In 2001, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan to dismantle al-Qaeda and search for its leader, Osama bin Laden, who were harbored by the Taliban government. The presence of foreign troops sent al-Qaeda militants into hiding and the Taliban were overthrown.

How 9/11 and the War on Terror Shaped the World

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In declaring his war, Bush gave the international community an unequivocal : to either be “with us or against us in the fight against terror.” In 2003, he took this a step further. He leveraged his power and convinced US allies that Iraq was a state sponsor of terror and its president, Saddam Hussein, had developed weapons of mass destruction, which posed an imminent threat. It wasn’t long before the world found out that this narrative was constructed by the White House as the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq. The results were devastating: hundreds of thousands of Iraqi , the of over 9 million civilians and the political mayhem that continues to this day.

It has been argued that Islam has been conflated with terrorism not only in the media, but also in much of the political discourse. As a direct result of the war on terror, show that an attack by a Muslim perpetrator receives 375% more attention than if the culprit was a non-Muslim.

As these patterns grew with time, countries started to employ their deterrence capacity under the guise of the “war on terror,” only to undermine those who were resisting regimes or seeking self-determination. This was seen in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Even Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in 2001, quickly persuaded Western leaders that his country faced similar threats from Islamists and was dealt a carte blanche to crack down with brute force on insurgents and civilians alike.

The foreign occupation of Afghanistan ended in August 2021. After 20 grueling and miserable years, the US pulled out from Afghanistan amidst a Taliban takeover, setting a range of events into motion. Chaos filled Kabul Airport as scores of people were desperate to leave the country. The IMF Afghanistan’s access to hundreds of millions in emergency funds due to a “lack of clarity within the international community” over recognizing a Taliban government.  

The war led to irreparable damages and hundreds of thousands of Afghans paid with their lives. The US spent over on the conflict and had of its soldiers returned in body bags. Today, starving families in Afghanistan are their babies for money to feed their children and the world only looks on.

To understand how we got here, I spoke to Anas Altikriti, a political analyst, hostage negotiator and the CEO of , an organization aimed at bridging the gap of understanding between the Muslim world and the West. In this interview, we discuss America’s handling of the occupation and examine Afghanistan’s next steps now that the Taliban has assumed authority in the country.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Kholoud Khalifa: Joe Biden has received a certain amount of backlash from both sides of the aisle for withdrawing abruptly from Afghanistan. What do you make of his decision?

Anas Altikriti: Looking from an American perspective, I believe Biden had no choice. We tend to forget that the president who actually signed the agreement to leave Afghanistan was Donald Trump and his deadline was May of this year. Technically, you can state that Biden was carrying out a decision made by his predecessor. However, in reality — and I think that this is what’s important — any American president would have found it extremely difficult and utterly senseless to carry on a failed venture. Afghanistan and Iraq were utterly horrendous mistakes. If not at the point of conception and theory, the implementation was horrid.

However, from a purely analytical political point of view, Biden had absolutely no choice. The fact that he was going to come in for so much criticism, and particularly from the American right, is no surprise whatsoever. I would like to assume that Biden’s administration had the capacity to foresee that and to prepare for that, not only in terms of media, but also in terms of trying to argue the political perspective. Although in America today, I don’t think that is really useful.

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So, generally speaking, I’m not surprised by the fact that he got attacked, because ultimately speaking, on paper, this was a defeat to the Americans. It was a defeat to the Americans on the 20^th anniversary of 9/11, the day in which the idea started to crystallize in terms of those who wanted to see American basis spread far and wide, and the whole intermittent 20 years has been nothing but an utter and an abject failure. Thousands of American troops have been killed, but on the other side, probably more than a million of Afghan lives have been absolutely decimated — either killed or having to flee their homes and live as refugees elsewhere. The cost has been absolutely incredible, and for that, I think the Americans can contend with themselves, as history will judge this to be a failed attempt from start to finish.

Khalifa: What are your thoughts on the Taliban as a political actor in today’s geopolitical landscape?

Altikriti: Well, we’ll wait and see. There is no question that from the military point of view, the Taliban won. They achieved the victory, and they managed to expel the Americans and to defeat them not only on the ground, but also at negotiating. For almost the past 12 years, there had been negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans either directly or indirectly, whilst at the same time, the Taliban had been fighting against the American presence in Afghanistan and never conceding for a moment on their objective that they wanted a full and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. That, itself, is something to be taught at political science departments across the world, and it has definitely affected my own curriculum that I teach to students.

Negotiations, as well as being backed by real power, are things that have proven to be extremely beneficial and quite successful in this particular time. Now, that might be easy in comparison to catering to a nation of 40 million that have been devastated for almost three generations — from oppressive regimes to conflicts, to wars, to civil war, to occupation, to absolute and utter devastation to the rise of violence, ideological militancy, to all sorts of issues that have ravaged that nation.

Governing Afghanistan is going to be a totally different kettle of fish. It’s not the same as fighting. You can say that actually fighting a war from mountain tops and caves is relatively easy in comparison with the task ahead. Whether they’re going to be successful or not is something that we wait to see, and I hope for the betterment of the Afghan people that they will be.

The reality is the Taliban have won and in today’s world, they have the right the absolute right to govern. Hopefully, within the foreseeable future, the Afghan people will have the choice to either hold them to account and lay the blame for whatever economic failures, for instance, or otherwise.

This struggle between nations and their regimes is a continuous one. Thankfully, where we live, in the West, that struggle is mostly done on a political plane. So, we fight politically and we hold our politicians accountable through the ballot boxes. That is not present in many, many developing countries. Afghanistan is definitely a country that needs to find its own model as to how to govern and how to create that kind of balance between people and regime. I think it is utterly hypocritical from the West to prejudge them and hold them to ransom via mistakes that happened in the past. Every administration commits mistakes of varying sorts. Our own government in the UK is now being investigated by an independent inquiry staff as to how it dealt with COVID and whether some of its decisions led to the death of thousands of people. So, mistakes can happen.

The West needs to contend with why they left Afghanistan after 20 years of absolute misery and suffering no better than when they came to it in 2001. That’s a question that the West, including the UK, need to ask themselves before passing judgment on to the Taliban.

Khalifa: You mentioned something very interesting. You said we’re waiting to see and we cannot judge them right now. Do we see any hints of change? Has today’s Taliban changed from the Taliban of the pre-US occupation? For example, the Taliban issued a public pardon on Afghan military forces that had tried to eradicate them.

Altikriti: Well, the hints are plenty and the hints are positive. The fact that the Taliban, as you put it, issued that decree that there won’t be any military trials or court marshals being held. The fact that from the very first hours, they said that anyone who wants to leave could leave and they won’t stop them, but that they hope everyone will stay to rebuild Afghanistan. I think from a political and PR point of view, that was a very, very shrewd way to lay out the preface of their coming agenda.

The fact that Taliban leaders spoke openly, and I’ll be honest, in quite impressive narratives and discourses to foreign media — to the BBC, to Sky — and, in fact, took the initiative to actually phoning up the BBC and intervening and carrying out long and extensive interviews. This has never happened before. We could never have imagined that they sit with female correspondents and presenters and spoke freely and openly. Also, the fact that they met with the Shia communities in Afghanistan at the time when they were celebrating Muharram and assured them that everything was going to be fine.

I think a big part of whether Afghanistan succeeds or not lies in the hands of the West. For instance, in the first 24 hours of the Americans leaving in such a chaotic manner, which exemplified the chaos of the Taliban as we know it, the IMF said that funds to Afghanistan would be withheld. Therein begins that kind of Western hegemony, Western colonization that I believe is at the very heart of many problems in what we termed the Third World or the developing world.

The fact that sometimes nations aren’t allowed to progress, they aren’t allowed to rise from the ashes, they aren’t allowed to recover, they aren’t allowed to rebuild, not because of any innate deficiency on their part, but because of the international order that we have today in the world. We have so many restraining legal organizations — from the UN downwards, including the IMF and the World Bank — that hold nations to ransom. Either you behave in a particular way or we’re going to withhold what is essentially yours. It’s an absolute travesty, but unfortunately, this goes across all our radars. There is very little response in terms of saying, hang on, that is neither just nor fair nor democratic.

If you really, really want the betterment of Afghanistan and Afghan people, countries should be piling in, in order to afford help, to afford aid and to make absolutely sure that the Afghan people have everything they need in order to rebuild for the future.

But, unfortunately, the opposite is happening. We’re tying the nation’s hands behind its back and saying, we’re just going to watch and see how you do in that boxing ring, and if you don’t fare well, that will be justification for us to maybe reintervene in one way or another sometime down the line.

Khalifa: After seizing the country, the Taliban promised an inclusive government, with the exception of women. Yet the current government only comprises Taliban members. What are the chances that they deliver on forming an inclusive government?

Altikriti: I’m sort of straddling the line between being an academic and an activist, and I have a foot in both, so it’s sometimes a little bit difficult. However, I would suggest that when the Conservative Party in Britain wins an election, it’s never assumed that they include people from the Labour Party or Liberal Democrats in their next government. The same goes in America: When the Republicans win an election, you can’t reasonably ask or expect of them to include those with incredible minds and capacities from the Democratic Party — you simply don’t.

So, the hope for inclusivity in Afghanistan needs to take that into consideration. The Taliban are the winning party — whether by force or by political negotiations — and therefore, they have the right to absolutely build the kind of government they see fit. For them to then reach out to others would be an incredible gesture.

But I think it’s problematic and hypocritical if the West doesn’t allow the winning party to govern. If after some time it doesn’t manage to, then maybe you’d expect it to reach out to others from outside its own party or from outside its own borders and invite them to come and help out. But that’s not what you expect from day one.

The fact that they haven’t done what many people expected, and I personally have to say I feared would happen, and it hasn’t. So, until we find that media stations closed down, radio stations barricaded and people rounded up — and I hope none of that will happen, but if it does, we hold them to account.

Khalifa: Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, says the international community must engage with the Taliban, avoid isolating Afghanistan and refrain from imposing sanctions. He says the “Taliban are the best bet to get rid of ISIS.” What’s your view on that?

Altikriti: If we’re looking back at their track record, they were the ones who managed to put an end to the civil war that broke out after the liberation from the Soviet Union. I mean, for about five to six years, Afghanistan was ravaged with a civil war, warlords were running the place amok. I remember an American journalist said the only safe haven in Afghanistan was something like a 20-square-meter room in a hotel in the center of Kabul. The Taliban came in and created a sense of normality, once again in terms of putting an end to the civil war. There remained only one or two factions that were still in resistance, but otherwise, the Taliban managed to actually bring Afghanistan to order.

It was only after 9/11 and the US intervention that returned the country back into a state of chaos. So, if we’re going to take their track record into consideration, then it’s only fair to say that they do have the experience, the expertise and the track record that shows that they can bring some semblance of normality and peace.

Now, obviously, we understand that Afghanistan is not disconnected from its regional map and from the regional politics that are at play, including the Pakistani-Indian conflict. It’s no secret that the Taliban were looked after and maintained by the Pakistani intelligence. I understand from the negotiations that were taking place since 2010 that there was almost always a member of the Pakistani intelligence present at the table. So, it’s not a secret that Pakistan saw that in order to quell the so-called factions that represented the mujahideen, the Taliban were its safest bet.

In that sense and from that standpoint, you would suggest that the Taliban are best equipped. Much of what was going on in Afghanistan was based on cultures, traditions and norms that Americans were never ready to embrace, understand or accept. That’s why they fell foul so many times of incidents, which could have been easily appeased with only a little bit of an understanding and of an appreciation of fine cultural or traditional intricacies and nuances. The Taliban wouldn’t have that issue.

So, you would suggest that what Imran Khan said has some ground to stand on. It’s a viable theory. But everything that we’re talking about will be judged by what see is going to happen. But before we do that, we need to allow the Taliban the time, so that when we come to say, listen, they fail, we have grounds and evidence to issue such a judgment.

Khalifa: I want to shift to the US. So we know that there was a US-led coalition, and its presence for over 20 years in Afghanistan and in the Middle East led to very little change in the region. You already alluded to that at the very beginning. The US spent trillions of dollars and incurred the highest death toll out of the coalition members. What has the US learned from this experience?

Altikriti: I think that’s the question we should be focused on. I fear that it has learned virtually nothing and that’s very worrying. Just like we were passing pre-judgments on the Taliban, we need to do the same everywhere. If that’s the kind of ruler that we’re using to judge a straight line, it’s the same ruler we need to judge every straight line.

We heard the statements that emerged from Washington, and to be perfectly honest, very, very few were of any substance. Ninety-nine percent, and this is my own impression, were about America looking back and how they let down the translators and the workers in the alliance government and left them at their own fate. The tears were shed, both in the British Parliament as well as the American Congress, which actually shows that these people didn’t get it. They didn’t get it and that is what worries me the most.

If something as huge as Afghanistan and what happened — this wasn’t a car crash that happened in a split second. This was something that was led over the course of the last 17 years and definitely since President Trump signed the agreement with the Taliban in 2020. This should have been a time for politicians and analysts to actually read the situation and read the map properly. But it seems that they never did and they never bothered to see if there was any need or inclination to take lessons from it.  

I’m yet to come across a decision-maker, a lawmaker, a politician, a senior adviser to come out and say there were horrendous mistakes carried out by the occupation and by the other alliance governments that led to this, and as a result, we need to learn what to do and not do in future. But there is this arrogance and pride that forbids us from doing so, and as such, they’re inclined to make the same mistake time and time and time again.

Khalifa: Given that the so-called war on terror, and more specifically the occupation in Iraq, was an utter failure, what is the probability in your opinion that America will engage in another foreign intervention?

Altikriti: From a purely political view, I find this extremely far-fetched in the foreseeable future. The reasons being that Americans had to endure bruising at every single level and because of the crippling economic crisis. So, it’s extremely difficult to launch an intervention or military intervention in the way that we saw in Iraq, Afghanistan or Panama in the next two to three years. But the thing is, often, American politics is driven by corporate America.

I mean, we talk about the trillions spent, but like someone said in an article I read in The Washington Post, that those trillions were more than made up by American corporations, by American oil, by getting their hands on certain minerals in Afghanistan. Even the drug trade itself, which Britain and America thought they would quell, it was actually the Taliban who brought it under control, who actually went around and burnt the poppy seed farms. The West reinvigorated that tradeline and stabilized it. Therefore, as a friend of a friend tells me, he says many of those who were scrambling for airplanes in Kabul Airport were poppy seed farmers because they knew that they had absolutely no future under the Taliban.

So, once we count the trillions incurred by the taxpayer, we forget that there is another side that you and I probably don’t even know that is gaining riches at the expense of the Afghans.

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The beast now is to try out new weapons. Lockheed Martin and others will always have a vested interest in trying out the new technology, and what’s better than to try it out in real-life situations? If I was to speak to any modern, contemporary, 30-something-year-old military analysts, they’d laugh me off because I’m speaking about a bygone age. We’re talking now about wars where we don’t involve human beings. I mean, in terms of the assailants, they’re flying drones, and there’s an intelligence level to it that I can’t fathom nor understand.

Another aspect that no one is talking about almost is the privatization of militaries. We’re coming now to find brigades, thousands of troops that are mercenaries, people who fight for a wage. Now, this is the new way to fight wars: Why would Britain employ some of its brightest and youngest when it could pay £100 a day to have someone else fight wars on its behalf? And this is now becoming a multibillion-dollar industry. It first started out as a reality in Iraq, when we had the likes of Blackwater who were guarding the airports, presidential palaces and government officials. You’d try to speak to them only to realize they were from Georgia or Mozambique or elsewhere, and they don’t fall under the premise of local law. Therefore, if they kill someone by mistake, you can’t take them to court and that’s the contract you sign. That is where I think the danger lies.

Khalifa: In 2010, you appeared on Al Jazeera’s “Inside Iraq” alongside the late Robert Fisk and Jack Burkman, a Republican strategist. Burkman described Arabs and Muslims as a “bunch of barbarians in the desert” and the Bush administration as the savior bringing change. With its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, has the US perceptions of Arabs and Muslims changed, and if so, how?

Altikriti: I’d love to have a chat with Jack right now to see what he thinks 11 years on. To answer your question, it saddens me to say that yes, it’s changed, but only because America and American society are so polarized and so divided. It only took Donald Trump to become president or 50% of Americans to defy everything that Trump said. Being anti-Trump meant standing up for Muslims when he issued the Muslim ban for flights. So, people from their standpoint of being anti-Trump said, no, Muslims are welcome. It’s absolutely the wrong way to go on about it. That’s not how we recognize, for instance, that racism is wrong or evil.

However, the fact is that in the past, anti-Muslim sentiments were everywhere and the feelings that Jack Burkman expressed so horribly in that interview were widespread. I personally believe they still remain because 9/11 has become an industry and that industry has many facets to it. Part of it is ideological, part is media, part is educational and obviously part transpires into something that is military or security-based.

We still have Guantanamo. Why is it that the American people aren’t talking about Guantanamo to the extent that they should be? This is something that is on the conscience of every single American citizen — it is paid from their own taxes. Why no one talks about it is simply because no one dares touch the holy grail — the industry of 9/11. It’s a huge, huge problem.

I still believe that those sentiments expressed by Jack back then are still prevalent, but like I said, they were mitigated by the advent of Trump and by his declaration against Arabs and Muslims. This, as well as the highlighting of certain issues by the left in America, such as the gross crimes committed by the Saudi regime and that’s helped in two ways. Firstly, you expose the crimes committed by Saudis, but it’s also cemented that view that Arabs are barbarians.

Khalifa: Afghanistan wasn’t the only country that suffered. Iraq suffered more dire and devastating consequences from the so-called war on terror. What does a future look like for Iraq now that the US has withdrawn?

Altikriti: Oh, very grim, very, very grim. The Americans haven’t withdrawn — they’re less visible. There are current negotiations regarding the next Iraqi government in the aftermath of the elections that we’ve just had, which shows that the Americans are heavily involved.

Iraq is the playground of Iran. So, therefore, any policy of America or Britain or Europe that involves Iran has to have Iraq in the middle.

There are still about three or four American military bases, and from time to time, we hear the news that certain militias targeted this base or that base where Americans lie. Now, the personnel who are there within the bases might carry ID cards as construction workers, advisers, legal experts, bankers or whatever. But ultimately, they’re all there to represent the best interests of the United States. So, America is still there.

However, Iraq is in dire straits. I think the indices that go around every year that show us levels of corruption, levels of transparency, levels of democracy, levels of happiness of people and satisfaction — Iraq is regarded as one of the 10 worst countries on every single level. I think that shows what’s been done to Iraq and what’s been done to the Iraqi people.

The fact is that we have at least 30% of the Iraqi people living as refugees, either within Iraq or outside of Iraq. The fact that in an election only 20% of the people choose to take part.

You have to ask serious questions. You have to say, OK, so when the Americans accused Iran — and I’m a believer that Iran is the worst of all players in Iraq. But you have to ask: So you occupied the country, why did you allow it to happen? So, you can’t just brush it off and say, well, the Iranian militias and its people and its proxy agents in the sun. Well, what were you doing there? So, I think that, again, what has been done to Iraq and to all Iraqis — regardless of their faith, regardless of their sect, regardless of their ethnicity — all of what has happened is a stain. A huge, huge one on the consciousness of everyone in Britain, America, Spain and all the countries that signed up for this and took part in this, everyone has a responsibility to answer.

I mean, obviously, when we spoke about Afghanistan, we didn’t speak about the crimes, the actual crimes that were committed. The one that we come to recognize and know about is the crimes committed by the Australians, where they actually trained the young cadets to shoot at people and kill them to be acknowledged as soldiers. We didn’t talk about that because there are so many of those that were committed. To speak not of Arab and Muslim barbarity, but of Western barbarity — that’s something I think should be discussed.

Khalifa: In Egypt, it was a military coup in 2013 that overthrew a democratically elected government led by the Muslim Brotherhood. In Tunisia, a constitutional change led to the fall of Ennahda, an Islamist party. In Morocco, it was the people who voted out the Justice and Development Party, which ruled the country for 10 years and suffered a massive defeat in September; they went from having 125 seats to only 12. To juxtapose this, in Afghanistan, the Taliban conquered the country overnight from the US, the most powerful country in the world. What message does this send to Islamist parties in the Muslim world?

Altikriti: Only yesterday, I was discussing this with a group of colleagues, and someone repeated a statement that was sent to me by a fellow of Chatham House. He said to me something quite interesting. He said: “Don’t you see that many around the world, particularly young Muslims, will be looking to Afghanistan — and three months ago in Palestine and what happened there — and think to themselves that the way forward is to carry guns.” I said: “Listen, my friend, you’re saying it. I’m not.”

But in reality, it’s unfortunate that many of my own students are saying, “It’s been proven.” I mean, they say, “you academics, you always talk about empirical evidence. Well, here it is: Politics doesn’t work. Democracy doesn’t work. The ballot box does not work. What does work? There you go, you have Taliban, you have the militias. So go figure.” Unfortunately, that is the kind of discussion that I think will dominate the Muslim scene, particularly the political Muslim scene.

