Politics Archives - Page 70 of 109

Public Health

The Fascist Politics of the Pandemic

Around the world, far-right leaders’ responses to the pandemic feature key elements of fascist ideology

May 25, 2020 • by Federico Finchelstein and Jason Stanley

There is nothing like a pandemic to bring out the fascist ideology in countries under far-right rule. In the world's three largest democracies, national leaders are using the COVID-19 crisis to wage war on immigrants and minorities, while testing the limits of common sense. NEW YORK/NEW HAVEN -- In stark contrast ...

Democracy

Liberty in the Time of Corona

What does it take to be free in a liberal democracy?

May 20, 2020 • by Cécile Laborde

The coronavirus pandemic has led to the severe curtailment of civil liberties and the lockdown of billions of people worldwide. Some states’ reaction to the pandemic has been seen as more effective than others. In particular, authoritarian governments, such as China, now boast about their efficient management of the crisis and are providing support and ...

North America

Do Not Presume a Fair Election

“Obamagate” reveals the skulduggery still to come.

May 15, 2020 • by John Stoehr

The president and his confederates in the United States Congress have spent the last several days manufacturing a controversy for the press corps to report and debate. Donald Trump has dubbed it “Obamagate.” It seems to have something to do with the previous administration’s lawful handling of the case of former ...

Europe & Central Asia

Letter from Glasgow

Labour renewed in a Britain unchanged

May 14, 2020 • by Simon Jones

But then in late April, the blossom trees awaken in the resurgent sun, their brilliant petals a thrilling antidote to the months of grey. Within days of their fading arrives the full vibrancy of the parks and countryside around Glasgow, a reminder that the trade-off for living somewhere so apparently ...

Democracy

Bolsonaro’s Regime of Chaos and Fear

The pandemic and the collapse of democracy in Brazil

May 14, 2020 • by Daniel Peres

In the third week of April, when asked about the rising death toll, Jair Bolsonaro answered that he didn’t know: “I’m not a gravedigger,” the president of Brazil snapped. When it was called to his attention the following week that the number of Covid-19 deaths in Brazil had exceeded the ...

Democracy

Who Is Trump Really Protecting During the Coronavirus Crisis?

May 12, 2020 • by Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King

Will Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis at last damage his claim to be his constituents’ Great Protector? The answer is not obvious. While Trump’s approval ratings first surged, then dropped, as the crisis grew, he has not fallen below where he has been through most of his term. Most ...

Who Is Trump Really Protecting During the Coronavirus Crisis?

Activism

How Do You Protest in a Pandemic?

The challenges of creating a social movement while social distancing

May 12, 2020 • by Jane Desmond

On Thursday, April 15, the traditional day for paying federal taxes, several thousand cars rolled to a stop on the streets in Lansing, Michigan. They surrounded the State Capitol, commencing “Operation Gridlock” to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s extension of the state’s “stay-at-home” order. Blaring horns, waving flags, and sprouting signs ...

Politics

How Fast Can a President Tweet? Once Every 7.5 Minutes

In a morning tweetstorm, the President seems consumed with his own safety

May 11, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Trump appears to be upset about the recent prominence of former President Barack Obama in the news. On Friday, a tape of Obama talking to about 3000 former staffers leaked. In it, the former President expressed dismay over the Justice Department's decision to drop the case against former National Security ...

How Fast Can a President Tweet? Once Every 7.5 Minutes

Democracy

The Power and Limits of Partisanship in the Struggle to Defeat Trumpism

A Critical Response to Osita Nwanevu’s “Bipartisanship Won’t Save Us”

May 7, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

As Nwanevu nicely outlines, the “emergency” legislation recently passed by Congress through bipartisan compromise, and signed into law by President Trump, is manifestly inadequate to the current crisis. It is also the necessary and predictable result of compromises with a Republican party that opposes remedial public policy as a matter ...

The Power and Limits of Partisanship in the Struggle to Defeat Trumpism

Democracy

The GOP’s Anti-American Animus

Trump is the culmination of 40 years of sabotage.

May 7, 2020 • by John Stoehr

I suppose we should give the president a round of applause. Donald Trump has done something no Democrat (and no liberal) could have done -- demonstrate to a voting majority the anti-American animus of the “conservative” project of the last 40 years. “Anti-American” might sound strange. This is, after all, the same president who vowed in 2016 to ...

Democracy

The Business of Disinformation

In Central and eastern Europe, political disinformation is highly profitable

May 7, 2020 • by Judit Szakács

Since February 2019, the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University has been mapping individuals and companies running or owning disinformation websites in five central and eastern European countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. The goal is to collect data on independent (i.e. not ...

Prisons and Police

Out of Jail and Homeless

City struggles to stop COVID-19’s spread among New York’s recently released prisoners

May 6, 2020 • by Abigail Kramer

Stefan Outlaw had just recovered from the worst of his COVID-19 symptoms when he learned that a charitable fund had paid to bail him out of the Rikers Island jail. It was mid-March, and much of the jail population was quarantined in cells for 24 hours a day. Outlaw, age ...