Outside the Beltway

Comparative Congratulations

Most leaders ring up Joe.

Steven L. Taylor
12

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An interesting chart via the Wilson Center:

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This is striking because a) the fact that Biden has won is obvious, and b) the two who haven’t called yet are populists who have bungled their countries’ Covid response.

Of course, there’s this from earlier in the week (and I don’t think this has changed): Putin, Xi and other strongmen haven’t congratulated Biden yet. Their silence speaks volumes. The Chinese government has sent congratulations, but Xi has not.

This Al Jareeza headline says a lot: More world leaders than US Republicans congratulate Biden.

Not to mention, this from Fox News: Europe celebrates Biden win with fireworks. Although,

But the election’s outcome inspired disbelief in Slovenia, the homeland of first lady Melania Trump. Prime Minister Janez Jansa was the only world leader who congratulated Trump even before all the votes were counted, and continued to show support after Biden’s win was announced.

But, via the NYT, this one had to hurt: In a tweet, Netanyahu congratulates Biden, praising their ‘warm personal relationship.’

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12 responses to “Comparative Congratulations”

  1. Andre Kenji de Sousa Avatar
    Andre Kenji de Sousa

    According to Brazilian media, Bolsonaro’s advisers said to him that Trump had 70% chance(!) of winning.

    3
  2. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Let’s see if we can make sense of this:

    1) All the democracies offered congratulations, because they’re our friends and allies who wish us well.

    2) Putin did not, despite no one being (snicker) tougher on Russia than Trump. Almost as if Trump was their special little bitch.

    3) Xi did not, despite Trump standing so strong (and that secret bank account?) against China. Almost as if Trump has been completely ineffectual on trade and silent on human rights abuses.

    4) And Bibi belatedly remembered who’s the dog and who’s the tail, and who wags who.

    Biden should appoint someone, Adam Schiff comes to mind, whose job is figuring out ways to screw the Russians. Russia is our enemy. Russia will always be our enemy because Russia is and always has been a backward, corrupt kleptocracy whose only real national talents are bullying, ratfucking and assassination.

    11
  3. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    No word yet from Kim Jong-un, I take it.

    5
  4. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Michael Reynolds: And they aren’t all that good at assassination. Maybe they should just stick to throwing people out of windows, tho that would be easily thwarted by all their enemies moving into first floor apartments.

    4
  5. SC_Birdflyte Avatar
    SC_Birdflyte

    It has to be a particularly satisfying moment for the leaders of “s***hole” countries to be able to stick a metaphorical knife into Trump’s ribs.

    1
  6. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Also the Saudis; MBS needs a sharp reminder of who is the client and who is the patron in the relationship.

    For a small fee, I can provide salutary examples from the history of the British Empire.
    The Imperium was far from always good, but one thing it did not put up with for long were subordinates taking the p*ss.

    3
  7. kennyb Avatar
    kennyb

    The fox news thing on celebrations in Europe is , to use a phrase, fake news.

    That saturday in the UK was 2 days after Bonfire night, so a lot of people were having family firework parties, as they do every year on the nearest saturday to the 5th november.

    Wouldn’t have mattered who won….. there would have been large amounts of fireworks on that saturday and the friday and the thursday and even the sunday.

    The claim about french bells ringing was due to bells automatically ringing out for Vespers even though the churches were closed.

    2
  8. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    @JohnSF:

    It would be enjoyable to observe, if the Biden JoD launched an investigation into Khashoggi’s murder and indited MBS for conspiracy. The Saudis, particularly the royals, need the US far more than the US needs Saudi Arabia. As we and much of the world moves away from petroleum, we’ll need them even less.

    2
  9. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @kennyb:
    OTOH I guzzled a bottle of champagne in celebration, and let off a firework.

    1
  10. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    @JohnSF: A lovely knife for the Saudis would be an enormous Renewable Energy push: not simply generation, but priority federal backing to investment in backbone infrastructure so that your bizarrely balkanised (you do not have a unified national grid) and outdated (really like a lot of US infra, your infra is badly dated) electric power grid can allow truly national power wheeling – that would allow truly scale investment as well as power balancing off-setting intermittence as well as day-night. Cut your hydrocarbons consumption, you can dump into international markets, undercutting Saudi pricing.

    1
  11. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Lounsbury:
    Heh.
    Might well be so.
    But I’m British. 🙂

    What bugs me is our UK solution to the intermittency problem, given the massive cost and lag of nukes, and our problems re. cold and cloudy high pressure systems in winter.

    Actually, I still like good old Carlo Rubbia’s molten salt tanks in the Sahara, but maybe that’s just me 🙂

    But now we are out of the EU? Such continental-scale plans are now outside our scope.
    Let’s hope the EU are forward-looking enough, and that we may follow meekly in their wake.
    (How I despise the idiot Brexiteers!)

    1
  12. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    His Royal Lowness King Manuel Andres, is also playing up, again, his claim that the 2006 election was stolen from him. That claim is also baseless.

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