[RECORDING] Inflation, Populism & Policy ahead of the Midterms

Ipsos is pleased to relaunch its DC Salon series with a deep dive on the divided state of America: How polarization and inflation are impacting U.S. public policy and shaping the upcoming Midterm elections.

More than 60 Ipsos colleagues, clients, and Beltway influencers attended Ipsos’ Summer 2022 DC Salon in Washington, DC. The high profile event, hosted by Cliff Young, President, U.S. Public Affairs, centered around a candid and insightful exploration on America’s challenges and fault lines prefaced by our global CEO, Ben Page. This was followed by a panel discussion featuring Jon Lieber, Managing Director, U.S. of Eurasia Group, and Justin Gest, Associate Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, moderated by Mallory Newall, Vice President, U.S. Public Affairs and fueled by questions the audience. The reception that ensued also provided an opportunity to reconnect in-person, at long last.

Thank you for joining us - and see you at our next Salon!

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Today’s AI-generated audio transcript is offered below. Apologies in advance for inconsistencies that have been included.

0:00

so very quickly thanks for everyone for coming this is our this is our basement but it's nice

0:06

basement right before covid I want to say we did two

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salons or one I can't remember nick was it was one I've been saying three, but I know that

0:18

I’m exaggerating to divide by three because we did one and then cover came along, we haven't

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done anything since then so this is our first salon and you know what do we want here we want a

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place where we can share ideas uh and most importantly

0:35

a lot of times when we're going to listen to some experts here, they're going to talk about stuff now

0:41

they're going to talk about inflation politics the midterms kind of related sort of issues of the confusion in the

0:47

united states but does that mean

0:53

that's my 21-year-old he still needs guidance but in any case what we really want here

0:59

is many times experts are very distant they're on tv they're on the radio

1:06

they're far away they're on stage we don't we can't approximate them and what we wanted from these salons was

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basically, symmetry not having a relationship that's asymmetric with uh the experts and so

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this is what it is the Ipsos’ salon and our plan I would say every other month or so

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uh we'll we're going to have an event not necessarily here we might do in other places uh the next one's going to be on

1:31

Ukraine it's going to be a closed meeting Chatham house rules cool we're going to

1:36

have some cool guests as well but the but the point is if you go you can proximate

1:43

the expert after the chat after the session you can go up there

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and talk with them, engage with them etc. and that was our objective way back in

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2019 when we had our one salon, so this is our second one and we're

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kicking off this new sort of uh this new year and what I’m going to do

2:06

is I’m going to hand it over to our global CEO Ben Page he came here just for this,

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just for this salon with 59 people but anyways I want to

2:18

welcome ben page

2:24

thank you and uh this sort of thing is at the heart of what Ipsos is about which is really about discussing openly

2:31

uh with the joy of free speech that we have in the west not in all the 90 countries we operate in what's going on

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and using uh expert understanding of public opinion uh which we see is

2:44

as a as a French company with a British CEO we are fully international we are American in America, we are Brazilian

2:52

in Brazil, we're French in France, we're Italian in Italy, etc. We are in 90 markets 19 and a half thousand

2:58

people and just a few as I am an opinion pollster, and we are now the only global research company run

3:06

by a social scientist, which is what I could sort on a good day call myself on a bad day god knows what I’d call

3:12

myself but I think on inflation it's as you will know if your avid Ipsos followers

3:18

it's replaced covid19 as the biggest concern in the world the work that we do for the central

3:25

banks have shown and indeed the work that we're I think publishing tomorrow shows

3:30

that wage price spirals which those of you who are old enough to remember the

3:35

1970s and there aren't that many of you in here but a few

3:40

don't seem to be happening people are more like much more likely to say they'd move to a new employer then just go and

3:46

ask for a pay rise and it isn't really changing the central bankers when I presented

3:52

this to them in Basel to Jerome Powell and Christine the garden all these people of course were delighted at this

3:58

and the fact that the central bankers themselves and interest rates are not currently being blamed for the situation

4:04

most people blame the global economy or the war in Ukraine but I think the challenge we face as we go in and we've

4:11

just heard that the American economy is shrinking is that people the cons er expectations are

4:18

behind where the reality is and when you ask them what they think is going to happen next year they have been

4:24

consistently behind what has actually happened so we're in this period where we are psychologically adjusting

4:31

from a very long period of low inflation many decision makers just not used to operating in an environment with

4:37

double-digit inflation and we don't quite know what's going to happen next so events like today and

4:44

I’m sure the expert panel will tell us all the answers, but I think it is it is the fundamental challenge to me is one

4:49

that in my own work I think our western societies American society

4:55

european societies in particular and the Latin Americans face which is the loss of the future and every time you think

5:01

we've just got through one crisis a new one emerges but the challenge is that at the beginning of this century

5:07

only about one person in ten in most western countries expected their children to end up poorer than them

5:15

before the pandemic it had risen in the country I know best Britain to 45

5:20

percent very similar in France uh the jules juan etc. in America large parts of

5:26

America similarly look angry and looking for somebody to blame and the answer may be globalization but either way for

5:33

policy makers how we get through this deal with you know are you going to be are you Hayekian or are you Keynesian in

5:39

terms of your response the panel will tell us and Mallory will tell us in a minute but certainly I think the

5:45

challenge is that all the evidences of the corners although they realize they're likely to be poorer they may not

5:50

realize quite how much poorer and that is our central challenge for me and I’m looking forward to answers from our

5:56

expert panel on what will happen next I will shut up but on behalf of Ipsos thank you so much for coming this

6:01

evening [Applause]

6:12

okay hi everybody welcome my name is Mallory Newell I am a vice

6:17

president within Ipsos public affairs division within that I’m one of our team

6:22

leads for our public polling practice basically what that means is it is my job to analyze a lot of this public

6:30

opinion data on the topics that we're here to talk about today uh Ipsos in the

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US works for a number of media outlets as well as

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private sector companies that are sort of seeking to understand public opinion in the US right now