For the next few years, I believe, whilst we analyze political Islam and Islamic parties, whether in Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia, that will be the question. Is it a viable argument to say that these parties will have absolutely no chance, either immediately in the short run or in the long run? In Tunisia, they were allowed to run for about 10 years. In Morocco, they were in government for about 10 years. Before that, they were in opposition and they were thriving. But in Egypt, they weren’t allowed to stay for more than a year. So, ultimately, the end is inevitable. So, is it the need to shift and change tactics? It’s going to be quite an interesting and, at times, problematic discussion, but it’s a discussion you need to have.

And last, by the way, on this particular point, the West did not allow democracy, particularly in Egypt and in Tunisia, to exist. We spoke of democracy, we spoke of human rights, we spoke of freedoms, but when they all came to be crushed, the West did absolutely nothing, which told the others well, you know what? They don’t care, there are no consequences, and that is why it is that many, many Muslim youth today will say, well, there’s only one way to go there.

Khalifa: And lastly, what do you believe are the core causes for Islamic extremist groups, i.e., Daesh or al-Qaeda, to still have a foothold in the region, and in your opinion, what is the best way to combat these groups?

Altikriti: Their biggest arguments, and which works well for them, is the fact that democracy failed and that they got nothing from buying into Western values of how to run their societies.

Their biggest argument now will be the Taliban and how they won. So, those are the main standpoints [for] these extremist groups; they lie on people’s frustrations and their feelings that there is no other way out. That’s essentially the argument. I’ve seen it in groups where someone is trying to recruit for that idea. Their bottom line is it doesn’t work. There is no other way — that’s their only argument.

It’s not theological, by the way. People think they are basing it on these Quranic verses or on hadiths [sayings of Prophet Muhammad], but they absolutely do not, because on that particular front, they lose, they have no ground to stand on. [For them,] it’s the fact that, in reality, it doesn’t work — democracy doesn’t work. Human rights doesn’t work. Because ultimately, your human rights mean nothing to those in power. So, killing us is as easy as killing a chicken. It’s nothing. That is their argument.

So, it’s going to be a struggle, it’s going to be a big, big, big struggle for people who want to advocate democracy, want to advocate civil society and diversity. It’s a struggle we can’t afford not to have, we can’t afford not to be in there, because the outcome, the costs will be so hefty on every single part and no one will be excluded.

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To ensure that the irony is not lost on either the creator or the visitor of the website, just above the quote is a ticker flashing a sequence of major disasters that have afflicted the state, from the 1905 earthquake in the Kangra region to the cloudbursts of recent years. This information includes the morbid details of the number of lives lost, property damage and economic costs, displaying an undeniable, if unintended, pattern of loss and neglect. 

Mumbai Needs To Come Together to Prevent Annual Flooding

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Himachal Pradesh is credited with having one of the best in the country. In fact, a few years ago, the government of India had advised other states to emulate Himachal Pradesh. Relief operations too are carried out with a fair degree of alacrity and responsiveness. Yet Himachal Pradesh falls well short of international best standards.

A well-drafted plan document and post-event response cannot absolve the state of its complicity in the deaths of citizens and the loss of valuable public and private property. Where has the state gone wrong in its approach to managing disasters that now recur too frequently?

Nature Takes Its Toll

Perched on the Himalayas, the youngest and the most fragile mountain system in the world, Himachal Pradesh is predisposed to hazards and calamities. While it is blessed with an abundance of rich natural resources, Himachal Pradesh is one of the most states in the country. Nature — in the form of earthquakes, cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides — takes its toll here.

In July, 14 people and four went missing after flash floods ripped through the state. The same month, a boulder rolled downhill, nine, while another collapsed a bridge. In August, at least 11 died and up to 30 people were reported missing following a that buried passing vehicles. In winter, are a regular occurrence, causing death and destruction.

Himachal Pradesh is also vulnerable to earthquakes. Since January 2019, at least 14 earthquakes have been recorded, the latest one just . None of them have killed anyone or caused significant damage, but the state has experienced some of the most disastrous earthquakes in history. The of 1905 killed 20,000 people. Other major quakes have followed, and scientists estimate that Himachal Pradesh could be hit with an of high magnitude equal to or greater than 8.0 on the Richter scale.

In July, the state government estimated that 187 people had and four had gone missing because of natural disasters and accidents in the brief period beginning June 13 and ending July 27. These events killed 381 animals and caused damages of a staggering 4 billion rupees ($54 million). The floods and landslides that followed have increased these numbers significantly.

Unnatural Disasters

It is clear that natural disasters have caused much grief and destruction. Experts are increasingly pointing out that human activity has worsened these extreme events. I take the view that anthropogenic activities are a greater danger to lives, property and certainly the environment than natural disasters.

Therefore, as a first step, we should stop using the phrase “natural disaster,” which absolves humans of any responsibility. These days, most disasters tend to be man-made. In 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Port-Au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, approximately 250,000 people and rendering more than 1 million .

That year, an earthquake of identical magnitude hit New Zealand but in no casualties and caused negligible loss to property. Between the years 2011 and 2012, five major earthquakes, all with a magnitude greater than 7.0, rattled Japan. Yet the country suffered only 13 casualties. The reason for the different death rates in Haiti, New Zealand and Japan is man-made structures.

Earthquakes don’t kill people — badly designed buildings most certainly do. In poor countries, building codes are often rudimentary or not followed through. Building materials are of inferior quality and the work itself shoddy. Governments often push for more construction in the name of development for populist reasons, disregarding environmental factors. Such poor practices lead to disaster in case of events like earthquakes and floods.

Cheap and Easy

Few know that the interventions required for disaster prevention are absurdly simple. Planting trees on slopes, especially soil binding species, is the most effective method to stem and prevent landslides. Yet for some inexplicable reason disaster management authorities in India prefer building retaining walls to contain soil erosion.

Another intervention that has proven effective is to avoid cutting off the toe of a mountain slope while constructing buildings or roads. Yet toes of slopes are regularly cut to construct highways all across the country, and Himachal Pradesh is no exception. By cutting off the toes of slopes, Indian road makers are creating artificial vertical elevations with steeper slopes leading to landslides.

On slopes, good, clean and unclogged roadside drains assume great importance. Sadly, roadside drainage systems in India leave a lot to be desired. In the Himalayas, drains are frequently clogged with rubble and, even more worryingly, plastic.

In a 2020 article, Satya Prakash Negi, a senior officer in the Indian Forest Service, pointed out how plastics threaten the Himalayan environment. They now litter hills, mountains and rivers. Plastic absorbs heat, blocks natural water channels and causes floods as well as landslides that damage roads and property, leading to avoidable deaths.

But perhaps the biggest threat in mountain areas is unregulated, reckless and often illegal mining in riverbeds. Mountain roads invariably have numerous bridges that span riverbeds. Dangerous mining often goes on right under our noses or, more accurately, under our bridges.

Such mining leads to disaster during natural calamities. Often, the very businesses that were profiting from dangerous mining make a killing from post-disaster construction contracts, making a mockery of law and justice.

Vested Indifference

The prevalence of natural disasters begs a simple question: Why have India’s policymakers failed to implement zero-cost interventions and precautions to save lives and property? Is it because of apathy, or are there vested interests at play?

These questions are best answered by examining one particular disaster. In 2017, a whole mountain snapped and buried alive 50 people in village on the Mandi-Pathankot highway in Himachal Pradesh. Parts of the highway were washed away, smaller landslides followed; the area suffered flooding as well. Yet the very next day a group of college students insisted on walking through the disaster site instead of taking a route that would have added 30 minutes to their journey.

The next day, I saw groups of people posing for photographs in the middle of the river with no concern for safety. That vignette stamped indelibly in my memory captures the indifference to disasters among the Indian public. This indifference is at the root of the country’s poor disaster management policies.

There are two other anecdotes that capture this very peculiar Indian indifference. A few years ago, I was at the World Bank for a meeting. A fire alarm sounded, and the entire building was evacuated. Thousands of people came out and assembled in designated spaces outside. This was merely a fire drill, but everyone took it seriously.

We planned a similar drill in the state government headquarters in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh. The first date had to be postponed because of a ministerial visit. The second one went ahead but senior officials refused to leave the building. They prioritized their files over the exercise. If those in commanding government roles do not take safety seriously, what message does it send to other government servants and the public?

Vested interests also play a role in exacerbating disasters. Those who get construction contracts often grease the palms of those who give them out. Those who are winning contracts to build retaining walls argue against tree plantations. Those practicing engaging in dangerous mining activities persist because it brings them revenues and profits. Private benefit trumps public interest and eventually results in tragedy when disaster strikes.

Populism

Apart from apathy and vested interests, another factor is at play: populism. Encroachment on public lands to build private homes is a problem common to developing countries from Brazil and Kenya to Bangladesh and Indonesia. India is no exception. Politicians seeking votes often promise the “regularization” of such encroachment. Needless to say, the private homes that are often little more than shanties are rarely safe. They are built on lands that were supposed to have no buildings and do not follow safety regulations.

As a government official, I came across an incident where people had built homes over public drains. Construction over public utilities, especially drains, was prohibited under the law, yet people had flouted it merrily. When talk of imposing the law arose, protests broke out.

The fact that stormwater would wash away homes, sometimes in their entirety, if the drains were blocked did not wash with the protesters. Some politicians took the side of the protesters and put pressure on officials to turn Nelson’s eye to the breach of planning regulations.

This situation is repeated again and again all across the country. Indian authorities are wary of imposing any planning regulations in urban areas. For rural areas, they rarely bother to even draft such regulations. The political class supports “regularizing” unauthorized constructions because it is a vote winner. Those whose homes are retrospectively legalized tend to vote for politicians who pushed the measure through. Everything goes swimmingly until disaster strikes, buildings collapse and people die.

What India needs is not only a disaster management plan like Himachal Pradesh’s but also a cool examination of the causes of such disasters. Public apathy must end. We must confront vested interests and put public benefit over private profit, and politicians must look at longer-term horizons instead of a few votes in the next election. For a start, India must move away from pouring ever more concrete on its slopes to planting more trees that save the soil and allow us to bask in the cool shadows of our hills.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In India, I disliked school and grew to hate exams. My time in the UK transformed my school experience. I loved my classes and going to school. When I returned to India, I decided not to go to school. Instead, I studied at home and curiously missed not having to write exams at the end of the year.

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I can speak about the Indian schooling system with confidence. My experience has been corroborated by others. The Indian schooling system seems to have common problems across the country and needs major reform. I stayed in London only briefly and do not know as much about British schooling. Some experiences may be unique to the particular school I attended.

My Indian Experience

When I went to school in India, I studied diligently and my teachers liked me. I participated in many extracurricular activities such as dance and art that I tremendously enjoyed. On the whole, however, I did not like school and was unhappy.

One of the reasons for my unhappiness was my school’s rigid dress code. Every day, I was supposed to turn up wearing an impeccable uniform. My hair had to be shiny, well-oiled and held together by a black hair tie. Every morning, teachers would scrutinize uniforms before class. They expected students to follow the school dress code diligently. We were warned of the dire consequences if we violated the code. For example, they threatened to paint the nails of boys who grew them long.

Ironically, teachers imposed these rules most strictly on those too young to dress themselves. The 6-year-olds who came to school were terrified of being publicly humiliated and punished for something outside their control. I found this system of punishment archaic and problematic. To me, the rules my school obsessed about did not seem relevant. I felt the school was trying to fault students for the smallest of details.

Another reason why I did not enjoy school was the poor behavior of certain teachers. They mocked some students by giving them humiliating names. These teachers also casually swore at us if we erred. Although I was never a target of this, I found such behavior disconcerting. 

My physical education teacher often behaved this way. He gave us demeaning names, swore at us and imposed severe punishments, such as running around the playground and performing squats. This teacher also hit children who frustrated him. Because of this teacher, I did not like the physical education classes and stayed away from sports. My mother and I lodged a complaint against him but nothing came out of it. The school principal claimed to be against the teacher’s methods. However, she did nothing. To this day, the teacher remains unchanged. 

I have vivid memories of the vice principal too. On one occasion, she interrupted class to announce a new rule: No student would speak any language other than English at school. She told us menacingly that, if students broke this rule, they would be fined. Immediately after making this announcement, the vice principal started conversing with the class teacher in Gujarati. The fact that the class teacher taught us English exaggerated the irony of the situation. The vice principal was also infamous for being rude and condescending not only toward students, but also their parents and even grandparents.

Insults, threats and hypocrisy made school unpleasant. I eagerly looked forward to afternoons when I could leave school and return home. At night, I felt anxious because I feared the morning when I would have to get ready and leave for school. Often, I missed school by claiming to be unwell.

I must point out that my school enjoyed a great reputation. It is deemed to be one of the best in Ahmedabad. Schools in my city and in much of India are run according to the same norms. My friends in other schools had similar experiences. Changing schools seemed futile. After going away to the UK and experiencing British schooling for a year, I came to realize exactly why I had disliked school in India. The problem was much bigger and systemic than the occasional rude teacher.

My British Experience

I moved to the United Kingdom because my father chose to do a degree there. When we moved, the school year had already begun. Few schools were admitting students. We went to different schools to see if they would admit my elder sister and me. My sister visited two or three schools before finding a place in one. I was unexpectedly admitted into the first school we stepped into. The school administrator told me that I would start the next day.

This news came as a surprise to me. A bigger shock awaited when the administrator revealed that my teacher was to be a “he.” In India, I had found male teachers to be the most aggressive, insensitive and rude. I feared this would be the case in the UK as well. I was already anxious about going to school in a new continent. Knowing that my new teacher would be male added to that anxiety.

On my first day at school, I arrived late. My mother and I lost our way in a new city. To my surprise, the teacher was waiting for us. He was friendly and kind. Within minutes of meeting him, I calmed down. I was ashamed of the preconception I had formed of him. My teacher had turned out to be very different. He asked three classmates who had volunteered to be my “buddies” to show me around. They broke the ice and I felt welcomed on the first day at school.

I found my British school to be completely different from my Indian one. Teacher–student interactions were more friendly, open and informal. Students called teachers by their first names. This was rare even for UK schools and took some getting used to. 

In India, schools are hierarchical. Teachers are patronizing even when they are polite. Students are almost always belittled. They have to address their teachers as “sir” and “madam” as a sign of respect. However, teachers rarely reciprocate the respect, which I have always believed to be unfair. Students are the most important people in any education system, deserving of respect in return.

In the UK, I liked addressing my teacher by his first name. In my view, this formed a closer connection and an amiable learning atmosphere. My British teacher often sat down with us and shared what was planned for us academically. We could ask questions freely and he would respond to them diligently. He had high expectations from us and made us think. In the UK, I realized that schools could maintain discipline without condescension. The teacher–student relationship can be one of mutual respect.

In India, schools obsess about discipline. Students have to comply with a laundry list of rules and are punished even for minor violations. Corporal punishment is now rare in urban areas but still occurs. Some parents even support this form of punishment. They believe in the archaic dictum, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

The discipline enforced in Indian schools seems to have surprisingly little impact. When they leave school, the people of India are hardly rule-conforming; in fact, they are rebellious. This is most evidently seen on the roads of India where drivers blatantly ignore traffic rules. Painting zebra-crossings, for example, is wasteful. The drivers of India have unanimously decided to ignore them, despite being instructed otherwise when obtaining their licenses.

In the UK, my school did have rules and imposed them. However, they were fewer, less controlling and more sensible than those in India. The teachers were authoritative when necessary but never authoritarian. 

In India, even when teachers acted in our best interest, they did so in an intimidating manner. One teacher once asked us if we had social media accounts. Those who raised their hands were told there would be “legal action” against them because no one under 18 was supposed to have social media accounts. The teacher was trying to protect us from online dangers, but the aggressive approach did not inspire trust. It was in the UK that I discovered the dangers of cybercrime when we were taught about it at school. Our Indian school could have done the same instead of threatening students. Schools in India choose to scare children out of problems where they could reason with them instead.

In India, I hated school and lied about being sick to stay at home. In contrast, I loved school in the UK. For the first time, I wanted to go to school even when I was ill.

Contrasting Approaches to Learning

In India, textbooks were treated like the Bible and teachers followed them completely. Once they taught a chapter, we had to answer questions at the end of it. Most of the time, the teacher would simply dictate the answer to us and all we had to do was write down what they said. Older students had the liberty to write down answers on their own, but there was little need for originality. Copying down relevant sections of the chapter could fully answer most, if not all, questions. 

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Questions were invariably formulaic as well. For example, this question was posed at the end of chapter six of the class eight geography textbook of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT): “The world population has grown very rapidly. Why?” Teachers expected students to pull out an excerpt from the chapter verbatim. This was deemed to be the correct answer: “The main reason for this growth was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births remained fairly high.” The five other questions that followed had to be answered similarly by quoting relevant lines from chapter six.

To answer questions, teachers told us to put brackets around appropriate sentences in chapters and write down the respective question numbers next to them. Once we had matched questions with answers, we simply had to copy both of them down in our notebook. This process of answering questions was tedious and almost pointless. Preparing for exams was similarly mind-numbing. All we had to do was memorize what we had written in our notebook and reproduce the answers during the exams.

Only creative writing offered an escape from the monotony. Even here the topics teachers gave out for essays and stories were again mostly formulaic. Books were available that had essays and stories on these topics. All that most students did was memorize from them and present the material as their own. The “writing” in “creative writing” was anything but creative.

In India, school involved little learning. I did not make inferences, analyze topics or interpret things originally. We were not encouraged to think critically and express our opinions. I realized that the Indian education system does not foster critical thinking or creativity.

In the UK, school was rich in learning. We were divided into sets with different teachers depending on our level of understanding of the subject. We began every class by writing down the learning intention in our notebooks. 

I remember my math classes well. Sometimes, we played mathematical games. We had to use formal methods and the language of mathematics to explain our strategies, making us vocalize our way of thinking. 

I enjoyed my English classes as well. In class, we were supposed to make inferences about the theme of the text and explain our reasoning. I also learned to structure arguments in the point, evidence and explanation format, popularly known as PEE. I learned not only to write but also to edit my writing. Teachers would mark our work and students would do a “response to marking” exercise. This meant students could improve their work iteratively.

In the UK, answers would ask for a contribution by the student, which resulted in a collaboration. The experience was individualized. We also discussed things in detail during class, which meant we heard many points of view. We learned how to justify our opinions instead of merely asserting and how to challenge an idea or defend it. We made our case and debated issues. Listening to opposing arguments expanded our mental horizons.

The books we used in Britain were a world apart from textbooks in India. For instance, “” is a reference book from the UK. It has an extract from Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and then poses the following question: “The writer presents the reader with a strongly negative view of Unoka. He is clearly a flawed character with very few redeeming qualities.’ How far do you agree with this statement? You should include: your own perceptions of Unoka; the techniques the writer has used to influence your perceptions; evidence from the text to support your ideas.”

Such questions demand original thinking and make the students express their own thoughts. These questions also make students more rigorous in their thinking as they have to read the text carefully and engage deeply with the author. Opinions and assertions are not enough. Students have to construct arguments based on logic and facts. During my time in the UK, I had to learn how to analyze, understand implications and form judgments. I got an excellent education.

Contrasting Attitudes Toward Examinations

In India, success in examinations is the holy grail. People believe that examinations are accurate measures of capability, but they fail to recognize how problematic they are. Examinations reward rote learning. Little more than a sharp memory and handling time pressure is needed to guarantee a good result. Indians do not realize that some of the most original thinkers have struggled in tests. Nobel laureate in physics was “very slow” and “didn’t necessarily do very well” in his tests.

Students in India take a lot of examinations and are under enormous pressure to perform well in them. So, the purpose of studying is mostly to do well in exams and not to learn. When I was in India, examinations were the main incentive to study. Schools prepare students for the end-of-year tests, succeeding in which is painted to be the goal of the academic year.

In the UK, we had examinations too. In Year 6, students take the Standard Assessment Tests (SATs). These are similar to nationwide board exams in India, but there is less pressure in Britain compared to India. In India, students taking board exams are expected to give up all extra-curricular activities. For many months, they are supposed to focus only on their studies.  The SATs were different. Teachers prepared us for them and we took mock tests, but there was no syllabus given and no memorization was needed. Coming from India, I asked my teacher for a syllabus but was told there was none. The atmosphere before the SATs was strangely calm and, for most of the year, school was normal.

I understand that this comparison of the UK and India might be unfair. India is a poorer country with a much larger population and there are only a few good schools and colleges. As a result, competition for places is intense. Therefore, Indians care deeply about examinations as they are a gateway to success. This nurtures a culture in which Indians obsess about examinations even when they do not really matter, such as those taken in lower grades. The system is examination-centric, not student-centric.

My Return to India

When my father’s stint in the UK ended, we returned to India. I had no intention of rejoining my much-hated old school. I enrolled in another school but quickly realized that it was worse than my previous one. After only a day at the new school, I rejoined the old school.

