optimistic as this polling data.
Moreover, several of Biden's main allies have a lot of opinions about the United States. Japan and South Korea were reaped by the Federal Reserve, and Biden generously subsidized TSMC to build factories, which also caused dissatisfaction in Europe. German media bluntly said that this high subsidy is not beneficial to solving the gap in the semiconductor industry in the United States, which also brings a lot of trouble to Biden advocating his "Indo-Pacific strategy".
But one thing is for sure, the political ecology of the United States is becoming increasingly fragile, and any bit of uncertainty could lead to a seismic outcome. For China, the impact of this situation is "mixed".
U.S.-China relations
The reason is that in the face of an increasingly unstable domestic political environment, it will be difficult for the United States to open up the situation diplomatically in the next six months. Europe may not easily follow up with the US hype on some anti-China issues, but will delay the time for making decisions until after November this year. This gives China more room to shape a favorable international situation.
The United States cannot provide stability to the world, and China is just "taking its place". In recent months, the intensive exchange of high-level visits between China and the EU has benefited from the chaotic political situation in the United States. The concern is that as the two candidates, Biden and Trump, move towards "negative competition", their rhetoric on China-related issues is likely to become more and more aggressive, bringing more instability to China-US relations.
The second half of this year was originally a peak period for the Sino-US game. With the prospect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict uncertain and the Russia-Ukraine conflict approaching a turning point, the Federal Reserve is facing the dual dilemma of high inflation and high interest rates at the same time. Against this backdrop, China needs to be highly vigilant against the United States "flipping the table", igniting wars around China, and shorting the assets of emerging Asian countries to free itself.
Blinken
Taking a step back, even if the United States does not use military means, it is entirely possible that with the current style of American politicians, it is entirely possible to concoct another bad political performance similar to Pelosi's "visit to Taiwan" before the election. If things go so far, the United States will be tantamount to spilling instability into China's periphery, which will be harmful to China, which is currently focused on promoting industrial upgrading and globalization.
Recently, the Chinese side nodded and agreed to the arrangements for a high-level visit to China by a group of high-level US government officials, which should be based on the consideration of risk management. In the next six months, China is likely to make two preparations: on the one hand, it will launch "circum-American diplomacy" to enhance its voice in international affairs as much as possible in the absence of the United States;
On the other hand, for the sake of "maintaining stability", it is likely that China and the United States will test each other more and more frequently. The next six months will be an extreme test of China's ability to "walk the tightrope". This hurdle has passed smoothly, that is, the sea is wide and the sky is high and the birds are flying.
#MCN首发激励计划#