It strikes me that the two are probably related because one of the factors increasing the global political weight of the marginal voter at the fulcrum of US electoral politics is the weight of a similar (mythical?) creature in German politics.

And while there may be marginal voters at the fulcrum of Chinese politics (politburo, PLA ???), it’s pretty clear that no one knows who they are or even if they exist so….

Tooze has a whole podcast where goes on and on about the pernicious effects on European and world politics of middle-class small town German voters (I think he literally says "lawyers" or something like that, lmao).