6:47

public opinion around the world I am pleased to moderate our discussion today

6:52

and I’m joined by two expert panelists here John Lieber and Justin

6:59

John is a managing director for the Eurasia group in the US

7:04

he focuses on kind of trying to understand US economic policy

7:10

and political trends in the US and advises a number of corporate and economic leaders on those topics

7:17

Justin is an associate professor at George mason university where he focuses on topics around politics and government

7:26

he has written a lot on demographic change and immigration so I’ve got some

7:32

questions for you both today and then we will be taking some questions from you all as well but thanks for being here

7:39

and thanks for joining us all right gentlemen and you have one mic between the two of you so

7:45

we'll talk in a nice orderly fashion lovely all right so obviously we're here

7:52

to discuss as the name implied the midterms inflation policy and the

7:59

implications of all of these things on society right so to start off i'd like to hear a little bit more about in

8:06

in your respective careers your interests and and what you're focused on

8:11

so so john I want to start with you in in this current climate what is it that your your clients who

8:18

are focused on you know kind of trying to understand political risk the economic climate what

8:24

is it that your clients are focused on right now great thank you mallory thanks so much

8:30

for having me here today so eurasia group is a political risk consulting firm

8:36

it was founded probably two decades ago by ian bremmer who's a political scientist

8:41

and originally it was focused on the former soviet states eurasia group

8:46

and the reason was as a lot of capital was flowing after the fall of the berlin wall and the dissolution of the soviet

8:52

union a lot of capital was flowing into these countries and they were doing some crazy stuff with that so you didn't know

8:57

so investors didn't know you know were they going to get paid back if they gave lent money were their assets going to be

9:02

expropriated and that caught on with the investment community is really where

9:08

eurasia group started eventually caught on to the corporate community as well and over time eurasia group was built

9:13

out to include latin america asia uh the middle east and since the

9:20

financial crisis our client base has become a lot more interested in

9:25

developed markets europe and the united states and the united states right now after 2016 is an incredibly hot area for

9:32

political risk so you know what we track are policy developments here that will uh

9:39

affect the investment decisions of our clients a lot of which you know our kind of canonical client is like a macro

9:45

hedge fund who cares about interest rates exchange rates and stuff like that we've got other people who are tracking really specific policy developments is

9:52

the US going to subsidize the semiconductor industry or not and then we have a lot of clients who really care

9:58

about structural issues in the US is the US going to be an investable market oh my god the supreme court is so

10:04

incredibly polarized what is that going to mean is donald tr p going to be president again are they going to kick everybody

10:10

out because there's a lot of big questions so the US is starting to some of our clients and I’m not sure i

10:15

necessarily agree with this but to some of our clients the US is starting to look more like an emerging market

10:21

especially than you know definitely more than it has at any point in the last 50 years

10:26

and that raises a lot of questions about the political context of their investing strategies so that's what I try to do is

10:33

give them a good sense of uh best sense I can of the direction of travel on policy risk and you know we

10:40

work a lot on foreign policy because a lot of my colleagues are very focused on their respective regions and

10:46

it's a pretty interesting time to be doing this absolutely and justin as I mentioned you have written

10:54

and you have focused your career on tribalization on immigration and around

11:00

demographic change in the us a lot of forces that I think kind of feed into this and what we're talking

11:07

about today so i'd love to just hear from you a little bit about how do these individual forces affect

11:14

our current climate sure thanks mallory uh and thank you guys for having me here today it's

11:20

always exciting to be here and I must say that ipsos has been a brilliant partner for me intellectually to

11:26

exchange ideas with and so you know while I’m up here and in front of you guys today uh as as today's expert i

11:32

must tell you that I learn as much from my ipsos colleagues as I think they learn from me it's been a really you know just you know wonderful uh uh

11:39

exchange so in in my work beyond my professorial duties obviously at a

11:44

university where I teach and also oversee a lot of graduate students

11:50

you know I also advise a n ber of government agencies and non-profit groups and

11:55

there's a n ber of questions on people's minds right now you know in in my space demographic

12:01

change is obviously very important from my view demographic change inside the united states not just with

12:07

shrinking fertility rates and aging that's happening in this country which are fundamental to our economic

12:12

prospects but also the changing racial and ethnic distribution in the country as well and I think that if you want to

12:19

understand our politics the shadow the the overshadowing effect uh of people's

12:24

concern about uh the majority minority future of this country uh is simply uh unignorable at this point it's a very

12:32

complicated reality and I’m happy to double click on any of these thoughts as we as we progress here today but i

12:38

think that discomfort anxiety anticipation eager anticipation of these

12:44

demographic trends are really litmus tests for people's partisan politics today and they explain

12:50

much of the identity politics and cultural wars that are defining the american political environment right now uh and also infusing those of our peer

12:57

countries elsewhere in the west and so you know this is definitely something that's in the back of my mind and

13:03

unpacking what that future and people's prospects and expectations for that future will be there's a lot of

13:08

status threat it's it's affecting economic decisions and residential choices

13:14

so we're observing it pretty carefully what we're also seeing I think is the people questioning the sort of

13:20

racialization of american politics you know heretofore american politics was not actually all

13:26

that racialized up until around 2000 muslims broke for president george w

13:31

bush in 2000 asian americans broke for the former the elder uh president bush in 1992 you

13:40

know george w bush actually nearly split latinos in in 2004 but over the last 15

13:45

to 18 years we've seen the progressive racialization of the parties where members of ethnic and racial minorities

13:51

in the united states have broke overwhelmingly for the democrats and the white and republican party has become

13:57

more homogeneously white at a time when the country is becoming less homogeneous homogeneously white

14:03

those trends are being questioned now with the growth and ascendance of a latino electorate that may be more up

14:09

for grabs and that's certainly of interest to both democrats and republicans as you might imagine

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and I think that more broadly people are also very concerned about the shredding of a national social

14:20

fabric I think that not only are debates polarizing and and

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I think divisive but it's unclear what the effect of these debates and divides are on

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interpersonal relations uh the extent to which we have interpersonal contact with one another

