During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Macedonian teens looking to get paid for ad-clicks, Russian cyber sophisticates apparently looking to tilt the outcome, and some homegrown mood manipulators broadcast outrageous and false stories packaged to look like real news. Their counterfeit posts were nearly indistinguishable from authentic coin and remain so, even in the face […]
The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of […]
Trump is part of a broad populist upsurge running through the Western world. It can be seen in countries of widely varying circumstances, from prosperous Sweden to crisis-ridden Greece. In most, populism remains an opposition movement, although one that is growing in strength; in others, such as Hungary, it is now the reigning ideology. But […]
The year I moved away, George W. Bush stood beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner on an aircraft carrier and declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq. Facebook hadn’t yet been turned into a company. The iPhone did not exist. I left before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, before Detroit went bankrupt. I missed […]
In the sixteen months since he declared his candidacy, Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign has elicited comparisons to those of George Wallace and Barry Goldwater, to the hallucinatory paranoia of Joseph McCarthy, to the fascist preoccupations of Charles Lindbergh, and to lesser lights of American demagoguery like Father Coughlin and the Know-Nothings of the nineteenth century. […]
To understand her foreign policy, it is important to understand the evolution of American strategy since the fall of the Soviet Union. Clinton is a creature of the beliefs, values and illusions that dominated American policy from 1991 until 2008. By understanding that world, we can understand Clinton’s core beliefs and then consider the extent […]
Populists, for instance, should not be confused with authoritarians and despots; they embrace the “democratic competition for power” instead of subverting it. Furthermore, populism “is not an ideology” but a political and moral rhetoric that pits ordinary people (noble victims) against elites (treacherously self-serving). Read Here – BloombergView
As Anders Fogh Rasmussen puts it, America is bordered by “two friendly neighbours and fish.” As a result of this geographic position, Rasmussen argues, Americans have the luxury of alternating between what you might call Trumpian and Clintonian views of the wider world. Read Here – Defense One
In the narrative of this election, Donald Trump is the “politically incorrect” one in the race. He says what “people are thinking” and isn’t afraid of the reaction. For the most part this is nonsense. Trump’s political incorrectness is just a cover for run-of-the-mill prejudice. If people don’t blame Mexico for “sending rapists” over the […]
The reason for the brouhaha about isolating Pakistan is because the Modi government came to power on nationalist sentiment. In the aftermath of attacks such as Uri, it has to assuage its constituency that it will take tougher measures against Pakistan than the previous Congress government, whom it blames for being too soft on Islamabad. With crucial […]
looking beyond borders 