On the very first day at the old school, I found myself comparing it to my time in the UK. I found the school greatly problematic and it made me deeply unhappy. As a result, I did not attend school for three weeks and had to summon a lot of courage to return.  To make matters worse, I had returned in the middle of the academic year and needed to catch up.

Few teachers were supportive. In fact, most teachers demanded an impossible feat. They wanted me to write up everything that had been done over six months in my notebooks while simultaneously keeping up with their teaching. I tried to find the superhuman strength necessary for this task and wrote persistently to catch up. This caused exhaustion and I started missing school. This only added to the burden because I had to catch up with the days I missed. 

By the time the annual examinations approached, I was almost worn out. We were to be tested on everything taught throughout the year, but the extra writing was hindering my exam preparation. My parents requested my teachers to exempt me from the extra writing assignments. I did not make the request because that would have been deemed rude. 

In any case, I had no interest in taking the annual examination. In the UK, I had learned much of what the school was teaching and testing. I was putting in so much effort in copying out what I had missed, but I was learning nothing. I concluded that a school that taught me nothing was pointless, so I decided not to return until the new academic year began when I would be learning something new.

My parents opposed my decision. According to them, one could not skip ahead. They had followed the norm their entire lives and had turned out just fine. They did not want me jeopardizing my future. They also did not believe that I already knew what was being taught. On their insistence, I reversed my decision of not going to school and took the year-end examinations. My results were splendid but the experience of taking the examinations was horrible. On the day the results were announced, I broke school rules, dressed boldly and showed up in my colorful clothes instead of the school uniform. I was making a statement on what I had decided would be my last day in school.

My decision not to go to school worried my parents. To add to their worries, I did not study at all for four months. I spent this time playing games, creating art and enjoying myself. School had made me angry and I loathed the idea of taking tests. So, I took a break. My father was worried about me not studying and repeatedly requested me to restart and not fall behind my peers. I dismissed his concern.

My Homeschooling Experience

After four months, I started getting bored. Around this time, I was asked a math question. To my surprise, I could not answer it. I realized my four months of inactivity had taken a toll. The idea of intellectually falling behind my ex-peers shocked me, which motivated me to start studying again. I began with a mathematics textbook that my parents had bought for me and was able to finish the entire year’s syllabus in two months. I was amazed at my achievement and it made me realize that I did not need school. Teaching myself was much more fun, so I decided to become a homeschooler. 

My decision worried my parents. They had thought me not attending school was just a phase. In India, homeschooling is rare and rather stigmatized. Most people associate it with students who cannot keep up with their studies or are extremely uncomfortable in social settings. My parents had similar impressions. 

But my parents’ apprehensions did not affect me. I am competitive. I do not like my peers knowing more than I do whether they are from India or the UK. So, I started studying both the Indian and the British curricula. I asked my parents to order textbooks from both India and Britain. By the time these textbooks arrived, I had lost a few weeks of the academic year already shortened by the four months of inactivity. 

My challenge was to complete two curricula in less time than what students in the UK or India spent to cover one curriculum. The task was daunting, but my doubts were not enough to supersede my ambition. I started by making a plan. 

I wrote down all the subjects I planned to study, along with my learning goals for the year. I then planned out every single day for the next two months. I had never planned my studies before. Inevitably, I overestimated and underestimated the time I would take to study some topics and there were days I struggled to meet my goals. However, I disliked falling short and would work harder on such days to achieve my objectives. I did my utmost to keep to my schedule.

The line between studying and not studying became blurred at home. There were no school hours and I would sometimes study till late in the evening. My self-imposed deadlines were helpful as they made me avoid succumbing to laziness. Making a schedule for myself made me appreciate the work of teachers behind the scenes. Structuring student schedules is no easy task. Eventually, I learned to set better deadlines and began to understand how much time I would need to spend on various topics. 

Although doing two curricula simultaneously put me under pressure, it allowed me to learn more. I discovered that some topics were introduced to students in the UK but not in India and vice-versa in the same academic year. Some of the topics that overlapped were explained better in the UK curriculum, while others in the Indian one. This deepened my understanding.

Homeschooling required great self-discipline. I had to plan my studies for the year and then adhere to that plan in an environment not dedicated to studying. Distraction came easily. At one point, I began cutting corners because there was no one to stop me. I missed many targets and gave myself a written warning, a practice common in Indian schools. Fortunately, this worked. I learned to avoid laziness and largely stuck to my deadlines.

Homeschooling has given me more choice and made me more creative. I began learning French, an Indian classical dance named Kathak and to play the drums. 

There are downsides to homeschooling. I have felt lonely. I missed chatting with my fellow students and general social interaction. To counter this isolation, I started reading aloud. I often read in different rhythms and accents, imagining and emulating different teachers teaching me the subjects. I have increased my extracurricular activities; most of my evenings are booked.

Initially, I was secretive about being a homeschooler. Only my close family knew about it. I told my friends and old classmates I had changed schools. I told new acquaintances I was still in my old school. I did so to avoid the influx of questions and presumptions that would inevitably follow the revelation. 

Completing a year of homeschooling filled me with a level of pride and a sense of accomplishment that I had not experienced before. Academically, I had covered two curricula in a short span of time. I had experimented with different learning methods and discovered which ones most suited me. I had become more adventurous and willing to venture into new areas like linguistics. I had studied for myself and not for passing exams. This was a euphoric feeling. 

Examinations, National Policy and the Future

When I was homeschooling, almost everyone suggested I take some sort of exam. It seemed to me that this suggestion came from a lack of faith in my desire, discipline and capability to learn on my own. Therefore, I would not comply. 

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However, once I finished both curricula, I lacked a sense of completion. Strangely and surprisingly, I wanted to mark the end of the academic year with examinations. Perhaps the Indian education system had indeed left its mark on me. So, I asked my parents to set me examinations on both sets of curricula. They were reluctant to play the role of examiners, but I insisted. 

As novice examiners, my parents made errors in choosing the questions and setting time limits. Yet the examinations were rigorous and I fared well in them. Studying for these exams and sitting for them was satisfying because I had chosen to do so, unlike those taken in school. Moreover, taking the exams had been a mere afterthought, not the purpose of the learning I had done throughout the year.   

My problems with the Indian education system arose from its arbitrariness, focus on rote learning and lack of critical thinking. To my satisfaction, ���Ի徱��’s acknowledges these shortcomings and calls for “greater critical thinking.” It goes on to say that the “overall thrust of curriculum and pedagogy reform … will be to move the education system towards real understanding … and away from the culture of rote learning as is largely present today.” 

Change begins with an admission of the need for it. India has admitted it has a big problem. Hopefully, it will now start taking steps to resolve it.

I do not know if I will continue with homeschooling. I may end up choosing the easier option. When teachers handle the planning and responsibility for conducting studies, life is simpler. Going to school would take a huge burden off my shoulders. I am also curious to see if ���Ի徱��’s new policy will change anything. Regardless of what I do going forward, I am proud to declare that I homeschooled and, because of it, I changed for the better.

*[Note: The author wrote this article at the age of 13. She is now 14.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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As if to lend greater somber, the commemoration took place as the US and the world watched America and its allies’ tragic and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan. No fiction writer could have written a sadder, more unreal denouement to America’s 20-year saga to right the wrongs and assuage the grief of 9/11.

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Many commentators have written that 9/11 was for the millennial generation what the assassination of John F. Kennedy was for the boomers. While identifying with the latter group, I found the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, far more consequential. One can grasp how one deranged madman could target an American president. After all, it wasn’t the first time in US history. But a band of madmen belonging to an extreme, anti-civilizational group of hate-driven madmen attacking in explosively spectacular fashion office buildings filled with innocent human beings, killing nearly 3,000 and forever upending the lives of tens of thousands of other innocents?

Transformative Moment

As a US diplomat assigned to the State Department on that day, I stood in speechless astonishment on the north bank of the Potomac River barely an hour after the attack on the Pentagon on the other bank. My department had been evacuated just moments before, authorities believing that other terrorist-controlled airliners were still headed toward Washington. A surreal chaos whirled about us in America’s capital city. Colleagues and I kept telling ourselves that surely the fire raging across the river with its great billowing clouds of black smoke would soon be extinguished. (It would take days.) But we could never have imagined the impact it would have on our lives and more importantly on the course of a nation.

Countless writers, journalists, experts, pundits and social media junkies have offered up their assessments of how America went from a nation united in confronting that day’s tragedy to one divided at home and defeated abroad. It’s especially noteworthy because on the day the terrorists struck, America stood at the pinnacle of global supremacy, the hyper-power with a dynamic and ever-growing economy and armed forces unparalleled in history. But it wasn’t what the terrorists did that day that brought the country to this point. Americans — and specifically American leaders — did it to themselves.

Consider America’s actions after the attacks that day. Rightly and commendably the country earned the support of virtually every country in the world in going after al-Qaeda. Eliminating it, however, was never a realistic option. As it’s often said, an idea can’t be killed, and the extremist ideology that drove al-Qaeda then persists today within that organization and the many offshoots it has spawned. But diminishing its capabilities in order to severely constrain its ability to threaten the US or other nations was a realistic goal. And it can be said that it has largely been achieved.

Terrorism is a tactic, not a movement. Whether by the Mafia, Irish Republican Army, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (aka FARC), Lenin and Stalin, Mao’s Red Army, or Julius Ceasar and his legions rampaging through Gaul, it has been employed often throughout history and often very successfully. It will likely continue. It can be controlled. But as a tactic, like an idea, it is a permanent element of human conflict.

“Unnatural and Unhealthy”

But it wasn’t what America did to fight and contain terrorism that necessarily diminished its global power and stature, though missteps were made. It was the two misadventures on which it embarked shortly after 9/11, first in Afghanistan and then in 2003 in Iraq. “It’s unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people.” Had America’s leaders bothered to heed that wisdom of former US Senator J. William Fulbright or to consult the volumes of books, articles and reports of the country’s history in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, the lessons would have been starkly clear. Taking on projects to quell or settle internal insurrection or launch nation-building in countries still struggling for a national identity is a fool’s errand.

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The lessons of Vietnam were manifestly obvious in Afghanistan. It was and remains a country historically riven by tribal, ethnic and religious strife. No nation has ever succeeded in bringing it under control, certainly not for very long. Outsiders have constantly interfered there because of the disunity. Warlords moved in and out of power in various parts of the country.

It is easy to say with today’s 20/20 hindsight that 90 days after expelling both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the US should have withdrawn from Afghanistan and asked the UN Security Council to take charge of organizing a government. As a superpower outsider, the US was exactly the wrong nation to undertake that task. But, as in Vietnam, impelled by ambition, hubris, arrogance, grand visions and considerable self-deception, America plunged ahead.

Despite its rushed and ignominious departure, America and its allies can take credit for some of their successes (really) in Afghanistan. Education levels, especially among girls, are up considerably. Women have many more opportunities and greater freedom today than in 2001. Afghan infrastructure is much improved. Even the standard of living improved for many Afghans.

Unfortunately, because of the abject failure of the political project, it is unclear whether any of that is sustainable. The history of previous Taliban rule would suggest otherwise. On the other hand, we cannot yet know the impact of America’s 20-year Afghanistan enterprise on individual Afghans and their perceptions of themselves and their future, especially women.

Lessons and Lamentations

While Afghanistan may have been seen as a war of necessity at its start, it sadly evolved into one of unachievable expectations. Donald Trump saw it much that way — though with little understanding of its complexities, other than it was far away from America and had little economic value to the US. It was left to Joe Biden to make the painful but inevitable and necessary decision that it was time to leave.

As was done following our Vietnam exit, volumes will now be written about this tragic episode in US history, including by institutions within America’s own government. They will be authored by credible and competent scholars and political and military experts. They will be exhaustively researched. They will give blow-by-blow accounts of decisions made, policies adopted, actions taken, and statements, declarations and promises issued. Charts, graphs, maps and statistics will be presented. They will point out the many errors, lies, self-deception and willful blindness. They will also relate the sacrifices of thousands of Americans, most of whose stories will never be known. They will also cite the pains and loss of so many Afghans. And they will all end up with much the same conclusion. America and its allies withdrew after finally confronting one ineluctable reality.

Those studies will offer invaluable insights to Americans and their leaders. But will they learn? Will Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan finally prove convincingly instructive to prevent the country from undertaking such adventures in the future, however nobly perceived?

To listen to and read the never-ending stream of observations on this pregnant moment in the nation’s history has become a modern-day version of the Book of Lamentations. Indeed, the country’s challenges, internal and external, are manifold and daunting. Heretofore, its democracy held the capacity to absorb, learn, adapt and rebound from its setbacks.

But the question bears repeating if the nation is to move beyond this point in its history. Will it learn?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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This is a myth of epic proportions. Conflict is not war, though wars are a part of conflict. Although wars are typically made up of many battles, a battle is not a war, and a war is not a conflict. Conflicts go on for decades and centuries and evolve, devolve, merges, morph, fizzle out, flares up, expand and shrink geographically, go from hot to warm to cold, and develop into hybrid forms.

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The most famous US war that is said to be lost, Vietnam, was actually won. It just took  Vietnam is a free-market country for all intents and purposes, a US ally with an extensive population exchange. All the wars that we claimed as victories were never won in the sense of this black-and-white model that we derive from World War II. Not even World War II was won in the sense of its own model.

It was not a clean cut. There were small pockets of resistance afterward. There are still neo-Nazis in Germany, where the US still has troops. Germany still battles the US on various fronts — political, economical and social. Yet no one says that the United States lost the war against Germany.

Conflict has a four-dimensional, never-ending spectrum that is partnered in a dance with peace. It consists of two bipolar points that are constantly in a fluid twirl together like one of those geospatial screen savers on your Compaq computer in 1998.

The Korean War was never won. The Cold War was . The First Gulf War was only won in the sense that Iraqi troops were pushed out of Kuwait. But the First Gulf War was only a battle within a larger conflict. The Second Gulf War — the Iraq War — consists of about four or more wars that all fall under the same umbrella of conflict.

When you speak to Iraqis, they make a distinction between the Invasion in 2003, the sectarian war and the fight against the Islamic State (IS). The fact that Americans insist on viewing the war in Iraq as a singular monolithic war is sadly due to their lack of attention, detail and the narrow-mindedness of the World War II syndrome.

Those that argue that the Afghan War was lost fail to understand the concept of conflict. The war in Afghanistan was never lost because it never began. It has continued in some fashion for centuries. The actors rotated through, changing names and ambitions. The Taliban may currently lay claim to political power and maintain some level of a monopoly of violence, but that is not universal. They maintain this status because we let them.

Make no mistake about it: There was never a moment in time that the US could not have removed the Taliban from the world map. However, moral obligations hindered this, given the massive number of civilian casualties it would have cost. So no, the Taliban and their cohorts at no point “beat” the US military and its NATO allies.

It may be argued that we failed to train the Afghan army. The same could be said of the  faced with IS, but today. Moreover, we did not fail at training the Afghan people. What the Taliban are confronted with, assuming they maintain power, is the same challenge every government or occupier in Afghanistan has always faced. The difference is that this isn’t the same Afghanistan of two decades ago.

For 20 years, we have vaccinated the Afghan population with concepts of freedom, education, work, opportunities, the English language and liberal thought. All the while, the Taliban showed their true colors by killing innocent people as a matter of policy and without remorse. The Afghans know the Taliban. They do not like them. They may not all be the greatest fans of having US or NATO troops in their country, but  definitively prefer a nation not run by the Taliban.

In the end, the US won the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, making it impossible for the Taliban to operate without making extreme concessions, at the very minimum. This is not to say there will be , but good luck to the Taliban ever surpassing the reach of the Afghan government achieved with the backing of the entire world. The Taliban may have the watches, but .

The Taliban, as we knew them pre-August 31, 2021, will never succeed. Like in Vietnam, the will of the people to have access to equality, justice, information, quality of life, connectivity, travel, education and business opportunities is and always will be greater than the violence-forced power of extremists. America always wins its wars because America is not a country — it is an , and you cannot kill an idea.

*[This article originally appeared on the author’s page.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The grave mistakes that the post-9/11 Washington administrations made in Afghanistan and Iraq have contributed to the rupture of American society, ultimately culminating in the cataclysmic events of January 6. It permanently stained America’s global image as the promoter and defender of democracy. One wonders if the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks may have actually succeeded in their mission to undermine America’s democratic ethos.

War on Terror

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration  from Congress the Authorization of Use of Military Force against a wide array of people or groups that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks or harbored such organizations or persons.” Within weeks, the US assembled a global coalition of more than 50 nation-states, initiating Operation Enduring Freedom, which quickly ended the Taliban’s five-year reign.

Then came Colin Powell’s  at the United Nations, in which the Bush administration desperately tried to justify an invasion of Iraq. Having been unable to garner support, Washington initiated its March 2003 campaign unilaterally.

While the initially stated objectives of both invasions were reached — the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq — the vaguely defined global war on terror required the US to maintain a gargantuan military footprint in the wider Middle East region. In 2011, President Barack Obama  the total number of military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq to a massive 100,000.

The relentless US military war machine across the region inadvertently created a ripple effect the implications of which have been felt far and away, in Europe and across the Atlantic: refugees.

In Afghanistan, an estimated  were killed as a direct result of the 20-year war,  of them in US airstrikes. Furthermore,  Afghan paramilitary forces are known to have committed egregious abuses against the local population in the name of the fight against the Taliban. The extreme corruption of the US-backed governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani further  and oppressed the Afghan people.   

In Iraq, the US deposing of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent de-Baathification — the removal and exclusion of any military or civilian associated with his regime — initiated fierce sectarian violence where the Shia Arabs, once oppressed by Hussein, began their retribution. Hussein’s generals, in turn, mounted a insurgency, which ultimately morphed into the Islamic State (IS, or Daesh).

In 2015, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who helped Bush invade Iraq,  that “Without the Iraq War, there would be no ISIS.” Daesh made its biggest gains by steamrolling into Syria in 2014. At its peak, the terrorist group  almost a third of Syria and much of central Iraq. Daesh’s push across Iraq and Syria created more refugees.

The US-led coalition then embarked on an extremely destructive military operation in late 2016 to retake Mosul and Raqqa from Daesh. It is estimated that the indiscriminate bombing of those two cities caused the death of more than . Furthermore, the US-backed proxies, particularly the Democratic Union Party, were by Amnesty International of committing ethnic cleansing in Syria.

Anti-Immigrant Tide

All things considered, the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria has directly or indirectly created refugees and migrants numbering in the , whose last stop is generally the European Union. The world watched in shock as migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean in ; those who were successful found themselves  barbed-wire fences in countries whose borders otherwise allow unhindered travel.

The migrant crisis became particularly severe in 2015. According to the UN, an estimated 800,000 migrants and refugees, fleeing conflict and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq  on European shores that year.

The growing refugee crisis began to shape the European political scene, giving rise to right-wing and populist politicians, threatening the EU’s liberal and democratic foundations. In Poland, the anti-migrant, xenophobic, Euroskeptic Law and Justice party won the 2015 parliamentary elections by a .

Hungary witnessed the consolidation of power by right-wing Prime Minister Victor Orban around the rhetoric of a . Citing the need to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, parliament granted extraordinary powers to Orban, turning him into a de-facto autocrat who, as many experts believe, has Hungarian democracy.

Most notably, the proponents of Brexit exploited the migrant crisis to scare voters into supporting the bid to leave the European Union. , the leader of the far-right UK Independence Party and an ardent advocate of Brexit, produced a poster showing thousands of refugees crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border in 2015. The words “BREAKING POINT” were emblazoned across the picture, above a line that read: “We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders.”

Around 75% of the pro-Brexit voters cited as the most important issue the UK faced. In October 2015, the anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party won Switzerland’s parliamentary elections by a landslide, swinging the country to the right. Many other across Europe considerably increased their votes as well.

It appeared that the 2015 rapidly booming refugee influx constituted a major turning point for much of European politics in terms of the right-wing upsurge. The anti-immigrant tide didn’t spare the United States either. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump often pointed to the migrant crisis in Europe to make a case for tough immigration policies along the US-Mexico border and for the need to build a wall.

On April 28, 2016, he : “Look at what’s happening all over Europe. It’s a mess and we don’t need it. … When you look at that migration, you see so many young, strong men. Does anyone notice that? Am I the only one? Young, strong men. And you’re almost like, ‘Why aren’t they fighting?’ You don’t see that many women and children.” According to Pew Research Center, around 65% of Trump supporters immigration as a “very big problem” for the United States.

America threw a boomerang at the greater Middle East at the turn of the century. It struck Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, , causing death and devastation. A decade later, it moved on to Europe, leading to the gradual revival of the “menace” the Europeans have tried to bury for so long, that of right-wing ultranationalism.

Ultimately, the returning boomerang arrived on US shores, propelling Trump to the White House. As a result, the American public has never been so divided, not since the Civil War. On January 6, the boomerang finally returned to Congress, revealing the ever-growing weakness of American democracy.

The abrupt and disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August is  to produce even more refugees, creating a crisis that will hit Europe even harder than the one in 2015. This alone indicates that the policymakers in Washington have failed to learn lessons from the last two decades.