14:38

these are the kinds of things that are on people's minds and this is certainly on my mind as well great thanks john I want to circle

14:45

back to something that you mentioned which is that some of your clients and folks that you work with are

14:51

contemplating if the us is starting to look more like an emerging market right i'd love to kind of dive into a

14:58

little bit about why that is and perhaps the implications around this as you

15:04

described it institutional decay that we're seeing or experiencing in the us yeah and this is something that we're

15:11

giving a lot of thought to and I’m not really sure I have a really good fleshed-out sense of this yet but like you know what does it mean to be an

15:17

emerging market versus a develop develop market well generally uh policy outcomes are less predictable

15:24

uh you have wild regime change from one uh person to next look at brazil where

15:29

you just get you know you get one regime and the policy direction flip-flops and you get a totally different set of

15:34

policies coming out you look at ecuador the current president there is trying to uh bitcoinize the uh

15:42

uh currency and like you know these kind of things are unpredictable and they create risk for a lot of

15:48

uh clients like ours and I think that a lot of our clients particularly foreign clients you know they follow the news

15:55

flow here they read the same things that I read and they see all the same things you're seeing division polarization less

16:01

predictability in between regime shifts I mean you know on the one hand

16:07

president obama is trying to regulate greenhouse gases puts the us into the paris climate accords and then tries to put together a

16:13

trading block with 40 of global gdp under a kind of uh

16:18

rubric of countering china and then president tr p comes in and pulls out of all those things and then president biden

16:25

comes back and tries to do them again but suddenly now the US is a less predictable partner on foreign policy

16:31

and it's a less predictable player in economic policy so there's a lot of questions about how does the us that

16:37

created the post-war global order project power how do you have a rules-based kind of trading system if

16:43

the most important country that kind of assembled that isn't really interested in doing that anymore and if you're

16:48

going to be investing into the united states do these policy shifts and the polarization start to affect the types

16:55

of decisions you make and to give you an example uh two weeks ago the supreme court made a decision in a case called west

17:02

virginia versus epa that essentially signaled the supreme court's intention

17:08

to radically rethink how much deference they give to executive branch agencies when

17:13

interpreting laws and basically asking asking congress hey congress if you want

17:18

uh epa to do something you have to be really prescriptive in what you're asking them to do and if you're not well

17:25

we're not going to give them that much leeway to interpret that for you so what that means is it's going to be a

17:30

lot harder for regulators to regulate at the federal level in the absence of regulation the states

17:36

aren't going to stand still I mean we are a confederation of 50 states in the district of col bia and california

17:43

wants to lead on climate policy if the federal government's not going to do it california will so if you're looking at

17:49

the policy environment in the US suddenly it doesn't look like a national market the way it did two years ago

17:54

suddenly it looks like you potentially have all these different regulatory regimes you have to start thinking about

17:59

now in some ways this isn't new right the states have different labor laws there's some states of right to work states some states are make it easier to

18:06

form a union but in other ways there's some new things happening that I think a lot of our clients are trying to understand about how this kind of

18:13

polarization and change is is affecting their decision making and how they think about the us as a contiguous market

18:20

I think that's really interesting you just mentioned that in many ways this is new right and to what extent is sort of

18:26

what we're seeing a continuation of broader trends that have developed over time you know

18:32

obviously we have an election coming up in november we have the midterm elections and

18:37

many are forecasting that the republicans will sweep the house of representatives the

18:43

senate remains kind of a toss-up up for grabs but in many ways that kind of follows historical patterns right the

18:50

party that is out of power in this case the republican party makes gains in a midterm year we've seen that

18:56

happen in 2010 after president obama was elected in 2008 we've seen that happen

19:02

throughout the course of history and so I have to wonder you know to what extent is this november

19:08

just going to kind of look like that wave where the party out of power kind of makes gains and it's it's just

19:15

following a historical pattern however we are at this point in time where it feels like there are a lot of

19:22

uncertainties there is a lot of things at play and so I’m I’m wondering if you can both just provide some insight into

19:28

how these trends that you've discussed you know inflation as a main issue demographic change this uncertainty that

19:35

you're seeing how does that connect with the midterms in november and what voters may or may

19:41

not do or what we can expect sure I mean there's there's nothing in the upcoming midterm cycle that I think

19:48

would interrupt uh those historical trends of the uh

19:54

general election victor getting uh losing seats uh in both congressional houses

20:00

except the possibility of tr p declaring his candidacy so there was thought initially that the

20:08

revocation of roe versus wade could lead to you know very strong democratic

20:13

turnout along with the gun violence that we've seen in the united states I think inflation has counteracted all of that

20:19

 in my estimation you know the economy is you know let's look at ipsos data uh the economy is is superseding everything

20:25

in terms of issue salience right now and so I I simply think that it has been

20:30

overwhelmed uh by economic instability and concern over those things however if

20:35

former president tr p does enter the race or it just seems inevitable then democrats could potentially mobilize

20:41

people in such a way to counteract the midterm shellacking that everyone's

20:47

expecting the reason why of course that we see these trends is really psychological it's all about motivation

20:53

and the loser from the previous election is more motivated to uh reject that party in the next election and the

21:01

winner the victor party is usually more complacent and so it's really a motivation game and so if

21:07

the democrats can leverage president tr p's entry on potential entry into the race then they actually have a

21:14

chance of at least dampening what otherwise could be a severe shellacking uh that people are expecting could be at

21:19

historical proportions but that's that's from my angle I would just comment on kind of the

21:26

historical perspective here I mean I think we are in a unique era where there's been you look at the house of representatives it's flipped over

21:32

control and I don't know how many times but in the last 20 years it flipped over control more times than it did in the

21:37

previous 40. so we came out of this era of really relative stable politics in the US where democrats dominated the

21:44

house all the way up until the 1994 wave election that brought the new gingrich republicans in and now since then we've

21:51

politics have been more polarized and that reflects kind of uh maybe there's some racial sorting and

