The Most Important Political Show on TV

We can often get lost in the sideshows of the political season talking a bunch of nonsense about immigration, China bashing, race baiting and overplaying social issues and fear.

We have reduced our discussion to a reality TV show or People Magazine and thus we debate the price of Marco Rubio’s shoes, the length of Hillary Clinton’s bathroom breaks and whether being born in Canada should exclude Ted Cruz from the presidency.

The reality is that world events and geopolitics will determine our future including climate change, combating terrorism, dealing with a world of scarce resources and an increasing population.

Some of the world’s biggest threats include: the increasing tension between Sunnis & Shiites in the Middle East, the ability to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the impact of massive reduction in oil prices, the fact that China has been propping up its economy since 2008 by incurring massive amounts of debt, which often precedes a big recession.

I only know of one great political show on television that takes on these issues in a thoughtful and intelligent way with political analysts who are respectful and debate the issues without shouting. That show is GPS (Global Public Square) by Fareed Zakaria. I tape it every Sunday morning and watch it religiously.

So while this morning on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd we had to sit through 20 minutes of the Donald Trump side show / joke where he says things like “I’m not going to say that Ted Cruz has a problem, but many people say he has a problem. And I think the Democrats will sue him if he wins the nomination. So I think he should try to get the Supreme Court to weigh in. I’m not saying he has a problem. But leading constitution experts at Harvard say he has a problem. So he has a problem.”

Honestly, the whole process is so dishonest and it’s embarrassing to see Chuck Todd deliver Trump this platform just to drive ratings. Tim Russert’s natural successor isn’t Chuck — it’s Fareed.

Today’s show?

An opinion piece by Zakaria on why the US shouldn’t take sides in the Saudi / Iran conflict where the tension has gone up since Saudi killed a Shiite cleric and dissident.

A discussion on the reasons why Saudi / Iran tensions have boiled up through lowering of oil prices / government receipts and the neutrality position that the US government has taken (relative to the past of aligning itself squarely with Saudi). The guests included Robin Wright (a leading expert on Iran), Vali Nasr (Dean of John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) and Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institute.

Another segment was on China’s declining stock market, why it’s happened and what consequences it may have on the world economy. The featured a leading analyst from a bank who has been writing on the topic lately. Key slides showed that world growth was dictated much more by China than US since 2008 and therefore is China catches a cold we all get sick. But they noted that Chinese stock market is the least correlated with the underlying economy of any major country. I only know that from watching shows like Zakarias.

They also discussed North Korea’s nuclear test this week and what China’s role in containing NK has traditionally been and what it’s doing now.

And they had a brilliant session on Russia and Putin that featured Garry Kasparov who believes that if we don’t confront Putin now the stakes will get much higher. He talked about Russian population in a metaphor that I loved: A battle between the TV and the refrigerator. The Russian people love Putin’s moves and incursions into the Crimea and Ukraine because it stokes a nationalism (think Trump in the US) about making Russia great again. But then they go to the refrigerator and see that it’s bare because Putin hasn’t delivered on the economy and has isolated Russian.

The TV vs. the Refrigerator. I now have a new metaphor for thinking about Russia. And great politics shows make you think.

There also was a segment discussing Henry Kissinger with a brilliant author and historian Niall Ferguson who has just written a new book on Kissinger’s early life in Germany and his early days in the US through 1968 titled The Idealist.

Zakaria’s GPS is the TV equivalent of The Economist. It’s a quick way to have a strong sense of the world issues that will affect all of us. And it’s a welcome respite from the tabloid quality of our national media’s coverage of the US political system.

I can’t recommend it — or Fareed Zakaria — highly enough. If you want to understand the world around you please set your DVR.