As China is fast ascending toward global hegemony, the West in general and the US in particular are facing tremendous challenges. The questions yet to be answered are whether past mistakes constitute a lesson for the future. What has America learned from the tragedy of 9/11?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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After 20 years of the doctrine in action, which saw the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq that further ignited regional instability, President Joe Biden has withdrawn US troops from Afghanistan and is determined to end the in Iraq by the end of the year. Without concluding whether two decades of aggression succeeded in defeating terrorism, it can be said that the war on terror opened a new area of influence for one of the axis of evil, namely Iran in Iraq.

Opening the Gates

Thanks to its Shia population, Iraq has been a significant target of Iranian foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Due to both geographic and sectarian proximity, Iran, which sees Washington as an enemy and a source of instability in the region, was suspicious of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Deeming Baathist Iraq as a major threat to its national security, the regime in Tehran has meddled in its neighbor’s internal politics and strategic tendencies ever since coming to power. With the US toppling of Saddam Hussein, however, Iran succeeded in courting Iraq’s Shia population by taking advantage of its shared border and cultural, religious and economic ties.

The fact that significant Shia figures opposed to the Iraqi regime took refuge in Iran in the early 1980s strengthened Tehran’s relations with these groups in the post-invasion period. During this time, the Shia population has become influential in the Iraqi state and society. For example, Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organization militia, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the recently deceased vice president of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), count among some of the most prominent pro-Iranian figures in the current Iraqi political and military establishments.

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shia resistance group headed by Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim hoping to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, was established in Iran in 1982. It became a pioneer organization for various Shia militias and political groups with connections to Tehran, incorporating the Badr Organization, then known as the Badr Brigades.

While Iran benefitted from the support of Iraqi militias during the inconclusive war with Iraq in the 1980s, Tehran redirected this mobilization against the US forces following the 2003 invasion. The Iraqi militia group Kataib Hezbollah was in early 2007, followed by Asaib Ahl al-Haq, as part of the campaign by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force against US forces.

Iran’s presence in Iraq came to light when the Americans several Iranian operatives in 2006 and 2007, among them of the IRGC. Asaib Ahl al-Haq kidnapped and killed five US soldiers in January 2007, but two months later, captured the militia’s leader, Qais al-Khazali, alongside an operative of Hezbollah, Tehran’s proxy in Lebanon, Ali Musa Daqduq. It is well known that the Jaish al-Mahdi militias led by Muqtada al-Sadr, who still has distant dealings with Iran, received intensive Iranian support to fight against the United States.

The disbanding the Iraqi army and establishing the interim government by the US after 2003 provided Iran with new opportunities to secure many significant positions in the bureaucracy. In this process, many members of the Badr Brigades were integrated into the new army and police forces, their political connections winning many rapid promotions. Today, Badr is still one of the most active groups within the police, the army and the Ministry of Interior.

Consolidation of Iranian Power

The Baghdad government was formed along ethnic and sectarian quotas. As per the country’s 2005 constitution, the presidency was allocated to the Kurds, the prime minister’s office to the Shia and the position of parliament’s speaker to the Sunnis. The allocation of the executive position to Shia leaders strengthened Iran’s elbow room in Iraqi politics.

The sectarian policies of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who held office between 2006 and 2014, the Sunni society further. In addition to the fact that the Shia occupied a central position in the administrative system, the American inability to understand Sunni expectations has marginalized Sunni society. Radicalization led to the resurgence of al-Qaeda and later the formation of the even more extreme Islamic State (IS) group in the Sunni regions of Iraq.

After capturing Mosul in June 2014, IS has taken control of almost a third of Iraqi territory. All Shia groups fighting against the new threat were under the banner of the Popular Mobilization Units — an umbrella organization controlled mainly by pro-Iran armed groups — after Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called for all those able to carry a weapon to take up arms.

The PMU militias were provided with American and Iranian-made weapons during their fight against IS. Pro-Iranian militias such as the Badr Organization, Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq dominated the PMU. Active support by the IRGC provided to Iraqi militias and the presence of Qassem Soleimani, a Quds Force commander, at the front lines pointed to Iran’s effectiveness in the field.

Integrating the PMU as a of the Iraqi security mechanism in 2016 further legitimized Iranian influence in the political and military establishments. For instance, almost $1.7 billion was to the PMU, which consists of some 100,000 militants, from the $90-billion Iraqi budget in 2021.  

Defeating the Islamic State

After the declaration of victory against IS in 2017, tensions between Iran and the US, placed on the back burner during the campaign, reignited. While US officials argued that the PMU completed their mission and should be , pro-Iranian groups reassumed their anti-American tone.

Thanks to their active role in the fight against IS, Iran-backed militias secured their position in the military bureaucracy and were able to establish themselves politically. The Fatah Alliance, under the leadership of Hadi al-Amiri and backed by pro-Iranian militias, gained victory in the 2018 election, becoming the second-largest group in the Iraqi parliament. Iran has thus become one of the decision-makers in post-IS Iraq.

Tensions increased in 2018 after President Donald Trump decided to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran. Pro-Iranian forces began to attack US forces on the ground in Iraq. While Iran seemed to want to punish the US via the Iraqi militias, these attacks also aimed at forcing Americans to withdraw from Iraq. The situation has come to an apogee with the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis in the in Baghdad on January 3, 2020.

The assassinations shifted the tensions to the political arena. On January 5, under the leadership of pro-Iranian groups, a was passed in Iraq’s parliament to call on the government to expel foreign troops from the country. In addition to political pressures, as a result of ongoing attacks by pro-Iranian militias on American bases and soldiers in Iraq, the US many of its bases in the country. As a result of strategic dialogue negotiations with Baghdad, Washington decided to withdraw its combat forces and retain only consultant support. To a large degree, Iran managed to get what it wanted — to drive the US out and reassert its own influence in the region.

Pro-Iranian militias, already active in the Shia regions, started to show their presence in Sunni-dominated areas such as Mosul, Anbar and Saladin after the defeat of IS. Furthermore, Iran-backed groups pursue a long-term strategy to seize control of disputed areas between the central government and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Iran-backed groups, including the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Imam Ali, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Saraya al-Khorasani, have been active in the disputed territories since 2014.

At the same time, these militias under the PMU umbrella reject control by Baghdad and threaten the central government. So much so that Abu Ali Askari, a spokesman for Kataib Hezbollah, was that “the time is appropriate to cut his ears as the ears of a goat are cut,” referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, while militias were able to against the government in the streets of Baghdad amid tensions leading up to the anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination.

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Aiming to limit US influence, Iran has been gradually reshaping Iraq‘s internal and security policy since 2003. While millions are still paying the price of the war on terror in Iraq, which resulted in the collapse of the political and economic systems followed by a campaign of terror by the Islamic State, Iran continues to consolidate its power, both in military and political spheres.

After an 18-year-long story of invasion and with the US poised to withdraw its combat forces, Iran’s hegemony over Iraq will inevitably come to fruition. The sectarian and ethnic emphasis within the framework of the government quota system not only prevents the formation of independent Iraqi identity but also keeps fragile social fault lines dynamic, an opportunity that Iran will, without doubt, continue to exploit.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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That was the story that grabbed headlines at the beginning of August. Hardly a week later, everything had changed. Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban and soon the 20-year war would be declared over.

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Though few paid attention to the phenomenon, this also meant that the significance of a commemoration of the attacks, would be radically different. For 19 years, the commemoration served to reinforce the will and resolution of the nation to overcome the humiliation of the fallen twin towers and a damaged wing of the Pentagon.

Redefining the Meaning of the Historical Trauma

In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, politicians quickly learned to exploit the date as a painful reminder of a tragedy that had unified an otherwise chaotically disputatious nation in shared horror and mourning. Ever since that fatal day, politicians have invoked it to reinforce the belief in American exceptionalism.

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The nation is so exceptional in generously providing its people with what President George W. Bush “our freedoms” — and which he identified as the target of the terrorists — that it was logical to suppose that evil people who didn’t possess those freedoms or were prevented from emigrating to the land of the free would do everything in their power to destroy those freedoms. To the degree that Americans are deeply thankful for possessing such an exceptional status, other ill-intentioned people will take exception to that exceptionality and in their unjustified jealousy will threaten to destroy it.

On a less philosophical and far more pragmatic note, the remembrance of the 9/11 attacks has conveniently and consistently served to justify an ever-expanding military budget that no patriotic American, interested in preserving through the force of arms the nation’s exceptional status, should ever oppose. It went without saying, through the three previous presidencies, that the annual commemoration provided an obvious explanation of why the forever war in Afghanistan was lasting forever.

The fall of Kabul on August 15, followed by the panicked retreat of all remaining Americans, caught everyone by surprise. It unexpectedly brought an official end to the war whose unforgettable beginning is traced back to that bright September day in 2001. Though no one has yet had the time to put it all in perspective, the debate in the media has shifted away from glossing the issues surrounding an ongoing war on terror to assessing the blame for its ignominious end. Some may have privately begun to wonder whether the theme being commemorated on this September 11 now concerns the martyrdom of its victims or the humiliation of the most powerful nation in the history of the world. The pace of events since mid-August has meant that the media have been largely silent on this quandary.

So, What About Saudi Arabia?

With the American retreat, the controversy around ��������’s unkept campaign promise concerning Saudi Arabia’s implication in 9/11 provisionally took a backseat to a much more consequent quarrel, one that will have an impact on next year’s midterm elections. Nearly every commentator has been eager to join the fray focusing on the assessment of the wisdom or folly of both ��������’s decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and his seemingly improvised management of the final chaotic phase.

The human tragedy visible in the nightly news as throngs of people at Kabul airport desperately sought to flee the country easily eclipsed the genteel but politically significant showdown between a group of American citizens demanding the truth and a government committed to protecting the reputations of friends and allies, especially ones from oil-rich nations.

The official excuse turns around the criterion that has become a magic formula: national security. But the relatives of victims are justified in wondering which nation’s security is being prioritized. They have a sneaking suspicion that some people in Washington have confused their own nation’s security with Saudi Arabia’s. Just as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt not long ago that plenty of people within the Beltway continue to confuse US foreign policy with Israel’s, the families may be justified in suspecting that Saudi Arabia’s interest in hiding the truth trumps American citizens’ right to know the truth.

To appease the families of 9/11 victims and permit his unimpeded participation in the commemorations, Biden offered to release some of the documents. It was a clever move, since the new, less-redacted version will only become available well after the commemoration. This gesture seems to have accomplished its goal of preventing an embarrassing showdown at the commemoration ceremonies. But it certainly will not be enough to satisfy the demands of the families, who apparently remain focused on obtaining that staple of the US criminal justice system: “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, may have shown the way concerning the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Like MBS, the White House prefers finding a way to release some of the truth rather than the whole truth — just the amount that doesn’t violate national security or tarnish the reputations of any key people. Those two goals have increasingly become synonymous. If the people knew what actual political personalities were doing, the nation’s security might be endangered, as the people might begin to lose faith in a government that insists on retaining the essential power of deciding how the truth should be told.

Here is how the White House the legal principle behind its commitment to unveiling a little more truth than is currently available. “Although the indiscriminate release of classified information could jeopardize the national security — including the United States Government’s efforts to protect against future acts of terrorism — information should not remain classified when the public interest in disclosure outweighs any damage to the national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure.”

The White House has thus formulated an innovative legal principle brilliantly designed to justify concealing enough of the naked truth to avoid offending public morals by revealing its stark nakedness. Legal scholars of the future may refer to it as the “indiscriminate release” principle. Its logical content is worth exploring. It plays on the auxiliary verbs “could” and “should.” “Could” is invoked in such a way as to suggest that, though it is possible, no reasonable person would take the risk of an “indiscriminate release of classified information.” Later in the same sentence, the auxiliary verb “should” serves to speculatively establish the moral character of the principle. It tells us what “should” be the case — that is, what is morally ideal — even if inevitably the final result will be quite different. This allows the White House to display its good intentions while preparing for an outcome that will surely disappoint.

To justify its merely partial exposure of the truth, the White House offers another original moral concept when it promises the maximization of transparency. The full sentence reads: “It is therefore critical to ensure that the United States Government maximizes transparency.”

There is of course an easy way to maximize transparency if that is truly the government’s intention. It can be done simply by revealing everything and hiding nothing within the limits of its physical capability. No one doubts that the government is physically capable of removing all the redactions. But the public should know by now that the value cited as overriding all others — national security — implicitly requires hiding a determined amount of the truth. In other words, it is framed as a trade-off between maximum transparency and minimum concealment. Biden has consistently compared himself to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Perhaps that trade-off between transparency and concealment is what historians will call ��������’s New Deal.

But the White House’s reasoning is not yet complete. The document offers yet another guiding principle to explain why not everything will become visible. “Thus, information collected and generated in the United States Government’s investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks should now be disclosed,” it affirms, “except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.” Those reasons, the document tells us, will be defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during its “declassification reviews.” This invocation of the “strongest possible reasons” appears to empower the FBI to define or at least apply not only what is “strongest,” but also what is “possible.” That constitutes a pretty broad power.

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The document states very clearly what the government sees as the ultimate criterion for declassification: “Information may remain classified only if it still requires protection in the interest of the national security and disclosure of the information reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security. Information shall not remain classified if there is significant doubt about the need to maintain its classified status.” The families of the victims can simply hope that there will not be too much “significant doubt.” They might be forgiven for doubting that that will be the case.

One September Morning vs. 20 Years of Subsequent Mornings

Twenty years ago, a spectacular crime occurred on the East Coast of the United States that set off two decades of crimes, blunders and judgment errors that, now compounded by COVID-19 and aggravated climate change, have brought the world to a crisis point unique in human history.

The Bush administration, in office for less than eight months at the time of the event, with no certain knowledge of who the perpetrator might have been, chose to classify the attack not as a crime, but as an act of war. When the facts eventually did become clearer after a moment of hesitation in which the administration attempted even to implicate Iraq, the crime became unambiguously attributable, not to a nation but to a politically motivated criminal organization: Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda that back then was operating out of Afghanistan, which was ruled by the Taliban.

The administration’s choice of treating the attack as an act of war not only stands as a crime in itself, but, as history has shown, as the trigger for a series of even more shameless and far more destructive — if not quite as spectacular — crimes that would roll out for the next two decades and even gain momentum over time. Had the 9/11 attacks been treated as crimes rather than acts of war, the question of national security would have had less importance in the investigation. By going to war with Afghanistan, the Bush administration made it more difficult to investigate all the possible complicities. Could this partially explain its precipitation to start a war?

Bin Laden, a Saudi, did not act alone. But he did not act in the name of a state either, which is the fundamental criterion for identifying an act of war. He acted within a state, in the territory of Afghanistan. Though his motive was political and the chosen targets were evocatively symbolic of political power, the act itself was in no way political. No more so, in any case, than the January 6 insurrection this year on Capitol Hill.

Though the facts are still being obscured and the text describing them remains redacted in the report of the 9/11 Commission, reading between the redacted lines reveals that bin Laden did have significant support from powerful personalities in Saudi Arabia, many of them with a direct connection to the government. This foreknowledge would seem to indicate at some level of the state.

On this 20^th anniversary of a moment of horror, the families of the victims quite logically continue to suspect that if a state was involved that might eventually justify a declaration of war by Congress (as required by the US Constitution), the name of that state should not have been Afghanistan, but Saudi Arabia. It is equally clear that the Afghan government at the time was in no way directly complicit.

When the new version of the 9/11 Commission’s report appears with its “maximum transparency,” meaning a bare minimum of redaction, the objections of the victims’ families will no longer be news, and the truth about the deeper complicities around 9/11 will most probably remain obscured. Other dramas, concerning the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasingly obvious consequences of climate change and an upcoming midterm election will probably mean that next year’s 21^st commemoration will be low-keyed and possibly considered unworthy of significant mention in the news.

In 2021, the world has become a decidedly different place than it has been over the past two decades. The end of a forever war simply promises a host of new forever problems to emerge for increasingly unstable democracies to deal with.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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We have been told that the criminal attacks of September 11, 2001, “changed everything.” But what really changed everything was the US government’s disastrous response to them. That response was not preordained or inevitable, but the result of decisions and choices made by politicians, bureaucrats and generals who fueled and exploited our fears, unleashed wars of reprehensible vengeance and built a secretive security state, all thinly disguised behind Orwellian myths of American greatness.  

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Most Americans believe in democracy and many regard the United States as a democratic country. But the US response to 9/11 laid bare the extent to which American leaders are willing to manipulate the public into accepting illegal wars, torture, the Guantanamo gulag and sweeping civil rights abuses — activities that undermine the very meaning of democracy. 

Former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz said in a in 2011 that “a democracy can only work if its people are being told the truth.” But America’s leaders exploited the public’s fears in the wake of 9/11 to justify wars that have killed and maimed millions of who had nothing to do with those crimes. Ferencz compared this to the actions of the German leaders he prosecuted at Nuremberg, who also justified their invasions of other countries as “preemptive first strikes.” 

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“You cannot run a country as Hitler did, feeding them a pack of lies to frighten them that they’re being threatened, so it’s justified to kill people you don’t even know,” Ferencz continued. “It’s not logical, it’s not decent, it’s not moral, and it’s not helpful. When an unmanned bomber from a secret American airfield fires rockets into a little Pakistani or Afghan village and thereby kills or maims unknown numbers of innocent people, what is the effect of that? Every victim will hate America forever and will be willing to die killing as many Americans as possible. Where there is no court of justice, wild vengeance is the alternative.” 

“Insurgent Math”

Even the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, talked about “,” conjecturing that, for every innocent person killed, the US created 10 new enemies. Thus, the so-called global war on terror fueled a global explosion of terrorism and armed resistance that will not end unless and until the United States ends the state terrorism that provokes and fuels it. 

By opportunistically exploiting 9/11 to attack countries that had nothing to do with it, like Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen, the US vastly expanded the destructive strategy it used in the 1980s to destabilize Afghanistan, which spawned the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the first place. In and, only 10 years after 9/11, US leaders betrayed every American who lost a loved one on September 11 by recruiting and arming al-Qaeda-led militants to overthrow two of the most secular governments in the Middle East, plunging both countries into years of intractable violence and fueling radicalization throughout the region.

The US response to 9/11 was corrupted by a toxic soup of revenge, imperialist ambitions, war profiteering, systematic brainwashing and sheer stupidity. Lincoln Chafee, the only Republican senator who voted against the war on Iraq, later , “Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”

But it wasn’t. Very few of the 263 Republicans or the 110 Democrats who voted in 2002 for the US to invade Iraq paid any political price for their complicity in international aggression, which the judges at Nuremberg explicitly “the supreme international crime.” One of them now sits at the apex of power in the White House. 

Failure in Afghanistan

Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s withdrawal and implicit acceptance of the US defeat in Afghanistan could serve as an important step toward ending the violence and chaos their predecessors unleashed after the 9/11 attacks. But the current debate over next year’s military budget makes it clear that our deluded leaders are still dodging the obvious lessons of 20 years of war. 

Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress with the wisdom and courage to vote against the war resolution in 2001, has introduced a bill to cut US military spending by almost half: per year. With the miserable failure in Afghanistan, a war that will end up costing every US taxpayer $20,000, one would think that Representative Lee’s proposal would be eliciting tremendous support. But the White House, the Pentagon and the Armed Services Committees in the and are instead falling over each other to shovel even more money into the bottomless pit of the military budget.

Politicians’ votes on questions of war, peace and military spending are the most reliable test of their commitment to progressive values and the well-being of their constituents. You cannot call yourself a progressive or a champion of working people if you vote to appropriate more money for weapons and war than for health care, education, green jobs and fighting poverty.

These 20 years of war have revealed to Americans and the world that modern weapons and formidable military forces can only accomplish two things: kill and maim people and destroy homes, infrastructure and entire cities. American promises to rebuild bombed-out cities and “remake” countries it has destroyed have proved worthless, as President Biden has. 

Both and are turning primarily to China for the help they need to start rebuilding and developing economically from the ruin and devastation left by the US and its allies. America destroys, China builds. The contrast could not be more stark or self-evident. No amount of Western propaganda can hide what the whole world can see. 

But the different paths chosen by American and Chinese leaders are not predestined. Despite the intellectual and moral of the US corporate media, the American public has always been wiser and more committed to cooperative diplomacy than their country’s political and executive class. It has been that many of the endless crises in US foreign policy could have been avoided if America’s leaders had just listened to the people.

Weapons and More Weapons

The perennial handicap that has dogged US diplomacy since World War II is precisely our investment in weapons and military forces, including nuclear weapons that threaten our very existence. It is trite but true to say that, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” 

Other countries don’t have the option of deploying overwhelming military force to confront international problems, so they have had to be smarter and more nimble in their diplomacy and more prudent and selective in their more limited uses of military force. 

The rote declarations of US leaders that “all options are on the table” are a euphemism for precisely the “threat or use of force” that the explicitly prohibits, and they stymie the US development of expertise in nonviolent forms of conflict resolution. The bumbling and of America’s leaders in international arenas stand in sharp contrast to the skillful diplomacy and clear language we often hear from top, and diplomats, even when they are speaking in English, their second or third language.