21:56

demographic and geographic sorting that happened over that time period but it's just a lot more it is a lot more

22:01

volatile you have the republican party which is a fundamentally minoritarian party that does not win a majority of

22:07

votes I think in one one time and every one time thank you and so in the last 30 years

22:14

is the only time they've won a majority of votes yet they've pursued this electorally efficient strategy that

22:20

allows them to not quite dominate the senate but have a better than even chance of winning the senate in every

22:25

any given year uh same thing in the house and allows them to kind of hack the electoral college in the same way

22:31

and has given them this really dominant position on the supreme court as well so it's a unique it is a I mean I think

22:36

you're right there are historical trends that will dictate the presidential the midterm races this year but it's also

22:42

we're in a we are in a unique period of kind of upheaval and uh uh you know there's going to be this

22:48

power shift between the two parties going forward just because they've aligned themselves that way

22:55

you know the polarization is creating obviously this political or legislative

23:00

paralysis and so it's increasingly easy I think for opposition parties to simply say oh well the party in power can't do

23:06

anything well of course they can't do anything because no one's compromising with each other and the and the margins are so small that you don't have enough

23:12

to actually overwhelm it so that I think is probably something that we're going to see for a while

23:18

okay well that's cheerful and upbeat

23:25

let's let's look forward for a moment I’m I’m curious to hear you know obviously we know what's at stake it is

23:30

well established in ipsos data as you pointed out justin that the economy inflation and price

23:36

increases have just completely replaced cobit 19 as the main issue it is really

23:41

sort of the vacu that's sucking all the air out of the room right and that

23:47

doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon we know that right so let's let's look forward what are some

23:54

solutions that people are working on to address what we are facing in this current

24:00

climate whether it is to address you know economic pressures and price pressures

24:06

whether it is to address the feeling of instability or the sense of insecurity perhaps

24:13

created by migration patterns and demographic change

24:19

 sure so obviously conflict gets a lot of attention in the political sphere there's a lot of conflict so everything

24:25

we read about is when the two parties are at odds with each other but just looking at congress there are a lot of things happening that are relatively

24:31

positive right so you did a big infrastructure bill no one talks about it president gets no credit for it but

24:36

it happened and it was a significant accomplishment it did kind of floating out there for a decade uh they passed

24:42

the best bill they could do to reform gun laws to prevent mass shootings in the future may or may not make a difference we'll see what happens

24:49

there is a law that's probably going to pass later this year to reform what's known as the electoral account act and

24:55

any political junkies in the US who followed the insurrection on january 6th may have heard of this and it just it

25:01

cleans up some of the ambiguities that president tr p tried to exploit uh on that day that led to them you know

25:08

people trying to hang mike pence and uh I think one other thing I would point to is

25:14

I don't think this happens but in terms of solutions to sort of the paul the big

25:20

structural challenges that plague america uh social media reform I mean there's an effort there's an active

25:26

effort going on lawmakers are talking about this in a way they didn't five years ago because they've recognized the

25:31

role social media plays in poisoning the minds of young americans and driving people apart and I think that the

25:38

solutions may not be a good fit for the problem but at least they're talking about it as a problem and I think it is a problem I think social media is

25:44

responsible for some of the uniqueness of the era that we're in what before we move on to justin what

25:51

might those reforms look like uh I mean there's a few so you've got two big efforts one there's a there's about

25:57

six or seven bills between the house and the senate that would either break up the big tech companies

26:02

uh make their business models illegal or create more accountability for

26:08

what people are posting on these platforms and the consequences of that and then also within the biden administration there's a big push

26:14

on antitrust enforcement uh the woman that's the head of the federal trade commission right now wrote a paper kind

26:21

of burst into this burst of the fame by writing this paper about applying a novel theory of antitrust enforcement to

26:28

tech companies uh and so you could break them how do you the theory the predominant legal theory in the US

26:34

behind antitrust enforcement is that you have to prove cons er harm like for there to be a monopoly

26:39

the only way there's a monopoly is if it hurts people and then will act how do you prove cons er harm when you're

26:45

giving away a product for free so she comes in with a new legal theory that basically allows her to say well this is about more than cons er harm and so

26:51

therefore we're going to charge after these tech companies just this week they filed to block the acquisition by

26:58

facebook of a small meta excuse me by meta of a small vr company because they want meta to dominate the vr space so

27:06

I’m not sure that's a good solution for the problem but they're talking about it and I think that just recognizing that

27:12

you know concentration of economic power in social media is a force in the US today is a step towards a solution

27:22

thanks yeah I mean look the the content regulation is interesting because it relates to misinformation what I’m

27:28

particularly fascinated by though is the way that the internet and the sharing of the information on the internet has

27:34

created the atomization of people's uh information resources uh it it you know

27:40

we've all read about siloing and and sort of disconnecting from other groups I don't think that any changes to the

27:46

you know to the internet business uh and tech business uh is actually going to

27:51

change that if you have more companies out there that are prevented from creating trusts you're still going to

27:56

create information subcultures where people are not exposed to other groups and that's why what I’m really

28:02

looking for from a social perspective uh is intergroup contact I think that that

28:07

is truly the key to overcoming polarization I think it's the the key towards building a culture of

28:13

influence of inclusion uh and reducing the sense of threat both status threat

28:18

and cultural threat and economic threat that sometimes emerges when we misunderstand other groups the

28:23

problem is that every force in american society right now and really more globally is reinforcing the boundaries between us

28:31

so we are increasing we've already been you know segregated uh residentially by by race and ethnicity

28:38

 we are now seeing increasing you know brutal evidence frankly of partisan

28:43

segregation and now we are basically informationally segregated as well and I don't think that's going to change and

28:49

so I think it has to actually become and we're talking about solutions you know prospectively I think that you know

28:56

connecting with one another across these kinds of boundaries is going to be key and I think it's about recognizing where

29:01

different organizations have a role to play in this because it can't just be government especially in a in a very

29:07

anti-government country like the united states and limited government country like the united states the government

