Democracy Archives - Page 32 of 56

Democracy

Anti-maskers Are Not Rugged Individualists

They are collectivists living in fear of being punished by their group

September 17, 2020 • by John Stoehr

On August 21, people gathered around the Washington County School District building in St. George, Utah. They came by the hundreds to protest the governor’s mandate requiring schoolchildren to wear face masks. According to local newspaper The Spectrum, a protester said during a closing prayer that “safety is not as ...

Anti-maskers Are Not Rugged Individualists

Democracy

Why Trump Could Win Again

Democrats must respond to rising inequality and the working class

September 17, 2020 • by Timothy Kuhner and Benjamin Page

A mere six weeks away from the 2020 election, the polls remain in flux. Some suggest that Biden is performing better than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Kerry did, while other polls place Biden behind Clinton. Evidence of the race tightening with Hispanic and white working-class voters suggests an ...

Democracy

The United States Post Office is in Trouble

The strange fate of the United States Postal Service

September 16, 2020 • by Ryan Yursha

As I turn onto the northbound entrance for the New Jersey Parkway and speed through the EZ-Pass lane, I take a look at my clock--I have less than two hours to make the 60-mile journey from Brick, New Jersey to Newark Penn Station, find parking, hop on the train, and ...

The United States Post Office is in Trouble

Democracy

Donald Trump: Democracy’s Mirror image?

Modern liberal democracies can always cancel themselves

September 15, 2020 • by Philip Manow

______ In a modern representative democracy, power alternates via elections. Or, as one minimalist definition puts it: ‘democracy is simply a system in which incumbents lose elections and leave when they lose’.[1] But since they only leave after the event, democracy on this account of it can only ever prove itself ex-post. ...

Democracy

What Americans Can Learn from the Lebanese

Inspiration amid the ruins of Beirut

September 14, 2020 • by Roxana Toma

______ On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port blew up, destroying the city’s main commercial hub and damaging large areas of the Lebanese capital. The blast killed more than 170 people, wounded more than 6,000, left nearly 300,000 homeless, and caused damage worth $10-15 billion. Lebanon ...

What Americans Can Learn from the Lebanese

North America

“Alternative Facts” Produce Real Disasters

As Trump officials hide the truth to support the boss’s re-election campaign, Americans become more ill-informed — and vulnerable — than ever

September 13, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

----- Saturday night, at about 10:30, reporter Dan Diamond posted another blockbuster story in Politico. Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have been altering the weekly scientific reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports that track the course of the coronavirus pandemic. These ...

“Alternative Facts” Produce Real Disasters

Democracy

White Liberals Must Face the Truth: Donald Trump Represents all Republicans

The GOP isn’t a deranged cult. It’s a party of dangerous politics

September 10, 2020 • by John Stoehr

----------------- Ezra Klein, a prominent white liberal, is the top editor at Vox. During August’s Republican National Convention, he tweeted something I think we should address head-on. “This isn’t a political party,” Klein said. “It’s a personality cult.” There are good reasons for making such a claim. The president’s most ardent supporters exhibit traits ...

White Liberals Must Face the Truth: Donald Trump Represents all Republicans

Democracy

Scotland Is Stuck

The Scottish National Party is more popular and powerful than ever – but also boxed in to a constitutional stalemate with the UK

September 3, 2020 • by Simon Jones

------------- “Stick with it Scotland,” say the billboards in Glasgow. It’s a slogan applying both to the continued need to keep wearing masks and to practice social distancing, as the country enters a phase of localised measures to restrict movement in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis after a comprehensive lockdown in spring and ...

Democracy

Do They Deliver for You?

Postage stamps and the paradox of democracy

September 3, 2020 • by Laura Goldblatt and Richard Handler

Those were the good old days, right? Looking at those stamps from the perspective of our present public health crisis—when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump crony who appears to be hamstringing the United States Postal Service (USPS) so that people will not be able to use the mail to ...

Democracy

Joe Biden’s Message of Healing

September 2, 2020 • by Robert Ivie

Joe Biden went to Pittsburgh on August 31 to make a campaign speech condemning the violence Donald Trump incites. That was the immediate reason for speaking out, but it was also an occasion to speak up for a better America, one that most citizens can affirm and from which no ...

Democracy

What We Can All Learn from the Lebanese

September 1, 2020 • by Roxana Toma

Lebanon has been crippled by long-running crises for decades. The country endured a devastating 15-year civil war and has often been caught in the crossfire of regional conflicts. In October 2019, people in at least 70 towns across Lebanon protested against government corruption, an incompetent political system, its austerity measures, ...

North America

The Rotten Alliance of Liberals and Neocons Will Likely Shape U.S. Foreign Policy for Years to Come

Trump’s rise led to unity in the interventionist ranks opposing his foreign policy

September 1, 2020 • by Marshall Auerback and James Carden

The mobilization appears to be having an impact. More recently, "more than 100 former staff of [recently deceased Senator John] McCain's congressional offices and campaigns also endorsed Biden for president," according to NBC News and dozens of former staffers from Senator Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. That GOP support comes in addition to the more ...