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By contrast, US leaders rely on threats, coups, sanctions and war to project power around the world. They promise Americans that these coercive methods will maintain US “leadership” or dominance indefinitely into the future, as if that is America’s rightful place in the world: sitting atop the globe like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. 

A “new American century” and “Pax Americana” are Orwellian versions of Adolf Hitler’s “thousand-year Reich” but are no more realistic. No empire has lasted forever, and there is historical evidence that even the most successful empires have a lifespan of no more than, by which time their rulers have enjoyed so much wealth and power that decadence and decline inevitably set in. This describes the United States today.  

America’s economic dominance is waning. Its once productive economy has been gutted and, and most countries in the world now do more trade with China and/or the European Union than with the United States. Where America’s military once kicked open doors for American capital to “follow the flag” and open up new markets, today’s US war machine is just a bull in the global china shop, wielding purely destructive power.    

Time to Get Serious

But we are not condemned to passively follow the suicidal path of militarism and hostility. ��������’s withdrawal from Afghanistan could be a down payment on a transition to a more peaceful post-imperial economy — if the American public starts to actively demand peace, diplomacy and disarmament and find ways to make our voices heard. 

First, we must get serious about demanding cuts in the Pentagon budget. None of our other problems will be solved as long as we keep allowing our leaders to flush the majority of federal down the same military toilet as the $2.26 trillion they wasted on the war in Afghanistan. We must oppose politicians who refuse to cut the Pentagon budget, regardless of which party they belong to and where they stand on other issues.

Second, we must not let ourselves or our family members be recruited into the US war machine. Instead, we must challenge our leaders’ absurd claims that the imperial forces deployed across the world to threaten other countries are somehow, by some convoluted logic, defending America. As a translator Voltaire, “Whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”  

Third, we must expose the ugly, destructive reality behind our country’s myths of “defending” US vital interests, humanitarian intervention, the war on terror and the latest absurdity, the ill-defined “rules-based order” — whose rules only apply to others but never to the United States. 

Finally, we must oppose the corrupt power of the arms industry, including US weapons sales to the world’s most repressive regimes, and an unwinnable arms race that risks a potentially world-ending conflict with China and Russia. 

Our only hope for the future is to abandon the futile quest for hegemony and instead commit to peace, cooperative diplomacy, international law and disarmament. After 20 years of war and militarism that has only left the world a more dangerous place and accelerated America’s decline, we must choose the path of peace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Osama bin Laden understood that American power was vulnerable when overextended. He knew that the greatest military power in the history of the world, deranged by a desire for vengeance, could be lured into taking a cakewalk into a quagmire. With the attacks on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda turned ordinary American airplanes into weapons to attack American targets. In the larger sense, bin Laden used the entire American army to destroy the foundations of American empire.

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The commentary on this 20^th anniversary of 9/11 has been predictably shallow: how the attacks changed , , the  in general. Consider this week’s Washington Post magazine section in which 28 contributors reflect on the ways that the attacks changed the world.

“The attack would alter the lives of U.S. troops and their families, and millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq,” the editors . “It would set the course of political parties and help to decide who would lead our country. In short, 9/11 changed the world in demonstrable, massive and heartbreaking ways. But the ripple effects altered our lives in subtle, often-overlooked ways as well.”

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The subsequent entries on art, fashion, architecture, policing, journalism and so on attempt to describe these subtler effects. Yet it’s difficult to read this special issue without concluding that 9/11, in fact, didn’t change the world much at all.

The demonization of American Muslims? That began long before the fateful day, cresting after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The paranoid retrenchment in American architecture? US embassies were  not in response to 9/11, but the embassy bombings in Beirut in 1983-84 and Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

The impact of 9/11 on the arts can be traced through a handful of works like Spike Lee’s “25^th Hour” or the TV series “24” or Don DeLillo’s “Falling Man,” but it didn’t produce a new artistic movement like Dada in the wake of World War I or cli-fi in response to the climate crisis. Even the experience of flying hasn’t changed that much beyond beefed-up security measures. At this point, the introduction of personal in-flight entertainment systems has arguably altered the flying experience more profoundly.

And isn’t the assertion that 9/11 changed everything exceptionally America-centric? Americans were deeply affected, as were the places invaded by US troops. But how much has life in Japan or Zimbabwe or Chile truly changed as a result of 9/11? Of course, Americans have always believed that, as the song goes, “we are the world.”

More Than a Mistake

In a more thoughtful Post consideration of 9/11, Carlos Lozado  many of the books that have come out in the last 20 years on what went wrong. In his summary, US policy proceeds like a cascade of falling dominos, each one a mistake that follows from the previous and sets into motion the next.

Successive administrations underestimated al-Qaeda and failed to see signs of preparation for the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Bush administration mistakenly followed the example of numerous empires in thinking that it could subdue Afghanistan and remake it in the image of the colonial overlord. It then compounded that error by invading Iraq in 2003 with the justification that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al-Qaeda, was building up a nuclear program, or was otherwise part of an alliance of nations determined to take advantage of an America still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. Subsequent administrations made the mistake of doubling down in Afghanistan, expanding the war on terror to other battlefields and failing to end US operations at propitious moments like the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Lozado concludes by pointing out that Donald Trump is in many ways a product of the war on terror that followed 9/11. “Absent the war on terror, it is harder to imagine a presidential candidate decrying a sitting commander in chief as foreign, Muslim, illegitimate—and using that lie as a successful political platform,” he writes. “Absent the war on terror, it is harder to imagine a travel ban against people from Muslim-majority countries. Absent the war on terror, it is harder to imagine American protesters labeled terrorists, or a secretary of defense describing the nation’s urban streets as a ‘battle space’ to be dominated.”

But to understand the rise of Trump, it’s necessary to see 9/11 and its aftermath as more than just the product of a series of errors of perception and judgment. Implicit in Lozado’s review is the notion that America somehow lost its way, that an otherwise robust intelligence community screwed the pooch, that some opportunistic politicians used the attacks to short-circuit democracy, public oversight and even military logic. But this assumes that the war on terror represents a substantial rift in the American fabric. The 9/11 attacks were a surprise. The response wasn’t.

The United States had already launched a war against Iraq in 1991. It had already mistakenly identified Iran, Hamas and jihadist forces like al-Qaeda as enemies linked by their broad religious identity. It had built a worldwide arsenal of bases and kept up extraordinarily high levels of military spending to maintain full-spectrum dominance. Few American politicians questioned the necessity of this hegemony, though liberals tended to prefer that US allies shoulder some of the burden and neoconservatives favored a more aggressive effort to roll back the influence of Russia, China and other regional hegemons.

The “war on terror” effectively began in 1979 when the United States established its “state sponsors of terrorism” list. The Reagan administration used “counterterrorism” as an organizing principle of US foreign policy throughout the 1980s. In the post-Cold War era, the Clinton administration attempted to demonstrate its hawk credentials by launching counterterrorism strikes in Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

What changed after 9/11 is that neoconservatives could push their regime-change agenda more successfully because the attacks had temporarily suppressed the Vietnam syndrome, a response to the negative consequences of extended overseas military engagements. Every liberal in Congress, except for the indomitable Barbara Lee, supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as if they’d been born just the day before. That just happens to be one of those side-effects of empire listed in fine print on the label: periodic and profound amnesia.

In this sense, Trump is not a product of the war on terror. His views on US foreign policy have ranged across the spectrum from jingoistic to non-interventionist. His attitude toward protesters was positively Nixonian. And his recourse to conspiracy theories derived from his legendary disregard for truth. Regardless of 9/11, Trump’s ego would have propelled him toward the White House.

The surge of popular support that placed him in the Oval Office, on the other hand, can only be understood in the post-9/11 context. Cyberspace was full of all sorts of nonsense prior to 9/11 (remember the Y2K predictions?). But the attacks gave birth to a new variety of “truthers” who insisted, against all contrary evidence, that nefarious forces had constructed a self-serving reality. The attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon were “inside jobs.” The Newtown shootings had been staged by “crisis actors.” Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

The shock of the United States being so dramatically and improbably attacked by a couple dozen foreigners was so great that some Americans, uncoupled from their bedrock assumptions about their own national security, were now willing to believe anything. Ultimately, they were even willing to believe someone who lied more consistently and more frequently than any other politician in US history.

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Trump effectively promised to erase 9/11 from the American consciousness and rewind the clock back to the golden moment of unipolar US power. In offering such selective memory loss, Trump was a quintessentially imperial president.

The Real Legacy of 9/11

Even after the British formally began to withdraw from the empire business after World War II, they couldn’t help but continue to act as if the sun didn’t set on their domains. It was the British who masterminded the  that deposed Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. It was the British at the head of the invasion of Egypt in 1956 to  of the Suez Canal. Between 1949 and 1970, Britain launched 34 military  in all.

The UK apparently never received the memo that it was no longer a dominant military power. It’s hard for empires to retire gracefully. Just ask the French.

The final US withdrawal from Afghanistan last month was in many ways a courageous and successful action by the Biden administration, though it’s hard to come to that conclusion by reading the media accounts. President Joe Biden made the difficult political decision to stick to the terms that his predecessor negotiated with the Taliban last year. Despite being caught by surprise by the Taliban’s rapid seizure of power over the summer, the administration was able to evacuate around 120,000 people, a number that virtually no one would have expected prior to the fall of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Sure, the administration should have been better prepared. Sure, it should have committed to evacuating more Afghans who fear for their lives under the Taliban. But it made the right move to finally end the US presence in Afghanistan.

Biden has made clear that US counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan will continue, that the war on terror in the region is not over. Yet, US operations in the Middle East now have the feel of those British interventions in the . America is retreating, slowly but surely and sometimes under a protective hail of bullets. The Islamic State group and its various incarnations have become the problem of the Taliban — and the Syrian state, the Iraq state, the Libyan state (such that it is) and so on.

Meanwhile, the United States turns its attention toward China. But this is no Soviet Union. China is a powerhouse economy with a government that has skillfully used nationalism to bolster domestic support. With trade and investment, Beijing has recreated a Sinocentric tributary system in Asia. America really doesn’t have the capabilities to roll back Chinese influence in its own backyard.

So that, in the end, is what 9/11 has changed. The impact on culture, on the daily lives of those not touched directly by the tragedies, has been minimal. The deeper changes — on perceptions of Muslims, on the war on terror — had been set in motion before the attacks happened.

But America’s place in the world? In 2000, the United States was still riding high in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. Today, despite the strains of MAGA that can be heard throughout America’s political culture, the United States has become one major power among many. It can’t dictate policy down the barrel of a gun. Economically it must reckon with China. In geopolitics, it has become the .

Even in our profound narcissism, Americans are slowly realizing, like the Brits so many years ago, that the imperial game is up.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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It was on this day that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was founded. One of its founding members was a man named Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was the latest in a long list of parties catering to a religiously devout and socially conservative constituency in Turkey. All the previous ones had been banned.

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What makes August 14, 2001, so significant is the simple fact that the AKP was never banned. Despite the party’s daring to tread on secularist principles that few others had dared, this time, the country, with strong European Union support, had no appetite for military-backed bans.

Turkey Says No

Just as September 11 didn’t really come out of a clear blue sky for anyone observing the tide of Islamist militancy, so too the success of the AKP in Turkey did not come unannounced. It was a long time in the making, but its assumption of power, so soon after 9/11, has been defining for the country.

By 2003, when George W. Bush’s war on terror was swinging into action in Iraq, the AKP took control of Turkey‘s government. Despite repeated attempts to shutter the party and even a failed 2016 coup, the AKP remains in power. As perhaps the most successful Islamist party in the Middle East, its relationship to both the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror has always been a strained one. The Turkey of the 20^th century would have been an unquestioning supporter of US policy. The new Turkey was not.

I was in Turkey on 9/11 and I saw the immediate reaction of ordinary people to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the hours after the towers fell, there were wild, yet in retrospect on-the-mark rumors that the US was about to bomb Afghanistan. The mood among ordinary Turks was not one of support.

Visceral anger and anti-American sentiment were clearly palpable. While not outright cheering al-Qaeda, it was obvious that most people wouldn’t take the US side in a fight. This mood was reflected when Washington eventually went to war with Iraq and hoped to use the airbase at Incirlik in southeastern Turkey.

The parliamentary vote that vetoed the use of the base for flights into Iraq was a pivotal one. It was the first strong sign of demonstrable national action in reflection of a national mood. In the post-Cold War world, Turkey’s Islamist government was ready to plow its own furrow.

Who Defines Terrorism?

The years that have followed have seen an ambiguous and often highly contorted relationship with the war on terror. Sometimes, Turkey has used the anti-terrorism concept to its own ends, as have many other US allies. At other times, it has turned a blind eye to activity that surely fell under the banner of terrorism.

The Arab Spring of 2010 offered Islamists across the Middle East their big moment. Secular autocrats, long propped up by the West, tottered. Turkey’s Islamist government was one of the most vocal and active in attempting to ride this wave that they hoped would bring Islamist governments to a swathe of countries.

Initially, the signs were good. The Muslim Brotherhood won the first free and fair elections in Egypt. Meanwhile, in neighboring Syria, the long-suppressed Islamist movement threatened to overwhelm the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. For a time, Turkey became a beacon of hope and a model for how the rest of the Middle East might evolve.

Turkish flags were being waved by demonstrators in Syria, and President Erdogan became the most popular leader in the region, loved by people far beyond his own nation. Then the Egyptian coup destroyed the Brotherhood, and Russia and Iran stepped in to save Assad’s regime in Syria. The mood soured for Turkey.

In an attempt to rescue something in the Syrian conflict and in response to the collapse of domestic peace talks between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Turkey’s border became a very porous route for jihadists entering into Syria. In time, these jihadists named themselves the Islamic State and declared a caliphate. This audacious move severely upped the stakes on al-Qaeda’s attempts of 2001, with an even more brutal brand of terrorism. Turkey’s ambiguous attitude to these developments was hardly a war on terror.

Yet by this stage, the concept behind the war on terror had become so nebulous and the AKP’s relations to the US so strained by Washington’s support for the Kurds in Syria, that it was a case of realpolitik all the way. To any accusation of soft-handedness toward terrorists, Turkey pointed to US attitudes vis-à-vis Kurdish militants.

President Erdogan has, over time, began to carve a space for himself as an anti-Western champion, a leader of some kind of latter-day non-aligned movement, a spokesman for Muslim rights worldwide. This political and cultural position has made Turkey’s place in a liberal, democratic world order highly questionable.

What seems clear in retrospect is that both 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror were never Turkey’s fights. Due to the longstanding Turkish alliance with the US and NATO, these have been constantly recurring themes in Turkish politics. But the events that have been so central to US policymaking for the past two decades have generally been used to advance Ankara’s own strategic goals in light of the assumption of power and entrenched hegemony of the Islamist movement in Turkey’s contemporary politics.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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At 8:45 am Eastern time, an American Airlines flight had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Within minutes, CNBC stopped discussing stocks and started covering the incident, which, at that moment, no one knew if it was an anomalous accident or an attack of some kind.

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Three minutes after 9 am Eastern, as I watched incredulously at the events unfolding, I saw a United Airlines passenger aircraft fly right into the south tower of the twin towers. In under an hour, the south tower collapsed, resulting in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. By now, there was no doubt that America was under attack.

 “We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing,” said President George W. Bush in an  to Congress on September 20. Images from that Tuesday morning are still etched in my memory, happening, as it were, just nine days after my second child was born.

In all, 2,996 people of 78 nationalities lost their lives in four coordinated attacks conducted by al-Qaeda using hijacked commercial, civilian airliners as their weapons, making  the second-biggest attack on American soil — second only to the genocidal assault on Native Americans committed by the nation’s immigrant settlers.

Operation Enduring Freedom: America’s War on Terror

Addressing the nation the following day, Bush  the attacks “more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.” He promised that “the United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy.” The president went on to assure Americans that this “battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.”

Twenty years later, the US has left Afghanistan and Iraq in a chaotic mess. The question remains: Did the United States win the war on terror the Bush administration launched in 2001? This was a war that has  more than $6.4 trillion and over 801,000 lives, according to Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

In October 2001, the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government that had harbored al-Qaeda. Soon after, al-Qaeda militants had been driven into hiding. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack and leader of al-Qaeda, was killed 10 years later in a raid conducted by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In a shrewd move, Bush had left himself room to take down Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein, using an overarching definition for the war on terror. In his  to Congress on September 20, Bush also stated: “Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

True to his words, in 2003, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq under the premise that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. Bush settled his score with Hussein, ensuring he was captured, shamed and subsequently executed in 2006.

Despite reducing al-Qaeda to nothing and killing bin Laden, despite wrecking Iraq and having its leader executed, it is impossible to say that the US has won the war on terror. All that Washington has managed to do is to trade the Islamic State (IS) group that swept through Syria and Iraq in 2014 for al-Qaeda, giving a new identity to an old enemy. Following the US and NATO pullout from Afghanistan last month, the Taliban, whom America drove out of power in 2001, are back in the saddle. In fact, the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan has been so swift, so precise and so comprehensive that the international community is in a shock, questioning the timing and prudence of the withdrawal of troops.

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Setting an expectation for how long the war or terror was likely to last, the secretary of defense under the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld,  in September 2001 that “it is not going to be over in five minutes or five months, it’ll take years.” Rumsfeld, who christened the campaign Operation Enduring Freedom, was prescient, as the war enters its third decade in a never-ending fight against terrorism.

The Winners and Losers

Ironically, Operation Enduring Freedom has only resulted in an enduring loss of American freedom, one step at a time. I still remember that I had walked up to the jet bridge and received my wife as she deplaned from a flight in 1991. Another time, when she was traveling to Boston from San Francisco, I was allowed to enter the aircraft and help her get settled with her luggage, along with our 1-year-old. It is inconceivable to be allowed to do such a thing today, and I would not be surprised if readers question the veracity of my personal experience. In many ways, al-Qaeda has succeeded in stripping Americans of the sense of freedom they have always enjoyed.

More than Americans, the biggest losers in this tragic war are Iraqis and Afghans, particularly the women. Afghan women, who had a brief respite from persecution under the Taliban’s strict Islamic laws and human rights abuses, are back to square one and justifiably terrified of their future under the new regime. The heart-wrenching scenes from Kabul airport of people trying to flee the country tell us about how Afghans view the quality of life under the Taliban and the uncertainty that the future holds. 

To its east, the delicate balance of peace — if one could characterize the situation between India and Pakistan as peaceful — is likely to be put to the test as violence from Afghanistan spreads. To its north in Tajikistan, there isn’t much love lost between Tajiks and the Taliban. Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rahmon, has  to recognize the Taliban government, and Tajiks have  to join anti-Taliban militia groups, paving the way for continued unrest and violence in Central Asia.

If History Could be Rewritten

In 2001, referring to Islamist terrorists, Bush asked the rhetorical question, “Why do they hate us?” He tried to answer it in a  to Congress: “They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

Islamic fundamentalists couldn’t give two hoots about a form of government or a people’s way of life thousands of miles away. The real answer to Bush’s question lies deeply buried in US foreign policy. America’s steadfast support of Israel and its refusal to recognize the state of Palestine is the number one reason for it to become the target of groups like al-Qaeda and IS.

America’s ill-conceived response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 during the Cold War led to the creation of al-Qaeda. It was with US funds and support that the anti-Soviet mujahideen fought America’s proxy war with the Soviets. Without US interference, al-Qaeda may never have come into existence.

During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the US bolstered Saddam Hussein by backing his regime against the Iranians. When Hussein became too ambitious for America’s comfort and invaded Kuwait in 1990, George H.W. Bush engaged Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. The US motive at that time was primarily to protect its oil interests in Kuwait.

The US created its own nemesis in Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and spent $6 trillion to kill them. In the process, US leaders have reduced Iraq and Afghanistan to shambles and created a new monster in the Islamic State.

Sadly, history can never be rewritten. The US has proved time and again that its involvement in the Middle East and Muslim world is aimed at advancing its own political interests. The only question that remains is: Can the US adopt a policy that would not aggravate the situation and, over time, deescalate it, without creating yet another Hussein or bin Laden? Without a radically different approach, Operation Enduring Freedom is doomed to endure forever, costing trillions of dollars each decade.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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China can manufacture cheaply because labor costs are low. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also runs an authoritarian regime. The regime has repressive land and labor laws with scant regard for human rights. Legally, the CCP owns all the land in China and can appropriate any property it wants. Similarly, workers have little recourse to courts and sometimes work in -like conditions.

360° Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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A rising China is challenging the postwar global order. Democracies, including the United States, are finding it difficult to meet the challenge for two reasons. First, loose monetary policies in recent years have brought back the specter of inflation. Second, no economy other than China’s can meet the supply needs of advanced economies. From laptops to toys, most goods are made in China.

Labor arbitrage has defined globalization from its early years. Companies set up factories where wages tend to be lower. This increases revenues and profits, making consumers and shareholders happy. Given rising inflationary expectations, advanced economies need labor arbitrage to keep costs of goods down. At the same time, these democratic societies want to decouple their supply chain from China.