29:12

can only have so much power it comes down to the private sector and also civic society civil society organizations to cultivate connectivity

29:18

between the population to the extent that that's a value and I wonder if that's actually going to emerge and sort

29:24

of uh emerge inside of the diversity inclusion work that we see

29:29

because I think this is quite pivotal to actually employing improving everything from employee relations to intergroup

29:35

relations in society as it relates to inflation though you know I would love to share this we're talking

29:41

prospectively so I can't prove this but there is really interesting evidence that's coming out that I’m examining

29:47

quite closely about the way that inflation connects with demographic change in immigration

29:53

so a very unheralded explanation for today's inflation on you know beneath oil prices and everything else that

30:00

everyone talks a lot about is the complete shuffling of a population that it took place during the pandemic many

30:06

of you are working from home right now some of you may have decided to move to a place like utah or perhaps through a

30:13

beachside town you know in the florida panhandle I don't know but many people did that and they ran they moved to

30:20

places with recreational amenities and completely shuffled the population accordingly

30:25

when they did that the they were cons ing resources and those local societies that were receiving a lot of

30:32

population did not have the labor to provide the goods and services that these people needed which drove up

30:38

prices for those goods and services and that kind of reshuffling is going it has taken place how that changes is going to

30:45

be interesting well before I actually get there they also could not attract labor to satisfy that demand because

30:52

immigration internationally was completely cut and so it is unclear whether and I think

30:59

it's unlikely that there's going to be any kind of influx of foreign workers in the united states because of the

31:04

legislative paralysis that we've been discussing and it's unclear whether workers are going to continue to move to meet that

31:10

labor demand in other places but it's also unclear whether a potential recession which if you've been reading

31:16

the news today we might be entering recession territory here in the US whether that whether a potential

31:21

recession actually alleviates those wage pressures because those people are going to be cons ing less goods right now

31:27

cons er demand is really strong it's roaring completely in the face of all the evidence what we're expecting to see

31:34

is a drop-off of cons er demand in the next year or two but that has not happened yet if it continues longer than

31:40

we expect you know those inflationary pressures may persist

31:47

so I I established I’m a researcher right as a researcher in a room of

31:53

pollsters and public opinion professionals I have to ask particularly in a time where

32:01

there is sort of declining institutional trust and people aren't necessarily trusting the information that is out

32:08

there and available how can public opinion data help

32:13

ill inate what is going on right now what are your clients what are your students what should members of the

32:20

public be looking at to better understand what's going on so

32:26

this is a perfect question frankly in in response to my point about intergroup contact and the

32:33

society information, the work that Ipsos and peer organizations do, is pivotal to this

32:40

because we are we are a mirror effectively for society we are holding a mirror up to ourselves and saying this

32:47

is actually what we look like these are the trends that are going on right now and it reflects not just who we are

32:54

but also who everyone is right not just who we are you know personally but everyone so we are able to actually

33:00

learn what our fellow men and women are thinking in society when they're actually when we were otherwise siloed

33:07

from those opinions and that is so critical in a time uh when we are cut off and I think that you know people

33:13

marvel when I do my field work recently, I did a bunch of field work for a forthcoming book and I never heard so

33:20

many people use the phrase I live in a bubble, and these are folks that aren't like

33:26

part of some kind of random subculture right they're just you know generally average folks like you wouldn't think or

33:32

are actually you know radical or somehow exceptional people are aware that they live in a bubble because they're being

33:38

confronted with the opinions and views of of others who they otherwise do not have much contact with and it's actually

33:45

critical that we provide information about how other people feel so that actually realizing that you're in a

33:51

bubble is a good thing it's actually I think a step towards progress it's thinking that you own the world and

33:57

everyone agrees with you uh that's really bad because then there's no pluralism and I think that pluralism is the is truly the

34:04

key uh to overcoming a lot of the challenges that we're you know identifying

34:10

 I mean you know public opinion polling is like so core to our work because we really care about you know

34:16

part of our job is forecasting what the heck's going on out there and the way we understand that is the barometer

34:22

we get from public opinion polling and it's really important to have good public opinion polling and so like i

34:27

cons e a lot of polls there's almost like an embarrassment of riches of polls out there right now and you guys do amazing work and every week I get the

34:34

ipsos presidential public opinion poll and I send it around to my colleagues and like

34:40

buttons down and it really informs how we think about the direction of travel, but then there's also you know 538

34:47

has this great uh good use of pulling or bad use of polling right and it's a really helpful

34:53

thing to think about because you have to put in context the numbers you're reading New York Times Sienna poll three

34:58

weeks ago had the New York Times had a week of articles coming out of this poll subdividing I think it was probably a

35:03

thousand people were polled they're talking about how young people feel about Biden how Hispanics feel about Biden and it launches a thousand think

35:09

pieces based on what 30 Hispanics told said they felt about president Biden so

35:15

I you know having that in the right context understanding it is really important for and it shapes the entire

35:21

narrative of what we think and people who kind of talk about this stuff all the time think about what's going on in

35:27

the world and making sure that it's high quality stuff is really critical one of the things I love that you guys do in the presidential polling

35:34

here uh the the approval tracker is breaking out the partisan like issues by

35:39

partisanship so you know suddenly in your last poll crime had risen to 11

35:45

concern among democrats was the number three issue now to me was interesting Chris Jackson would probably tell me that's just a blip and I should wait and

35:51

see how it is over a couple of weeks, but it was interesting and I you know this informs how I see things and how I and

35:58

it definitely informs how the partisans act so the way that they you know republicans are really pushing this

36:03

crime issue right now because they sense that it's a rising issue uh in African American communities and in the

36:09

suburbs and so they want to push this, so I mean this stuff really matters and getting it right is really important

36:16

but no pressure yeah okay again I’m I’m curious to

36:22

be a little bit more forward-looking here and I’d love to hear from both of you about

36:29

with all that's at stake right now and all that we've discussed right now you know what do you think we can expect in

36:35

future election cycles is it going to be continued instability is it going to be continued

36:41

partisan shifts that we see at a more frequent rate basically I’m asking you know is is this our new normal

36:48

I know that term got thrown around a lot during the pandemic, but I mean yeah I mean at some level

36:54

like it's you know uh there are quiet shifts in the American political landscape that happen all the

37:01

time and there are misdiagnoses these are problems you know uh in 2000 2006 they were 2004. they

37:08

were talking about a permanent republican majority because president bush had this in-roads with Hispanics

37:13

who were growing part of the population it turns out that was totally wrong Hispanics flipped strongly the other

37:20

direction over the subsequent elections and everybody kind of missed that and then in 2012 republicans diagnosis was

37:27

ah we're doing terrible with Hispanics and we better do more to kind of court them that led to this failed effort of doing a immigration reform bill in 2013

37:35

and then Donald Trump comes in and totally scrambles the political scene by just rejecting anything about

37:40

immigration reform and winning the presidency anyway so I think it's really hard to see the direct the shifts as

37:46

they're coming but you know this is an incredibly polarized country the states you know

37:52

based on something Justin said that you know you got the you got rural states and more urbanized states and then you've got kind of the

37:58

states in between where all the presidential elections are being fought right now that's probably going to be

38:03

true for the next couple of cycles until demographic shifts catch up with

38:09

the parties and you know I think there's an argument that's being made the democrats have taken Hispanic support

38:14

perhaps for granted for too long you look at second generation Hispanics. Hispanics who have English primary

38:20

households they look more like white voters and so that's an important shift that if the democrats don't kind of wake

38:26

up to that they're going to find out that the majority they think they have is probably not a durable one and so you

38:32

know I think that these ships are going to take several cycles to play out the republican party at the same time is

38:37

becoming much more much it's relying on a smaller share of the

38:44

smaller share of the population to win elections and if you can't you know they got lucky in the 2010 election cycle and

38:50

they got really lucky in the 2020 election cycle because they were able to control a number of the redistricting

38:56

redistricting that happen which kind of helped cement some of their gains in the house so that's going to that's a that

39:02

is a 10-year legacy and uh but eventually you know I think this is going to catch up with them

39:07

unless democrats from like urban centers and coastal states start moving to

39:13

battleground states in match to Asheville and Panama City and in Provo

39:18

yeah which is happening which is happening so there's both status

39:25

and you know status quo and change right so there are certain factors that are

39:30

going to lead to stalemates right so one of them is uh gerrymandering which you know we haven't used the word yet but

39:36

it's basically underneath everything that that john have been saying today and polarization neither

39:43

of those are going anywhere which means that they're your toss-up states you're not going to have huge swings I think in

39:48

one direction or the other and you're not going to have like tons of legislative progress so

39:55

that from the change perspective the spaces that I would watch are

40:01

what does the democratic party and the republican party do these elections are there is agency from

40:08

the parties and the democrats confronted with a republican party that

40:14

swung very hard to the right historically hard to the right have decided at least it seems to be flirting

40:22

with moving harder to the left which goes against a lot of political strategy which would

40:28

normally say maybe you should move to the center and try to capture disaffected moderates to the extent

40:33

any of us think those people exist anymore I happen to think they do even you know it's just not necessarily

40:39

the way we always study moderates, so the democrats have apparently chosen not to do that though and they're moving

40:45

harder to the left now a lot of these elections you know are going to be driven I think by the choices

40:52

particularly the national elections in 2024 where you don't have big structural factors and be determined by that

40:59

when Biden was elected I think that people were seeking a sort of an adult in the room

41:05

as it's been has been phrased and they were looking for someone who was technically a technocrat they were looking for

41:11

someone who was actually going to manage affairs a manager someone who's going to bring functionality back to government a

41:17

little bit of stability would be nice for a change they got someone who was incredibly stable so stable that most

41:22

people think he's like in a coma or like moribund and so they are now the American public is

41:28

like you know you can't be satisfied first you want entertainment now you want you know it's just it's impossible

41:33

to satisfy now what democrats seem to want is a fighter

41:38

that's not Joe Biden and so it is highly likely that you see some kind of regime change at the top of

41:44

the democratic party independent of how the next two years go and where they go

41:50

with that fighter if that fighter you know is appealing to people in the center is going to make a big difference

41:55

to their electoral prospects I think in the future if and when republicans take power in

42:01

2023 uh in the house and or the senate they will have to they're going to

42:07

reveal how they behave and they're going to reveal what kind of party they are if they're going to impeach you know president Biden on

42:13

you know for no reason effectively because there's already plans to impeach him, they just haven't figured out why yet

42:20

that is going to affect people's views of the republican party and create an opportunity for democrats and so you

42:26

know so much of this you know we can sit here and predict but it's going to determine there is a lot of agency

42:32

involved by these parties in terms of who they are and what their what their uh image they're giving out

42:39

demographically we're aging quickly baby boomers are going to be retiring that's

42:44

going to put new fiscal pressures on an economy on a market that is not getting younger because we are not bringing in

42:51

more immigrants who are the sources of higher fertility rates uh in the United States even if marginally higher

42:57

 the Latino shift is really fascinating but what we're I think revealing is that

43:02

we are not a country that is divided by race we are a country that is divided by color and what I mean by that is that just

43:09

because you are Latino doesn't necessarily mean that you identify as brown somehow or as a person of color

43:15

many of this shift that we're seeing amongst Latinos are among Latinos who self-identify as white

43:20

we see it in Ipsos research I’m working on this right now actually with several of my colleagues who are here today and

43:26

it is a marginal change over those folks who are not having a minority experience

43:31

as Americans so even if they recognize themselves as Hispanics and as Latinos they are having a life that is

43:38

characterized by metrics that we would otherwise see in white people also we are seeing the tripling of

43:44

mixed-race people in the United States whether because more people are intermarrying which they are but also because people feel more comfortable

43:50

self-identifying as biracial those folks 80 percent of them are have

43:57

a parent one parent that is self-identifying as white they also may self-identify as white in