With the size of its young workforce, India has a unique opportunity to become the new workshop of the world and emerge as a stabilizing global force in a multipolar world. To grasp this historic opportunity, it has to liberalize its economy wisely.

The Legacy of the Past

India could do well to heed the lessons of the past. The Soviet Union, Western Europe and the US emerged as strong economies after World War II by leveraging their manufacturing base. The war economy had led to a relentless focus on infrastructure, mass production and industrialization. In the case of Western Europe, the Marshall Plan helped put shattered economies back on track.

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Over time, these advanced economies deindustrialized and production started shifting to emerging economies. China’s rapprochement with the US allowed it to enter the postwar Western economic system. Reforms in 1978 were critical to its success. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 created a brave new world where companies chased cheap production. China, with its size, scale and speedy centralized decision-making, emerged as the big winner.

As moved to China, workers lost jobs in advanced economies and other industries did not emerge to retrain and employ them. The Rust Belt in the US has become a synonym for down-at-heel places left behind by globalization. Even as workers grew poorer, shareholders grew wealthier, exacerbating inequality.

Today, the United States finds itself in a complicated position with China. On the one hand, the Middle Kingdom steals intellectual property, transgresses international law and challenges the US. On the other hand, it supplies American consumers with cheap goods they need. America’s economic stimulus during the pandemic has, in fact, the country’s dependency on China. So, Washington cannot hold China’s feet to the fire and penalize its bad behavior. Beijing follows its policy of pinpricks short of outright conflict.

The US dollar is the reserve currency of the world. Since the days of Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve has followed a loose monetary policy. After the 2007-08 financial crisis, the US adopted the Japanese playbook from the 1990s and introduced quantitative easing. In practice, this means buying treasury and even corporate bonds to release money into the economy after interest rates touch zero. Such increased liquidity in the US has led to bloated company valuations and allowed the likes of Amazon or Uber to expand their operations. The cost of capital has been so low that profitability in the short or even medium run matters little.

Loose monetary policy has enabled the US to counter China’s state-subsidized companies to some degree. Yet both policies have distorted the market. The US can only continue with loose monetary policy as long as inflation is low. Should inflation rise, interest rates would also have to rise. This might trigger a stock market collapse, increase the cost of capital for its companies and weaken the global dominance of the US economy.

To persist with its economic model and simultaneously contain China, the US needs to curb inflation. This is only possible by shifting some if not all production away from China. Mexico, Vietnam and Bangladesh are possible alternatives. Mexico has a major , violence and governance problem. and benefit from huge Chinese investment. Therefore, they might not be the best hedge for securing supply chains from the Middle Kingdom, especially if the companies manufacturing in these countries are Chinese.

As a vibrant democracy with a formidable military, India offers the US and the West a unique hedge against China. For geopolitical reasons alone, manufacturing in India makes sense. However, doing business in the country continues to be difficult because of red tape, corruption, erratic policymaking, a colonial bureaucracy with a socialistic culture and more.

���Ի徱��’s Nehruvian past still hobbles the nation’s economy. The country adopted socialist command-and-control policies using a colonial-era bureaucracy that prevented the economy from achieving high economic growth. Manufacturing suffered the most. To start a factory, any entrepreneur needed multiple licenses that cost time, money and energy. Poor infrastructure made it difficult for manufacturers to compete with their East Asian counterparts. While wages were low in India, the cost of doing business made many manufacturers uncompetitive.

Acquiring land in India is still a challenge. The experience of the Tata group in revealed both political and legal risks that still exist. Similarly, convoluted labor laws made hiring and firing onerous, rendering companies inflexible and unable to respond quickly to market demand. Liberalization in 1991 improved matters, but the state continues to choke the supply side of the Indian economy.

In the second half of the 1990s, liberalization lost momentum. Coalition governments supported by strong interest groups stalled reforms. In fact, India drifted back to left-leaning policies starting 2004 and this economic growth. For instance, many industrial and infrastructure projects were by ministers to protect the environment. ���Ի徱��’s toxic legacy of Nehruvian socialism persisted in terms of continuing state intervention. The country never meaningfully transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy and still suffers from low productivity. This in turn has constrained consumption and slowed down growth.

���Ի徱��’s much-heralded information technology sector only grew because it was new. The government did not exactly know what was going on and, as a result, there were fewer regulations to constrain this sector. Fewer regulations meant that the likes of Infosys and Wipro had greater autonomy in decision-making and fewer bribes to pay.

Reduce Red Tape

The first thing that India needs is an overhaul of its colonial-era bureaucracy that resolutely strives to occupy the commanding heights of the economy. It foists endless red tape on business, strangles entrepreneurship and takes too long to make most decisions. Government service is seen as lifelong employment. Once people become bureaucrats, they have little incentive to perform. Like their colonial predecessors, they lord over citizens instead of serving them. Rarely do they craft sensible policies. Even when a government comes up with a good policy, bureaucrats implement it poorly when they are not sabotaging it actively. This must change. Bureaucrats must be accountable to citizens. Performance-linked promotions and dismissal for underperformance are long overdue.

Over the years, politicians have tried to deliver benefits and services to citizens to win reelection. To get around a corrupt, colonial and dysfunctional bureaucracy, they instituted direct benefit for welfare schemes, emulating other emerging economies like Brazil. This move is necessary but not sufficient. India needs sound economic policymaking directed by domain experts in each administrative department.

Only members of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) occupy key positions in the finance ministry. Instead, India needs economists, chartered accountants, finance professionals and those with varied skill sets in this ministry. The treasuries of the US, Britain, Germany and almost every advanced economies have this diversity of talent in their upper echelons.

There is no reason why economic policymaking in 21^st-century India should be monopolized by an archaic IAS. The government has made noise about the of professionals into policymaking, but tangible results have been few and far between.

If the bureaucracy holds India back, so does the . Nearly cases are pending in the courts. It takes around six years for a case to be resolved in a subordinate court, over three years in the high courts and another three years in the supreme court. A case that goes all the way to the supreme court takes an average of 10 years to resolve. Many cases get stuck for 20 to 30 years or more.

India needs to reform its judicial system if its economy is to thrive. Justice is invariably delayed, if not denied, and it also costs an arm and a leg. Not only does it add to transaction costs, but it also undermines business confidence. Virtual courts have already shown the way forward during the pandemic. A higher number of judges using both in-person and online technology could reduce the seemingly unending number of pending cases.

Create Efficient Markets

To improve labor productivity and consumption, the government must reduce inflation and improve purchasing power. For decades after independence in 1947, India was united politically but divided economically. Producers in one state could not sell in other states without paying taxes and, in some cases, bribes. In agricultural markets, they could not even sell in other districts. ���Ի徱��’s new goods and services tax (GST) might be imperfect, but it has already made a difference. Even during a pandemic, interstate goods movement rose by and menu costs, a term in economics used for the costs of adapting to changing prices or taxes, dropped because tax filings were done online.

The 2016 has led to major efficiency gains. Now, lenders can recover their debt more speedily. Bankruptcy proceedings are now much simpler even if haircuts remain high. Unsurprisingly, India has risen in the World Bank rankings from 130 in 2016 to 63 in 2020.

As Atul Singh and Manu Sharma explained in an article on 51�Թ� in 2018, non-performing assets of Indian banks have led to a financial crisis. The government could do well to adopt some if not all the reforms the authors suggested. Given rising inflationary pressures because of rising oil prices, ���Ի徱��’s central bank can no longer cut rates. So, the government has to be creative in tackling its banking issues and free up liquidity for Indian businesses with great potential to grow. Banks burnt by poor lending in the past and fearful of corruption charges as well must discover the judgment and appetite to lend to deserving businesses in a fast-growing economy that needs credit for capital formation.

A little-noticed need of the Indian economy is to strengthen its own credit rating systems and agencies. Capital flows are aided by accurate corporate and political risk assessment. The US enjoys a global comparative advantage in attracting investments thanks to the big three homegrown agencies: S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. These agencies tend to in their India assessment. The standards they set give American companies an advantage over Indian ones.

Therefore, both the private sector and the government must strengthen Indian rating agencies such as CRISIL and ICRA. These agencies are improving continuously. They now have access to increased digital high-frequency data, which they can interpret in the domestic context. As a result, Indian agencies can benchmark corporate or sovereign risk better than their American counterparts for domestic markets. A better benchmarking of risk is likely to deepen the bond market and cause a multiplier effect by enabling companies to raise money for increased capital expenditure.

For decades, India followed a socialist model of agriculture, doling out large unsustainable subsidies. As Singh and Sharma explained in a separate article, the Soviet model was the inspiration for the Indian one. Indian agriculture denuded groundwater, emptied government coffers and lowered farm productivity. The current reforms allow farmers to grow what they want and sell wherever they want to bypass parasitic middlemen. The new legislation emulates the US and promises to boost agricultural production, lower inflation and increase . This legislation might also lower rural hunger and improve ���Ի徱��’s human capital in the long term.

India has to transition hundreds of millions from agriculture to industry. Currently, of the country’s population is dependent on agriculture and contributes just to gross domestic product (GDP). All advanced and industrialized economies have a much lower percentage of their populations engaged in agriculture. In the US, the figure is and in Vietnam, work in agriculture. The last time the US had 50% of its population engaged in agriculture was in .

Improve Infrastructure

To facilitate movement from agriculture to industry, India must invest in infrastructure and urbanization. For decades, its infrastructure has been woefully inadequate. Indian cities are known to be chaotic and do not provide basic services to their citizens. Recently, India launched a $1.9-trillion that is engaged in a rollout of road, rail, seaport and airports to connect centers of manufacturing with points of export. This focus on infrastructure has to be consistent and relentless.

India could emulate Chinese cities like Chongqing and Shenzhen that could be home to industry and hubs of trade, both domestic and international. Projects like the smart city in Dholera, 80 kilometers from Gujarat’s capital of Ahmedabad, are the way forward. Similarly, the new is the sort of policy India needs. The are setting up a plant to manufacture lithium-ion batteries under this scheme. Not only could Indian industry meet the needs of a fast-growing market, but it could also be a source of cheap imports for many other countries.

India must not only on metropolises, but also smaller cities and towns where the cost of living is lower. Digitalization of work will allow people to stay in such urban areas. Of course, they will need investment and organization for which India must tap capital and talent not only nationally but internationally. For instance, pension funds in North America and Europe are seeking growth to meet their increasing liabilities. If India could get its act together, investment into Indian markets could be significant.

A key part of infrastructure that needs reform in a society is the power sector. Gujarat’s growth is underpinned by increased production and improved distribution of electricity. The rest of the country must emulate this westernmost state and Gujarat itself must bring in further reforms. Renewable energy sources such as gas, solar, and must grow further. A nationwide energy market would bring in efficiency gains and boost growth.

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A focus on renewable energy also brings risks and opportunities. Currently, China controls critical metals and rare earths required in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. Beijing has an effective monopoly over of the world’s cobalt, of lithium, 85% of rare earth oxides and 90% of rare earth metals. A decarbonized future cannot be intrinsically linked to an authoritarian state that has a history of not playing by free market rules.

���Ի徱��’s $1.1-billion “” offers a unique opportunity for the country to provide to democratic nations in North America, Europe and elsewhere. As they transition to clean technologies, India can provide a safer, more reliable and benign to an increasingly belligerent China.

In 2021, India has a historic opportunity to enter a new economic arc. The global conditions could not be more favorable. Advanced economies are looking to decouple from China without triggering inflation. India is the only country with the size and the scale to be an alternative. Its large youth population and rising middle class are powerful tailwinds for high economic growth. Indeed, India owes it not only to its citizens, but also to the rest of the world to get its act together and become a force for global stability at a time of much volatility and uncertainty.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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360° Context: How 9/11 and the War on Terror Shaped the World

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Now that the American political and military exit from Afghanistan has stumbled to completion, a key component of America’s egregious and deadly response to 9/11 is finally ended after 20 years of failed policy. But failed policies should have consequences, and this one surely did, both here and abroad. The loss of life in Kabul during the withdrawal is just the latest reminder of yet another “gallant” American adventure gone bad in some foreign land. For 20 years, throughout the Muslim world, we made enemies we didn’t have to make, and we created a whole new cadre of wounded warriors in our midst ready to vanquish the incoming hoards at all cost to save the homeland from itself.

Imposing Its Will by Force

To make matters worse, there is a shocking ignorance about even relatively recent history and its relevance to the present and the future. Few Americans seem to fathom that in response to the killing of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, the national government set out to extract a bloody bounty to avenge each of those lost lives. While the US mourned its losses, there was hardly a thought or a moment of introspection before the nation’s leaders charted their deadly and destructive course around the world.

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In every far-off land where the US government seeks to impose its will by force, no matter the reason for doing so in the first place, the people in those invaded lands pay a terrible price. And it always ends the same way. It is important to know that America has not won a war since 1945 and has not fought a war on its own soil since the Civil War. Yet in Afghanistan alone, it is that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been killed, maimed and wounded, with millions more displaced, by an invasion that those men, women and children neither sought nor provoked.

As in Vietnam, US government operatives found elements of the local populace in Afghanistan that they assured themselves were welcoming. Then the killing started. And as always, the people we paid in those lands loved us, and the people we killed maimed and devastated hated us. And here is the lesson to be learned: There are always more of the latter than the former. When the payments stop coming, love is quickly lost, but the hatred of the devastated never dies.

Repeating the Vietnam Playbook

If there is anything to be gained from the crushing defeat and exit from Afghanistan, it is that after 20 years of repeating the same essential Vietnam playbook, while dealing death and destruction at every turn, many in America may finally understand how Vietnam ended as it did. When one nation invades another, it never ends well. When the invading nation has some messianic notion that it alone can succeed in supplanting existing cultural, social and political norms, and does so at the point of a gun, the invaded nation will eventually rebel, unite and drive out the invaders.

So, as another 9/11 anniversary looms, Americans must again try to comprehend that our national loss on September 11, 2001, was not sufficient cause to scream at the world like some out-of-control toddler. It was a horrible day because so many innocent people lost their lives and so many more were left injured and broken. But when the US government set out to exact revenge, the worst that we could be was unleashed on others, many of whom were just as innocent as those who lost their lives in America on 9/11.

In doing so, the US not only failed to wipe out terrorism, but it failed to create even a semblance of a new era of American heroism driven by an army of new American heroes. Rather it succeeded in creating an international force devoid of morality that it then had to sell at home as some group of avenging angels. Selling that narrative became even harder when our own soldiers, as always, started to come home in body bags.

The US Failed

There is a tragic symmetry to all of this. President Joe Biden seems to be a truly decent man, and when faced with a difficult choice that paralyzed his predecessors, he made the right choice and stuck to it. But as he did so, he was unable to seize that critical moment to tell the nation that we had failed, as before.

Once again, it seemed impossible to say that we as a nation must be better and do better. When the end in Afghanistan became most tragic at a cost of American lives, Biden George W. Bush after 9/11 in leading the nation to believe in a new sacred mission to root out and kill the cockroaches who did us harm. This is the worst of who we are, and it never leads to anything good. Biden could have and should have done better at that moment. Instead, he felt compelled to affirm that if you kill us, we will kill you, and it will always be disproportionately tilted toward the others, anyone in the way be damned.

It can only be hoped that no more young men and women, ours or theirs, will be sacrificed on the long-blackened stones of the alters constructed by their elders. There remain many people in the world who do not revere America the way so many here seem to think they should, and some of those will threaten the nation. Yet, after 20 years of fighting terrorism on the soil of others, the threat from afar seems minimally diminished.

Rather, a whole new generation of wounded warriors walks among us. Some are surely heroes and some are surely villains, but way too many of them are integrated into the squads of self-styled patriots in every community, mostly out in the open, dangerously armed and supported by a significant cohort of those who will be most vocal about the ravages of 9/11. I have never quite understood why you get a patriotism merit badge for killing people in far-off lands or for simply wearing a uniform that to many in the world is synonymous with death, not dignity.

The Heroes

But this isn’t about merit or merit badges. Together, as a nation, Americans have to begin to walk away from violence and its always tragic end, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or Chicago. One image stands out to me from the chaos of the Afghanistan exit. It is the of two US soldiers in full battle gear lifting a baby over a razor-wired wall to a place of safety. Those soldiers are my heroes. I hope they come home and remember that moment above all else and find their voice to urge others to lift other babies over barriers to safety wherever they may be.

I give my thanks to Joe Biden for having the courage to end this futile war in Afghanistan. I hope he finds those two soldiers and tells them and the nation that they were the most heroic of all.

*[This article was co-published on the author’s , Hard Left Turn.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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As is well known, various factors contribute to a nation’s development. The most fundamental is the availability of food and water for the population. Here, India has had some success since its independence in 1947. In health care and education, India can and must do better. India also needs to improve safety and security for its citizens and improve the rule of law. The factor most important for India’s development is perhaps transportation because it has the greatest multiplier effect on the economy. As a result, transportation has the greatest potential to improve the lives of ordinary citizens.

360° Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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Transportation infrastructure, such as railways, roads, air traffic and waterways, are the arteries of a country’s economy. The German economy was built on the backbone of an outstanding railway system and the legendary autobahn. The US is knit together by a crisscrossing network of freight trains, interstate highways and airports. Advanced economies like Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands are known for their evolved infrastructure.

In recent years, China has set the standard for implementing infrastructure at a scale and speed unprecedented in history. Most economists credit spectacular rates of economic growth to Chinese investment in infrastructure. India is betting that building good infrastructure will boost growth, create jobs and raise the standard of living for hundreds of millions.

Railway and Highway Infrastructure

According to a 2018 by NITI Aayog, the premier policy think tank of the Indian government, 59% of all freight in India is transported by road, 35% by railways, 6% by waterways and less than 1% by air.

On March 31, 2020, India’s railway track length stood at and, on March 31, 2019, the length of national highways was . Per 100 square kilometers, India has more railway tracks and highways than countries like the US and France. This does not necessarily mean India is doing well. South Korea and Japan have over four times the highway length per 100 square kilometers.

Instead of the density of infrastructure per unit area, density per population size seems to be the more accurate metric. When it comes to infrastructure per million people, India fares very poorly. For instance, Indonesia’s population is merely 20% of India’s, but its highways are twice as long as India’s. South Korea’s population is a tiny 4% of India’s, but its highways are thrice as long as India’s. The top two stars on the infrastructure front are the US and Australia, followed by Japan and France.

India’s highway network is inadequate for the country’s needs. Highways comprise of India’s total road networks but carry a staggering of total road traffic. This means that not only do they suffer high wear and tear, but transportation continues to be a big bottleneck for the economy. It is little surprise that India is finally investing in transport infrastructure.

After independence in 1947, India underinvested in infrastructure. Two centuries of colonial extraction had left the country with limited resources and almost unlimited public needs. In its early years of independence, India struggled to feed its masses. There was little money to build railways, roads, ports, airports and transport infrastructure.

India also lacked the expertise to build such infrastructure at scale. Planners, engineers and skilled labor were all in short supply. The nation did not have enough knowledge of transport technology either. There was another challenge in a densely populated democratic country. Infrastructure projects result in the displacement of large numbers of people. Many resist, others negotiate hard and still, others approach their local politicians who start resisting these projects to win votes.

India’s varied geography also imposed daunting challenges for developing infrastructure. Largely flat countries like Australia and France could focus on railways, which run twice as long as their roads. Mountainous countries like South Korea and Japan have built more roads than railway lines. While plains and plateaus in India are crisscrossed by railway lines, roads are the means of transportation in its extensive mountainous regions.

A New Focus

Over the last 20 years, India’s focus has shifted to roads. This under the coalition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although this government lost the 2004 election, NDA’s vision set in motion transport infrastructure development. In 2014, the BJP-led NDA returned to power and accelerated the building of highways across the country.

NDA-initiated highway construction was kickstarted by the , a project connecting India’s four biggest cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. This economic growth. Since NDA returned to power, India has embarked on , an ambitious project to connect the entire country through a network of highways like the fabled interstate highway system of the US. Even remote regions such as the and will be covered.

In the past, India did not measure highways as per international standards. This meant their growth could not be measured and compared easily. To quote management guru Peter F. Drucker, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Since 2018, the of highway length in India has been aligned with international standards. While impressive figures on the growth of national highways have been published, their interpretation now is clear and consistent.

There has also been a steady increase in highway construction rates. In March 2021, it reached . For the 2020-21 financial year — India’s financial year begins on April 1 and ends on March 31 — road construction averaged . In 2014-15, the rate was 16.61 kms/day. Six years on, the road construction rate has almost doubled and is the fastest India has achieved since independence. The credit goes to Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport, one of the star performers of the NDA cabinet. In March, he claimed that India had secured the for fastest road construction.

���Ի徱��’s Evolving Waterways Make a Big Splash

The oldest civilizations have originated and flourished near major rivers for a simple reason. They provide fresh water, a fundamental human need. Rivers also provided an easy way to travel and transport goods before the advent of roads and railways. Even today, commercial transport of goods via rivers, lakes and oceans continues to cost less than via land. While container ships regularly carry goods across the high seas, most countries no longer use their rivers very well. The US, Australia, Japan, Russia and China are among the few countries that use their rivers and inland waterways well. 

India has 116 rivers. Potentially, these could provide 35,000 kilometers of waterways and should be tapped. The government set up the Inland Waterways Authority of India in 1986 for “development and regulation of inland waterways for shipping and navigation.” In spite of tremendous cost advantages, waterways’ commercialization received little attention over the next 30 years. In 2016, the NDA declared across India as national waterways, a quantum leap up from five. By 2020, the government 12 of these waterways. The journey to suitably develop the remaining 99 will be a long and expensive one. However, this investment will cut logistics costs tremendously in the long run and boost India’s competitiveness.

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Gadkari points out that the in India is 18% of the total cost of production. For China, this figure is 8-10%. Notably, waterways account for 47% of total transportation in China, compared to 3.5% in India. As waterways develop, so will commercial activity along their banks and lead to job creation.

India has another major underutilized natural resource. It has a long coastline of spread across 14 states. To develop ports and coastal transportation, the government has launched the project. This could achieve what the Golden Quadrilateral did for roads in the past. By 2025, the government aims to increase the share of waterways transportation from 3.5% to 6%, reducing logistics costs, boosting exports and generating .

The Road Ahead

About of India’s population is under 25 years of age and many of them need jobs. Employed young people are more likely to send their children to school. They are likely to eat better and live longer. So far, India’s growth rate has not exceeded the job creation rate. For social and political stability, the government needs to create jobs. 

While India’s economy continues to grow, the pace of growth does not match the employment needs of India’s young population. Building infrastructure is one of the best ways to generate employment because of its massive multiplier effect in an emerging economy like India. The country needs competent ministers and bureaucrats with domain expertise such as Gadkari. Key ministries overseeing power and finance in New Delhi and India’s state capitals should emulate this model.

Along with building infrastructure, India must reform its arcane laws of colonial and socialist heritage to boost economic activity. The government must also reform education and vocational training in collaboration with industry to raise the skills of the workforce, improve employability and increase productivity. This is a tall order, but if India can get its house in order, then domestic and foreign investment would flow in. Then, the country would finally be able to join the Asian tigers as one of the world’s fast-growing economies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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���Ի徱��’s Health-Care System Is in Shambles

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This issue is of particular significance in India, where the pandemic has steeply, and perhaps irreversibly, increased education inequality. Over 1.5 million schools have , 6 million children of basic education. The government has been preoccupied with issues such as the pandemic, the migrant crisis, the farmer protests and state elections. It has failed to focus on education.

Exacerbated Negatives

Even as capitalist a country as the United States provides its populace with free public schooling. In contrast, a supposedly socialist India is unable to educate its children. India, currently in its youth-bulge phase, has citizens under the age of 25. The education of these young people can and should be ���Ի徱��’s catalyst for economic, social and political growth. 

The socioeconomic benefits of education outweigh its costs. For example, the pervasiveness of among girls with no education is 30.8% versus 2.4% for girls who have received higher education. Bearing in mind the fact that more than one out of four Indian child brides become teenage mothers, providing girls with education could help solve the problem of child marriage, which would subsequently combat teenage pregnancy and high infant mortality rates. Education could also reduce the rampancy of child labor while also reducing rates of preventable diseases. 

Unfortunately, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 () and ���Ի徱��’s new education have no provision for dealing with the current crisis. Its Constitution declares India to be a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.” Many politicians claim to be socialists. Yet the pandemic has proven that socialism is merely an empty slogan in India. Health and education are highly privatized. Citizens have to pay for basic treatments and for half-decent schools.

The education system had many issues long before COVID-19 made matters worse. The pandemic has only exacerbated the negatives. The RTE had noble intentions but mixed results. India needs a modern education system that expands both the minds of the young and the arc of their opportunities. The pandemic has been terrible for students, but it provides a great opportunity for reform. It remains to be seen if the government will grasp the opportunity.

Legislating Education

Under the current legislation, both the central government in Delhi and the state governments individually can pass laws concerning education. Generally, schools are administered by the state departments of education, while the central government dictates overall guidelines and policy. The Ministry of Human Resource Development oversees the education and literacy of the entire country, conducted in three types of schools: private unaided, private aided, and government-funded and government-run public schools. According to data from the Indian Education Ministry, 75% of all schools are , responsible for the education of 65% of all school students, or 113 million, across 20 states.  

According to Oxfam India, 80% of students in have received no education since the pandemic began. Furthermore, despite the government broadcasting certain classes on television, many students have been unable to access them because they lack basic infrastructure at home. Over 200 million Indians a television, phone or radio. Additionally, this method of teaching and learning is not interactive, with students finding it difficult to grasp the material.

While poor government schools remain closed, private schools have adapted to virtual learning. However, only 23% of all Indian households have . This figure drops to only 4% among the . Rural areas in particular are struggling with the fallout from the pandemic such as the migrant crisis and rampant unemployment, so education ranks low on local governments’ priority lists.

To make matters worse, the closing of schools in early 2020 translated to the effective cancellation of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme that 116 million schoolchildren with hot meals. The central government has drafted guidelines for states and union territories to supply cooked meals or food-security allowances to schoolchildren. However, it is clear that various municipalities have failed to implement these guidelines. For instance, took 44.6 million tons of grains from the central government in 2019 to feed schoolchildren; in 2020, this figure dropped to zero. Children are not only missing out on education but also on nutrients. This is reversing years of progress that India had made in combating malnutrition. It is well known that malnutrition hinders intellectual development and can lead to performance, disease and even death. Children in poor families now face an increased risk of malnutrition as the gap between them and their more prosperous counterparts increases by the day.

But even children from more affluent families are struggling to cope with online learning. are on the rise. In India, board examinations — the final set of tests for students graduating from high school — have been canceled. This has left millions of students worrying about their future. 

Misguided Provisions

One of the key problems with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act is that it is poorly drafted. It is unclear and repetitive. According to the District Information System of Education, as of 2016, only 13% of all Indian schools achieved with RTE norms. As a national act, the RTE establishes certain parameters, procedures and standards for both private and public schools to follow. It places a primary emphasis on the idea of education for all by dictating that every child between the ages of six and 14 must be eligible to receive free education. However, Indian children are still struggling to obtain the education promised to them.

The most adversely affected are the children living in who make up 73% of Indian youth. About 90% of the facilities in these districts are that struggle with untrained teachers and poor infrastructure, failing to meet the standards set by the RTE. Schools that do not follow these standards are forced to shut down. In many cases, these schools are the only option available.

According to the published by Centre for Civil Society in India, between April 2015 to March 2018, 2,469 schools were closed in 14 states due to RTE non-compliance, while 4,482 were threatened with closure and a further 13,546 were served closure notices. In line with Luis Miranda’s for Forbes India, if we assume an average of 200 students per institution in Punjab, the closure of 1,170 schools there as of August 2015 amounted to 234,000 students being unable to attend a school of their choice or to receive an education at all in just one state.

For several states, data on the extent of school closures remain . As of 2016, in public schools was only 1% higher for elementary schools and 2% higher for secondary schools compared to 2000. Data from 2016 that enrolment decreased in states such as Madhya Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal.

The RTE has misguided provisions that may be well-meaning but are highly damaging. The act mandates a 25% quota to be reserved at the entry-level of educational institutions for students from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups. The law states that the central government must reimburse schools for the costs incurred due to the quota by either paying schools’ per-child expenses or the fees charged, whichever is lower.

However, this provision has been implemented unevenly. In , Madhya Pradesh filled 88.2% of the 25% quota and Rajasthan filled 69.3%, while states like Uttar Pradesh managed only 3.62% and Andhra Pradesh just 0.21%. Furthermore, corruption under the quota provision is also rampant. Parents often issue fraudulent to qualify under the quota, and schools do not oppose bribery as they favor students from affluent families. When wealthy private schools try to integrate economically weaker students, existing students often withdraw their admission due to a broad physical, infrastructural and cultural chasm between the classes. In India, there is still a stigma around studying with someone from a vastly differing economic background. 

Adding Insult to Injury

There is another problem with the quota system for economically underprivileged children. The central government is supposed to reimburse state governments who fund schools for filling their quota. Unfortunately, there is no methodology for this. The central government decides on an ad hoc basis what any state is supposed to get. For example, in ���Ի徱��’s most populous state of , expenditure per child per year is 3,064 rupees, or approximately $41. However, the central government gives this state of 236 million people only 450 rupees, or around $6, for every poor child. Naturally, schools have little incentive to fill their quota for economically underprivileged children, meaning that a mere 3.62% of the seats are filled. 

More significantly, the RTE has failed to address the fundamental issue of the lack of quality in Indian education. According to the 2018 “,” 55% of fifth graders in public schools could not read a second-grade textbook. The quality of teachers tends to be poor. Their pedagogies are almost invariably outdated. Teachers often lack motivation and training. In 2015-16, 512,000 teachers — or one in six — in elementary government schools were .

One nationwide survey revealed a teacher of 23.6% in rural areas. In states like Uttar Pradesh, teachers are hired by paying . Often, they are barely literate. When teachers are qualified, they often run private coaching businesses instead of teaching in the schools. 

To add insult to injury, untrained teachers use curricula that have little relevance to the lives of poor schoolchildren. They champion rote-based learning and, more often than not, destroy creativity. Many schools lack proper buildings, decent roofs and proper toilet facilities, especially for girls. Blackboards, basic learning aids and even chalk can run short. In 2018-19, only 28% of all government schools had and only 12% had an . Despite the government campaigning for a digital India, it has done little to provide computers and internet connectivity to schools across the country.

Time for Reform

As of 2020, India just 3.1% of its GDP on education. Importantly, every national policy since 1968 has recommended a figure of 6%. Other developing countries such as and spend 6.5% and 6.3% respectively. The government of India could start with emulating its BRICS counterparts in increasing the amount it spends on rearing the next generation.

Even the little amount India spends on education often does not reach schoolchildren, the intended beneficiaries of the system. Like all aspects of Indian life, corruption causes much harm to the most vulnerable of the country’s citizens. The upper and middle classes almost invariably send their children to private schools, as do officials in charge of drafting ���Ի徱��’s education policy. It is only the children of the poor who end up in government education, with parents having little knowledge or influence to demand either accountability or quality.

Officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) preside over all ministries in India from finance and industry to culture and education. These IAS officers have little if any experience in education. These officers often spend their time trying to get postings to departments with more power and greater opportunities for corruption. They have little incentive to reform the broken system either at the level of the state or national government. Politicians see little gain from focusing on education either. They are always too busy with the next election.

���Ի徱��’s citizens have to demand better use of their taxpayer money. The best use of that money in the long term is investment in education, not only in as funding but also good policymaking. Politicians must entrust this policy to educationists, not IAS officers. In the past, ���Ի徱��’s great institutions were set up by the likes of Rabindranath Tagore, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, not faceless bureaucrats.

India needs educational reform now more than ever. The pandemic has been devastating for hundreds of millions of students. If the government fails to act now, India will become an even more unequal and divided nation than it is today. Without high-quality mass education, the country will never have the skill or the knowledge base to be a truly dynamic economy. ���Ի徱��’s government schools need to be good enough for the children of top politicians, not just for its poor downtrodden masses. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post It’s Time to Make ���Ի徱��’s Education Good Enough for All appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Agriculture Is ���Ի徱��’s Ray of Hope in Time of Crisis

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In these transitional times, ensuring farmers’ incomes through price policy is not practical. It will only lead to inefficiency, causing India to lose the competitive advantage in an ever-expanding global economy. However, with over 40% of the country’s workforce employed in the agriculture sector, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure farmers’ livelihoods. Most of the countries are shifting from price policies to income policies to ensure farmers’ incomes by adopting (UBI) schemes.

Targeted Basic Income

Universal Basic Income is a regular, unconditional cash payment given to every household in the country. The idea of UBI in the West, dating back to as far back as the 16^th century, to ensure a minimum guaranteed income to every citizen. Most of the developing countries are also using a modified form of UBI to ensure farmers’ income to protect them from the looming threat of fluctuating and declining prices.

The main advantage of the scheme is that it does not intervene in the functioning of agricultural markets and allows free trade. Unlike loan weavers, it does not impair credit culture and, unlike minimum support prices for crops, it does not encourage the cultivation of one crop at the expense of another. It also avoids complex and costly administrative procedures and lethargy in implementing schemes like procurement of grains under ���Ի徱��’s Public Distribution System.

International experience shows that UBI makes people happier and healthier, meaning that everyone benefits. A modified version of the UBI scheme, a targeted (PM-KISAN) scheme, was already in place in India. Under PM-KISAN, every season, a specified sum of money is directly transferred to farmers’ bank accounts based on land records. Many state governments are implementing similar targeted basic income schemes, including , , and

PM-KISAN covers all of India. It is benefiting over 120 million farmers who own less than 5 acres of land with a total budget of $9.8 billion per year on the assumption that land records can be used as a means for verification to identify farmers. The main opposition party, Indian National Congress, has promised a similar scheme in its 2019 election manifesto. The Minimum Income Guarantee Scheme, formally the was designed to help 50 million “‘poorest families’ by assuring them a guaranteeing minimum income of ₹6,000 per month or ₹72,000 a year.” All households with a monthly income below 12,000 rupees ($163) would be eligible, taking the total budget to an estimated to be $48.9 billion, or 1.9% of the GDP. 

Shifting Policy

As a first step in shifting from price policy to income policy, PM-KISAN must cover basic input costs like fertilizer irrigation and pesticides, as well as cover periodic losses due to floods, droughts and price fluctuations. However, the scheme should not become an excessive burden on the exchequer. It seems that the benefits under some of the state schemes like the in Telangana achieve much better results by transferring 10,000 rupees per acre to each farmer.

If all of India’s 28 states were to implement a Rythu Bandhu-type scheme in its current form, it would cost 1.85% of the GDP. If these schemes are to remain sustainable in the long run, they need to be targeted well. Small farmers should get at least equal if not more benefits than bigger farmers, whereas Rythu Bandu is progressive in benefits, with bigger landowners getting more money than the small farmers. The means for verification needs to be standardized, with no opportunity to inflate the beneficiaries by local officials.

Some farmers’ organizations complain that PM-KISAN or similar schemes are benefiting absentee landlords rather than real farmers. These schemes are prone to errors. The inclusion error means that a proportion of those selected under a scheme are not really farmers, like absentee landlords with 40 acres of land getting benefits of 400,000 rupees per annum under Rythu Bandhu. The exclusion error occurs when a proportion of those intended to benefit are excluded from the scheme as a result of improper design. For instance, under Rythu Bandhu, tenant farmers, whose share of land is around 25% in the state, are not eligible despite being the actual cultivators who bear all the risks.

These inclusion and exclusion errors can be effectively reduced by proper design of the scheme and by using means-verification tools like online land records or validated bank accounts, tenancy certificates, etc.

Backbone Infrastructure

To implement any form of PM-KISAN-type of income support to farmers, ���Ի徱��’s government has to identify farmers correctly without any scope for errors. For example, the digitization of land records is still a work in progress and needs to be accelerated. Computerization of land records has been completed only in 87% of the villages in India. Only three states — Karnataka, Telangana and Odisha — have completed 100% computerization of land records, while the remaining states have computerized between 80% and 90% of the records.

Particularly, records in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other northeastern states are not updated. With the initiation of the (PMJDY), almost every farmer now has a bank account associated with — ���Ի徱��’s national identification number. Under PMJDY, about 355 million Aadhar-linked bank accounts were created as against 248 million households in India, which can be used for direct money transfers to farmers.

Budget allocation to an enhanced UBI scheme in the form of a modified PM-KISAN model should not come at the cost of reducing public expenditure on agriculture and other subsidies. The high fiscal costs of UBI may force the government to roll back some subsidies like free electricity, fertilizers and food. If the state retreats from public provisions like the Public Distribution System, it is doubtful how far the private sector will go to fill this gap even if incentivized by profits.

It is possible that the prices of some of the inputs will go up on the open market and move out of reach for small farmers. In the past, a government retreat from primary education and health care led to the proliferation of private schools and hospitals that charged extortionate fees unaffordable for the poor. State provision of agricultural and rural infrastructure is a more cost-effective, socially just, redistributive and sustainable way of meeting the farmers’ needs than leaving them to depend on the free market.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post It’s Time to Introduce a Universal Basic Income for ���Ի徱��’s Farmers appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The government has announced a new agricultural policy that has drawn both supporters and detractors. Farmer have broken out in parts of the country. About 50,000 have marched to New Delhi from the agrarian state of Punjab, objecting to the loosening of price, storage and sales regulations that have traditionally shielded ���Ի徱��’s farmers from the free market forces.

Land Reform Can Transform ���Ի徱��’s Economy

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As of August 25, the International Monetary Fund ���Ի徱��’s real GDP growth to be 4.5% in 2020. This shrinking of the economy in a country with a growing population could lead to a major crisis. Already, jobs are scarce, industrial production has declined, services have suffered and demand has plummeted. Even after decades of independence, remains “the largest source of livelihoods in India.” As India gears up to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s 151^st birthday, there is no better time than now to achieve the Gandhian vision of rural self-reliance.

Blessing in Disguise

COVID-19 has made rural areas more important than ever. On March 25, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown. It took the country by surprise. Millions of urban migrant workers were left with little choice but to walk home to their villages. Carrying their meager household possessions and with their small children in tow, many walked hundreds of kilometers, suffering thirst, hunger and pain. Some died en route.

���Ի徱��’s estimated the “annual inter-state migration [to be] about 5-6.5 million between 2001 and 2011.” In 2020, this migration has been reversed. People who fled rural areas for urban jobs have returned home. Chinmay Tumbe, a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and an expert on migration, estimates that might have returned to their villages since the lockdown began. The number could be as high as 70-80 million if reverse intrastate migration is accounted for.

The reverse migration from urban to rural areas might be a blessing in disguise. Over the last few decades, urban migration has led to overcrowding of cities, the proliferation of slums and much misery for poor migrants. In cities, they have lacked community, cultural moorings and social safety nets. The massive migration to ���Ի徱��’s cities was a result of failed economic policies that focused on megacities while neglecting villages. Several studies have found that at least 60% to 70% of the migrant workers who returned to their native places are unlikely to return back to the cities, at least not in the near future. The millions of migrant workers, whom I refer to as , flocked to cities because the government’s economic policies kept them impoverished.

A recent study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in collaboration with ICRIER, a New Delhi-based think tank, that Indian farmers suffered a cumulative loss of Rs. 45 lakh crore (over $600 billion) between 2000 and 2016-17 because of such policies. Subsequently, the NITI Aayog, a policy think tank of the government of India, that, between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the growth in real farm incomes was less than 0.5% every year. It was 0.44% to be exact.

Since then, the growth in real farm incomes has been near zero. With farm incomes growing painfully slowly and then stagnating, what else could be expected from the rural workforce but migration to cities where menial jobs as daily wage workers give many the only shot at survival?

Despite the Hardships

Despite these hardships, Indian farmers have toiled hard to produce a bumper harvest year after year. This has led to overflowing food stocks. show that this abundance of food grains has come in handy. The government has been able to provide subsidized rations to over 720 million people during the four months of the post-COVID-19 lockdown. In addition, the government has been able to provide free rations to the needy.

A buoyant agricultural output has hidden a severe agrarian crisis. Farmers get little money for their produce. With less money available in their hands, rural demand has dipped. This had led to a slowdown in the Indian economy even prior to the lockdown. In a country where the agricultural workforce accounts for nearly 50% of the population, the surest way to bolster the economy is to create more rural demand. This involves providing farmers with decent incomes.   

The lockdown has increased downward pressure on farm incomes. It coincided with the rabi (winter crop) harvest season and resulted in a crash in demand for winter produce. Farmers suffered huge losses in the case of perishables such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, poultry, dairy and fish. Not all news is grim though. On May 15, the United States Department of Agriculture estimated that India is to produce “a record 295.7 million metric tons, with estimated record rice, wheat and corn production.”

For the next kharif (monsoon crop) season, the sowing area coverage of has increased by 13.92% as compared to last year. With rains expected to be normal, and with a much higher area under cultivation, the kharif harvest will be bountiful just like the rabi one. It seems that in these times of crisis, agriculture alone provides a ray of hope in India.

Aim for an Economic New Normal

The coronavirus pandemic has come as a timely reminder of the limitations of dominant economic thinking. Its inherent bias and blind spots stand exposed. For the last two centuries and more, economics has sacrificed agriculture on the altar of industry. The dominant assumption is that industry drives productivity and growth.

India has never quite managed to industrialize like, for example, the US or China. Still, it has kept farm incomes low and neglected public investment in agriculture for many decades. As per the RBI, this hovered around 0.4% of the GDP between 2011-12 and 2017-18. It is little surprise that agriculture has floundered in India.

The time has come to change outdated economic thinking. Agriculture matters to India because it employs a majority of the country’s population. It provides food security to 1.3 billion people whose ancestors suffered repeated famines until a few decades ago. COVID-19 gives the country the opportunity to return not to normal, but to a new normal.