44:03

the future and if that happens it's really colorism in the united states that really starts to change things it's

44:09

not necessarily about where you're from or where your family is from it is about whether you pass to meet this historic

44:16

ambiguous and completely artificial understanding of whiteness so these are the kinds of trends that

44:23

I’m looking at but I’m more just watching what actors are doing in order to anticipate the future

44:29

because I do think there are a lot of decisions down the line at critical junctures to watch

44:34

and there's also that big open question mark which I think you both alluded to of whether Donald Trump runs for president

44:41

again, when he announces and you know sort of who the figurehead of

44:46

the republican party is as well on that note let's take some

44:51

questions I thought you're going to say on that note let's have cocktails all right well yes

44:57

questions and cocktails all are welcome feel free to raise a hand and either

45:04

myself or Mina will jump up and share a microphone

45:10

Hi, I just kind of wandered in uh as a member of the general public so this is

45:16

a completely naive question but it's bothering to me that

45:22

our racial categories and you haven't mentioned the LBGTQ

45:28

but there were very limited uh notions of what are demographic

45:33

categories and it seems to me that you could pick a bunch of other categories like to pull something out of the air

45:39

that matters to me do you drive or do not drive uh do you

45:44

are you well educated or not well educated maybe those are hard to measure maybe because everyone's being trained to

45:51

report demographic categories in the standard way but it might be more insightful

45:58

to break up the population based on other categories that's my thought sure this is an excellent point I mean so you

46:04

know we can self-identify in a variety of ways uh out there and the ways that we currently study race and

46:10

ethnicity and a variety of other demographic attributes is arbitrary in the sense that they're quite constructed

46:16

researchers have to decide and in many ways, you know we are sort of standing on the shoulders of questionable giants

46:22

dubious giants who made the decision to divvy up society according to you know the racial standards that we have today

46:28

 but this is a great actual actually a great opportunity to showcase recent Ipsos research that I was lucky enough

46:33

to participate in where we were really conscious of what are the dividing lines the fault lines of American society so

46:40

that we understand what are the identities that matter and we had hypotheses that maybe education and

46:45

therefore also class uh was connected maybe nativity whether you're born here or not we didn't check whether people

46:50

drive you know or but that could be area type whether you live in an urban versus and we do rural and we check that

46:57

too right remember we checked urbanicity versus uh rurality to see what was really driving the divisions between

47:03

people and what we found is that remarkably so first off religion and race are still

47:10

prominent divides in American society there's no question about it they're there but what was really blew our minds

47:16

was that partisanship actually superseded all of them in terms of the way uh that people feel a sense of

47:23

distance from their fellow citizens and so this is a really powerful trend and I think it was sort of implied by a lot of

47:29

my remarks about partisan division and polarization, but parties partisan

47:34

differences uh in many ways are becoming our new religion and that is why we focus so

47:40

carefully and heavily on party id race and also religion to some extent

47:47

it's because that's actually what matters for people right now you can also use sort of where you get

47:52

your news as a proxy, but in many ways it kind of boils down to your partisanship right where you get your

47:58

news do you listen to Fox or watch Fox News versus MSNBC it sort of tells

48:03

the same story just a different spin on it if anyone's interested in that research it was actually published in

48:09

time magazine and so in case you missed the episodes like newsletter about it uh you can check it out

48:14

you're my hype man thank you yeah okay we'll go back here as well over here so

48:20

to the point about going left hard left and hard right today we saw an announcement of potential third party

48:28

uh is that is that a reality is that something that can actually last or is this

48:33

uh is this one day and one day out I just think

48:39

third parties are going to struggle in the us for structural reasons right like

48:44

if third parties could succeed here you'd have independent third party governors you'd have independent third

48:50

party mayors maybe there's a few there's no governors I mean the structure the party apparatus goes from the all is

48:57

baked in the cake from the United States senate to like the local county rec hall like everywhere you go it's

49:04

just like really built in the branding value in terms of fundraising and getting people to vote for you

49:09

know you stop government has a line where he wants to make sure that if somebody who stumbles into the ballot

49:15

booth drunk uh knows that republicans are the ones who stand for taxes and so just vote tax cuts so just vote for the

49:21

r no matter how drunk you are because that's the thing you care about like that branding value really matters a lot and I think in our in just in our

49:28

reality so I’m would you know I would heavily sell any efforts to

49:34

form a third party in this country and I you know I wish I wish they'd succeed I wish them luck you do have occasional

49:39

people like Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg could have been a potential person to do this who can sell finance and create a

49:46

personality cult that's big enough to make an impact on the national level but it's really hard for these guys to win

49:55

all you need to know is that Donald Trump who effectively created a third party

50:03

chose to fit himself inside of the republican party he wasn't a republican at the time

50:10

right and well he is the republican party now right and so that tells you I

50:16

think everything you need to know it's also I think because Donald Trump is cheaper than Michael Bloomberg or Ross

50:22

Perot and I don't think we've seen his taxes so we don't actually even know how rich he is but he didn't want to sell fund right

50:29

and so if you look at successful independence they're all at the national level well not even successful but

50:36

prominent independents are at the national level or at statewide the American political system is all the

50:42

way local and a third party's going to have a really hard time scaling anywhere so you could see maybe like a prominent

50:48

governor like a Jesse Ventura or an Angus King in Maine you know emerge you

50:53

know Arnold Schwarzenegger was effectively an independent but he also went inside of the republican party

50:59

you can see those emerge and you know I would say the upside for this new party forward might be I don't know

51:06

governorship you know but to expect them to have the kind of apparatus that makes a political party

51:12

what it is the United States as john said it is baked into the cake here

51:18

I’d love to hear more about your comments on immigration it feels like it's the elephant in the room it feels

51:25

like it's part of the answer to the supply chain challenges you know with Americans

51:31

waiting a year to order a couch and going into stores and finding empty shelves something that we used to associate with the former Soviet Union

51:38

not something you would think of as you know American capitalism and it also seems to be the answer to a

51:45

lot of the labor shortages in this country so why isn't it that those things why haven't those things

51:51

converged to a groundswell that we should be doing something about immigration and that that is the answer

51:56

to some of our greatest challenges right now we have the groundswell 70 of Americans about two-thirds of Americans

52:03

believe that immigration is on par on balance good for the country the same n ber the same share believes that we

52:10

should either keep immigration constant or increase it here's the problem the third of the

52:16

country that is not believe that immigration is good or that believes that we should decrease immigration for them it is

52:23

their number one issue in many cases right or significant shares in the top three

52:28

for the people for the 70 of the country who actually believe in immigration want to see more of an agree with what you just said it's number 12.

52:36

it's number 10 it's number 13. there's other issues healthcare climate change covid uh the economy inequality

52:44

racial justice name it then immigration comes down but there is a hard core

52:50

of Americans that believes that immigration is the greatest threat facing the country right now

52:55

and that fuels republican turnout and mobilization and it's something that Donald Trump tapped into and the party

53:02

is not going to let go of anytime soon you want to follow up yeah I just think

53:07

there's immigration for you know everything that we value and the fact that most of us can trace our families

53:14

back to immigrants who help build this country and then there's immigration selfishly from an economic standpoint

53:20

about getting goods off boats about getting you know luggage where

53:26

it's supposed to go I mean just basic functioning of our economy so I’m I guess I’m just surprised that corporate

53:32

the combination of corporate America and citizens frustrated with the economy hasn't led to some kind of change around

53:39

that and corporate America has been behind immigration reform for a long time and it hasn't been enough and one

53:46

of the reasons why are these public opinion trends what I’ll just add is that the other thing is that we

53:52

talked about agency right of movements you know they also have a role to play and the immigrant rights movement in the

53:58

united states I think has made a number of mistakes over the years they have you know they have gone I think too far and

54:05

they have issued matters of management and control and that matters to a lot of Americans and that has I think

54:11

radicalized the opposition to immigration the way we've seen rather than talking about immigration from a

54:16

national interest perspective can I I have a question can I ask a question okay

54:22

okay let me challenge you there it's a good challenge it's a soft one so

54:28

how do you respond to this immigration is not about immigration

54:34

in the US it's about color so that's 70 percent you said I agree

54:40

with your point about the minority being the number one issue totally great but that 70 percent what percent of that 70

54:46

percent really prefers I don't know immigrants from Norway versus immigrants from somewhere else

54:52

which how do you react to that is that true is that a true statement it's a hundred it's basically undeniable at this

54:59

point so there's been extensive so what I just said is undeniable yes okay got it and so

55:05

the other way of looking at is that what you just said is well established but [Laughter] so yeah there's been extensive research

55:11

that shows that it's not about economic threat it's prime it's principally about culture threat

55:17

all right we've got I think two questions over here Lauren go ahead so

55:23

you know I was I’ve been thinking about this so I’ve been working for about 30 years now good or bad

55:28

and one of the most interesting things about the particular 30-year period that I’ve worked in is that I think a real

55:35

distinguishing factor sort of a consistent factor beyond temporary moments like inflation

55:41

pandemics things like that is the proliferation of technology

55:46

and the resulting globalization that occurred and you know it's my sense that the sort of

55:53

American political apparatus that's been in power sort of throughout my life really doesn't understand how to

56:00

function in a world where we're not the only game in town anymore and

56:05

and neither does our society as a result so I’m sort of curious to what extent did those kind of macro elements play

56:12

into kind of our current situation and ultimately the issues that

56:17

you study like you mean technological change and trade is that yeah like the

56:23

proliferation of technology what that meant to the rise of many global players

56:29

and then our ability to function in a world where we're not the only game in town yeah well I’m not sure this answers

56:34

your question but like I think I think a lot of people's kind of housing view the 50s and 60s in the US is based on this

56:40

kind of naive acceptance of the fact that like the rest of the world was a disaster and the US was surging with

56:47

this population boom and you know this incredibly free incredible free market that could take capital and put it in

56:53

innovation create things and create jobs and then create this global order this global trading system that went could

56:59

deliver prosperity globally and then at some point that all kind of started to change and you could blame

57:06

that you could say we went too far that it was really hard to absorb two billion people in china and you know in south

57:11

Asia into that system because they started to compete against Americans drive down wages and cost people jobs

57:17

and I think that that's a huge part of the there's a huge part of the backlash we've seen over the last decade to

57:23

globalization and that's a story both of technological change because a lot of jobs have been automated away

57:28

and it's a story of technology uh giving us access to

57:34

just unfiltered information a lot of which is just not true and kind of you know it stimulates your brain in really

57:41

ways that are socially destructive antisocial waves and I think you know immigration is a big part of this story

57:47

too where it's like you know opportunities are people perceive opportunities drying up and they blame you know the immigrants so all of

57:54

these things I think lead all these things explain Donald Trump right and all these things explain why

58:00

both parties are becoming more populist and what does it mean to be populist it means that you know you're just giving people what they want you don't know what they want to hear whether or not it's a good idea and you're giving them you're delivering

58:12

that as a policy platform and that's you're seeing that on both sides and I think I would argue the democrats historically been the more

58:19

populist party with more because their constituents are more labor unions and they're not as concerned with kind of

58:25

efficient operation of the economy and the republicans now are by far the more populist party I just think

58:30

the republicans aren't thinking two steps ahead when they put out policy ideas anymore and I say that as a

58:36

reforming republican so you know I think that I’m not sure that answers your question

58:42

but I think that these factors are all kind of a miasma that's causing the situation that we're in today

58:47

so, I know that we have more questions and I very much appreciate that, but I do want to give people a chance to get up

58:54

to have some drinks and food and keep talking amongst yourselves

58:59

and ask questions while you're doing that yeah of course so thank you all for joining us today I want to extend a

59:06

huge thank you to john and to Justin for chatting

59:12

a big thank you to ben for being here and joining us all the way from the UK

59:17

and to Cliff as well thank you all take care

59:23

[Applause]