The return of migrant labor to villages gives India the opportunity to reinvigorate its rural economy. The country must tap the socioeconomic wealth of rural enterprise, its diversity, and the traditional knowledge base. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat — a self-reliant India — can only be achieved through a focus on agriculture. A sharp focus, sensible policies and public investment can unleash growth not only in the sector but also in the country.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Agriculture Is ���Ի徱��’s Ray of Hope in Time of Crisis appeared first on 51�Թ�.

This can be best seen in ���Ի徱��’s banking sector. In general, sector banks have practiced better governance than state-owned ones. Consequently, their financial and operating metrics also tell a story of profitable growth with less asset quality issues than their public sector peers. No wonder that private sector banks trade at a higher valuation than public sector ones.

360˚ Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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Higher valuation puts these banks into a virtuous growth cycle. They are able to raise capital cheaply with less dilution. This reinforces their already high return ratios, which in turn continue to support a higher valuation. This self-perpetuating cycle has led to long-term compounding of shareholder returns. State-owned peers have fared much worse.

Despite a large number of state-owned banks, the majority of growth in India is led by private sector banks. In fact, state-owned banks are struggling and the government is forced to merge them to ensure their survival. The success of well-run private banks demonstrates how good governance can lower a company’s cost of capital. That is not all. The resulting higher valuation also gives such companies immense pricing power in corporate transactions and talent management, widening their economic moat. 

Multiple Issues

India boasts of the oldest stock exchange in Asia, which is also the region’s largest. However, corporate governance in India still lags behind many other places like Singapore or Taiwan. India must understand that good corporate governance is the foundation of a lasting business. It builds investor confidence and has other benefits. India is short of capital and needs to earn investors’ trust. Without an infusion of capital, the Indian economy will fail to thrive. 

There are multiple issues that plague corporate governance in India. First is the lack of accountability among controlling shareholders. For example, promoters get away with their friends, ex-employees and business-school classmates as independent directors with no one raising an eyebrow. Often, statutory auditors are given only one-year extensions to pressurize them to “comply” with management demands. Compliant auditors tend to for too long, developing far-too-cozy relationships with the very people they are supposed to keep an eye on. With no strong checks and balances, promoters are in effect incentivized to take advantage of minority shareholders. 

Second is the and enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country’s market regulator. Cases against the management’s missteps take years to resolve. SEBI generally hands out warnings or mild punishments. This could be because SEBI does not have enough resources to deal with a large number of cases, or it could be a lack of authority or competence. In certain cases, promoters are extremely powerful and politically connected. Given that regulators are appointees, it is far from easy for them to ignore pressure from politicians, remain impartial, punish the powerful and deliver justice.

Third is the fact that markets do not punish poorly managed companies for their misdeeds. India needs deeper markets with broader participation for true price discovery. Stock markets must be treated as marketplaces, not as forums for votes of confidence on the government’s economic policies. Because governments place too much importance on market performance, they have an incentive to keep them inflated. Indian corporate bond markets are even worse than stock markets in terms of participation. They are really accessible to only a handful of companies. 

Fourth is the lack of transparency and weak disclosure requirements. This further perpetuates weak governance. The most detailed yearly disclosures by Indian companies are annual reports, which are often colorful marketing decks instead of detailed, factful and insightful documents, like the 10-Ks in the US. The quarterly earnings report for many companies is just a one-pager. This discloses summary items only without any breakdown of details.

Earlier, manufacturing companies were mandated to disclose operational details pertaining to capacity, production and inventory. A few years ago, this disclosure requirement was done away with. Now, the only time companies make adequate disclosures only during their initial public offerings, which is a mere one-time event instead of an annual exercise.

Bringing Sense to the Madness

The only way to bring some sense to the madness in ���Ի徱��’s public markets is to give more independence, power and resources to SEBI. At the same time, India must seriously penalize auditors and boards of companies for overlooking management follies. In addition, the authorities must incentivize and protect whistleblowers in a similar manner to developed economies.

Some argue that complying with higher disclosure requirements might be too costly for smaller companies. That is not true. Furthermore, even the top 100 Indian companies default frequently on . Instead of reducing requirements for disclosures, India should lower costs of disclosures and compliance by using more technology.

Another way to improve the health of ���Ի徱��’s public markets is to increase market participation and trading volumes. Then good corporate governance would be rewarded while poor corporate governance would be penalized. Making a smoother affair might make the market deeper and more liquid. To increase depth in corporate bond markets, India must make lasting banking reforms. This involves privatization and granting more powers to the banking regulator.

An unintended consequence of banking reform might be the improvement of ���Ի徱��’s infrastructure. Currently, many state-owned enterprises in infrastructure sectors such as power are mismanaged because their bosses are able to buy time by restructuring their bank loans. Banking reforms will make that impossible and will transform this sector too.

A combination of disclosure, regulation and enforcement can improve corporate governance. Reforms can also reduce conflicts of interests as well as create the right incentives and disincentives for Indian companies. These would inevitably lead to some short-term backlash, but the substantial long-term benefits are too significant to be ignored.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What Ails Corporate Governance in India? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Donald Trump’s Treason Against the American People

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More than three weeks after the election, Trump has not officially conceded. The president and his supporters are vociferously and aggressively claiming voter fraud. President-elect Joe Biden and his camp, alongside US election and security officials, are unequivocal that there is no evidence of foul play. At this time of bitter impasse, it would be invaluable to refer to a truly objective, unbiased third party. Fortunately, there is one.

Election Monitoring

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was founded in 1975. It consists of 57 member countries, and the United States is one of them. A key raison d’être of the OSCE is election monitoring. It assesses whether are “characterized by equality, universality, political pluralism, confidence, transparency and accountability.” The OSCE has observed over 300 elections globally, both in established democracies like Canada and the UK as well as in countries like Croatia and Ukraine, where the democratic tradition is still tenuous. A multinational team of experts is on hand before, during and after the vote. The is thorough and transparent.

The organization has been observing every general and midterm election in the US since the 2000 disputed contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Its presence is particularly relevant at this moment in US history. The OSCE planned to deploy some 500 observers in the 2020 election, but the number was reduced due to the pandemic. By early October, the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) to the US had some 130 from 39 member nations on the ground. While some states did not allow international observers full access, most did. And even in states where the observers were not allowed in the polling stations, they at least examined the mail-in process. On the night of November 3, the OSCE delivered a detailed, , the entirety of which is openly available on the internet. 

The report covers a lot of ground: the political context and the legal framework of the electoral system; election administration and observation; voter rights, registration and identification; candidate registration (no room for birther controversy here); campaign environment and finance; the role of the media; legal complaints and appeals; as well as new voting technologies and the conduct of the election itself. It also explains IEOM’s process, observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations.

Anyone with any doubt about possible voter fraud and whether the election was legal will be assuaged by the report’s conclusion that “The 3 November general elections were competitive and well managed” and that, “In general, IEOM interlocutors expressed a high level of confidence in the work of the election administration at all levels.”

The report also offers two chilling warnings. First, it states that “Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions.” Second, it surmises that “Numerous ODIHR interlocutors noted that the judiciary has become highly politicized and indicated that this would have an impact on the rules governing the holding of these elections and possibly the outcome.” This report is preliminary. The IEOM remains on the task and will release a final report in early January.

Virtually Ignored

Interestingly, the presence of international election monitors in this United States has been virtually ignored by the media, the public and the politicians themselves. On the one hand, it’s understandable. Given the US-centric focus of many Americans, they may not even be aware of the role international observers play in US elections. Those who claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump are certainly not going to point out that there is an objective assessment of the validity of the voting process. In fact, President Trump the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, for stating that this election was “the most secure in American history.”

But why are the Democrats, the left-wing media and indeed anyone interested in proving beyond doubt that the election was fair ignoring the OSCE findings? Perhaps they don’t want to rely on any outside institutions to determine the validity of their election. Or maybe they feel that international monitors are only for banana republics, not for established democracies — and certainly not for the world’s . Pride goes before the fall.

Susan Hyde, a professor of political science at the University of Berkeley, California, and an experienced international election monitor, that “In countries that are very divided, it can be hard for citizens to know which sources of information are objective because it seems like every domestic audience has a dog in the fight.” She that international observers can “act as an external but credible resource for voters and for political parties.” International monitoring missions do not stand for Democrats or for Republicans — they stand for democracy.

On the one hand, it may be ironic that the United States should be in need of the services of international election monitors. But it would be even more tragic if the US did not use their essential, objective and readily available expertise and their vital findings at this critical juncture in its democracy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post International Monitors Found No Fraud in US Election appeared first on 51�Թ�.

360˚ Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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Despite its falling share in the economy, agriculture is ���Ի徱��’s most important sector. Its contribution to the country’s GDP has decreased from to , but it still employs about . While increasing shares of secondary and tertiary sectors is a natural phenomenon of economic growth, in India, this has happened without maximizing the potential for growth in agriculture. Per-acre yields of rice and wheat in India are drastically lower than those of other BRICS nations.

The shift in GDP share is the result of high growth rates in secondary and tertiary sectors despite relative stagnation in agriculture. The agricultural sector still has a massive scope to generate greater income and employment. However, this can be done only with the spirit of liberalization, similar to what other sectors of the economy have received since the 1990s.

Overregulation and Underutilization

Soon after independence, land reform laws were enacted throughout the country with the objective of distributing land equitably and increasing the efficiency of farm operations. This produced only partial success due to a variety of reasons. The ownership of only 4% of could be transferred to cultivators, 97% of which lies in just states — Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Notwithstanding this uninspiring outcome, land reform laws foisted excessive restrictions on the tenancy of agricultural land.

This has adversely affected the growth of agriculture in the country. Landowners are reluctant to lease out their land under formal tenancy due to their fear of losing it permanently. According to National Sample Survey Reports, about 15 million tenants 10 million hectares of land on an informal basis; 92% of these tenants are or marginal farmers. They have no security of tenure or access to institutional credit, crop insurance and other benefits offered to farmers under government schemes. Due to legal restrictions on tenancy, many landowners who cannot cultivate themselves prefer to leave their land fallow. In 2015-16, 26.72 million hectares of land were across India.

These restrictions on access to cultivable land not only deprive poor people in rural areas of opportunities to enhance their incomes, but also have a detrimental effect on the growth of the entire agriculture sector. Simply formalizing tenancy and cultivating millions hectares of fallow land can be a game-changer for agriculture in India. Once tenants get security of tenure and access to institutional credit, they will have requisite incentives and funds to make long-term investments on their land.

This can be achieved only with immediate and effective policy interventions by state governments. The National Institution for Transforming India, the premier policy think tank of the government of India, has set the ball rolling by publishing the Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016, to help the states enact new laws or make required changes to their existing laws on the tenancy. The Model Act seeks to formalize tenancy agreements, circumventing the restrictions imposed by the land-reform laws of the state. It aims to integrate the security of tenure along with the protection of ownership. However, until now, only a few states have gone ahead in this direction.

Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh have amended their existing laws to allow the renting of agricultural land on liberal terms. The Maharashtra Agricultural Land Leasing Bill, 2017, now awaits the assent of the president of India. The Andhra Pradesh Land Licensed Cultivators Act, 2011, was enacted even before the Model Act of 2016 was framed. This special law has recently been replaced with the Andhra Pradesh Crop Cultivator Rights Act, 2019. The other states also need to implement this vital reform to transform agriculture in their states.

Alternate Solutions

The enactment or amendment of laws is only a first step in improving the access of the rural poor to the land. Even in states where these laws have been enacted, very few landowners and tenants have come forward to enter formal agreements. Landowners are still apprehensive of losing their land, and tenants are still afraid of getting ousted if they insist on formal agreements. Therefore, state governments also need to effectively communicate with tenants and landowners to allay their fears and convey the benefits of formal agreements to them.

Until the time when requisite laws are enacted effectively, group loans can provide relief to informal tenants. In Kerala, where tenancy is illegal, about have organized themselves into joint liability groups. These groups receive crop loans from banks without requiring formal tenancy agreements. The guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development allow such agreements without requiring formal tenancy. Alternatively, Odisha has recently launched the Balaram scheme to provide agricultural credit to groups of landless laborers. Other states should also liaise with banks to provide credit to informal tenants until the time when legal provisions for allowing tenancy are put in place.

Such reforms have enormous potential to revamp and develop Indian agriculture, especially during the ongoing economic turmoil. At the national level, the central government has shown the way forward by . Now it is time for states to act decisively.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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360˚ Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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It is ironic that, more than seven decades after independence, the police in India are still governed by the . The British introduced this act immediately after what they called the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. As per the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the 1861 legislation was enacted with “the purpose of crushing dissent and any movement for self government.” After the 1857 uprising, the British monarchy took over from the East India Company, creating a colonial administrative architecture that would become the jewel in its crown. Along with the 1861 act, the 1860 Indian Penal Code was a major pillar of the new criminal justice system that served London well until ���Ի徱��’s independence in 1947.

The Legacy of the Raj

Independent India adopted a new constitution that gave states jurisdiction over the police. Henceforth, it was not New Delhi but state capitals that controlled policing. However, those who drafted the constitution failed to craft legislation to create a new police force in tune with the new demands of democracy. The police force retained its colonial character, carrying the will of its new political masters. Order ordained by these masters had to be maintained. The rule of law and due process were to play second fiddle.

Like many former colonies, India became a democracy in form while its police force remained colonial in spirit. In the first few decades after independence, the combination of enlightened leaders, ignorant public opinion, some outstanding officers and the broad hegemony of one political party papered over the incongruity of the arrangement. That could not, and did not, last.

From the 1960s, Indian politics became increasingly fractious. By the mid-1970s, the pulls and pressures on police departments, thanks to political interference, increased dramatically. Inadequate organizational structure, exploitative ethos and brutal behavior came to typify the police force. In 1975, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, used the police to impose a state of on the country. As in colonial times, the police suppressed civil liberties, foisted false cases on the ruling party’s political opponents and even enforced sterilization on unwilling young men under a draconian family planning plan.

In 1977, the opposition won a historic victory. Immediately after taking power, the new government instituted the (NPC) to review ���Ի徱��’s system of policing and suggest reforms. It produced eight reports, including a Model Police Act, between 1979 and 1981. It also appointed a commission of inquiry under a retired chief justice of India, J.C. Shah. Its 1978 report chronicled the excesses, malpractices and misdeeds of the government during the emergency. It found that the police had obediently and brutally carried out instructions of its political masters, cowing the country into submission.

To date, these reports have been gathering dust. Governments have come and gone since 1981. They have implemented peripheral recommendations but ignored substantive ones that relate to accountability and autonomy.

Echoes Across the Country

In 2020, the police are still bound by diktats of the political bosses. The Delhi earlier this year prompted allegations of political interference, a repeat of what happened in the 1984 . It moved , one of the country’s most respected police officers, to write a letter to the police chief of Delhi. He asked for a fair probe into the riots and questioned why the police did not investigate members of the ruling party for delivering hate speeches.

Ribeiro’s question can be echoed across the country. The chief ministers of ���Ի徱��’s 28 states control the police just as British governors once did. Politicians pay lip service to police reforms but are unable to let go of the power they wield. At its essence, there is a fundamental asymmetry of power between the police and the citizens: The former are not accountable to the latter. The police answer only to their political and bureaucratic bosses.

The failure of politicians to reform the police has led to citizens and retired senior police officers appealing to the judiciary for change. In 2006, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark and gave seven clear directives. The government of India and its federal counterparts in state capitals were supposed to implement these directives. Instead, most have been ignored or implemented half-heartedly. As a result, many a chief justice had lamented that not a single state government is willing to cooperate: What’s to be done?

The power politicians wield in various state capitals comes from Section 3 of the 1861 Police Act, which states: “The superintendence of the police throughout a general police-district shall vest in and shall be exercised by the State Government to which such district is subordinate, and except as authorized under the provisions of this Act, no person, officer of Court shall be empowered by the State Government to supersede or control any police functionary.”

Simply put, chief ministers and their consiglieres, the senior officers of the elite Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service (IPS), control every district in their states. The Model Police Act drafted by the NPC more than four decades ago recommended a tempering of this unfettered power of state governments. Its Section 39 provides for the state government to “exercise its superintendence … in such manner … as to promote the professional efficiency of the police.”

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) set up by the Indian government that the proposed Section 39 was insufficient to provide police autonomy. Informal and often illegal instructions to the police are pervasive. It recommended that an amendment to the Model Police Act that expressly forbade illegal or mala fide demands from the police. It also recommended that obstruction of justice be categorized as an offense. Needless to say, the government of India is yet to accept the ARC’s recommendations, let aside implement them.

Crime Pays

This politics-police equation is completely lopsided, with ���Ի徱��’s law enforcement the handmaiden of the politicians in power. This has been supported by numerous committees such as the one headed by  and scholars like . In fact, Indian voters have been increasingly electing politicians who face criminal proceedings against them. Money and muscle play a growing role in Indian politics. The result is decline, if not collapse, of the policing and criminal justice system.

After 73 years of independence, the formal institutions left behind by the British Raj are weakening. For ambitious politicians, controlling the police is an important way to secure benefits for themselves, consolidate electoral gains and distribute benefits to their supporters. If politicians control the police, they can avoid criminal investigations into their activities. They can hobble opponents with false or frivolous charges. They can also dispense patronage to their core supporters who are often members of their community. This partisan use of the police furthers identity politics in an increasingly divided land. As a result, the rule of law suffers and the Indian state weakens.

The police force itself has become politicized in many if not all states. Caste, community or religious affinity is often more important than professionalism, diligence or excellence. Many politicians try to recruit members of their own group into the police. Since police officers have job security, this social engineering of the police can institutionalize the coercive power of a group long after their politician is voted out. 

The Indian police have been weighed, measured and found wanting on numerous occasions. In 1992, the police stood by as a mob demolished the mosque and, 10 years later, they did the same during the 2002 . The rise in extrajudicial killings demonstrates the failure of due process of law. In 2005, the reported that ���Ի徱��’s “fake encounters” — staged confrontations between criminals and the police, where the criminals mostly end up dead — were shockingly common. During the emergency in the 1970s and in recent years, the police have stifled dissent by slapping colonial-era .

The police continue to wield repression on the streets. Beating people arbitrarily is common. In recent years, marginalized groups such as Dalits, minorities, tribesmen and women who protest peacefully have faced increased police brutality. has found that governments have used “curfews as means of control, victimization, and outright violence against targeted groups rather than as devices to bring peace during violent times for the benefit of all.”

Instrument of Injustice

In India, the police no longer have a reputation for probity or for being an instrument of justice. In fact, the insensitive, illegal, inhuman and indefensible of the September murder and gang rape of a Dalit girl in Hathras, a district in ���Ի徱��’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, laid bare the utterly unprofessional work culture of the Indian police. Such conduct occurs with numbing regularity because the political elite is deeply invested in the status quo.

Prospects for reform seem dim. In 2003, R.K. Raghavan, a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, that the police would continue to do the politicians’ bidding unless certain basic reforms were enacted. The judiciary cannot enact these reforms — it is the politicians’ duty. Until “they look upon the police as a tool to settle political scores with their adversaries, nothing will improve.” Raghavan went on to argue that prospects for police reform were bleak “because the corruption that cuts across party lines, brings with it unanimity that the status quo should remain.”

In September 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a speech to graduating IPS officers and called for a trust-based policing system. He argued that those who believe that instilling fear among the populace is the most effective policing strategy are out of sync with the march of the nation and its vibrant democracy. Modi’s actions have not matched his rhetoric.

India does not need another report or judgment. It awaits a statesman who can rise above the temptations of short-term electoral gains and work for long-term national benefits and who will not hesitate to wield the sword to cut the Gordian knot that keeps the politician and the police bound together. Only then will India have rule of law, not mere order, and justice for all instead of for a privileged few.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post ���Ի徱��’s Police: An Instrument of Injustice appeared first on 51�Թ�.

It is clear America is still a very divided nation. The big question is, what did the Democrats do wrong, and how can we do better moving forward?

America Is No Longer One Nation

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Voter participation was not the problem, with a record-high 158 million Americans casting ballots. Fundraising was not the issue as election spending also hit record highs, at nearly billion, and Democrats raised close to double what Republicans did. The major story is that record turnout and fundraising failed to propel Democratic candidates in the House, the Senate and state legislatures to victory as expected. The presidential race was a clear referendum on Donald Trump that didn’t translate down the ticket.

President Trump’s overall approval rating generally hovered around 40% over the course of his term in office. That’s already dangerous territory as no president in modern history has won reelection with an approval rating below 48%. Joe Biden was able to cut into Trump’s 2016 base, including seniors and non-college-educated white men. At the same time, Trump was able to win over parts of Hillary Clinton’s coalition, including Hispanic voters. Most surprisingly, an incredible 56% of Americans said they were today than four years ago in a September Gallup poll. That’s more than in 2012 before the re-election of President Barack Obama.

In the end, it all came down to two major issues: the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy. As recently as April, Donald Trump was more trusted to  by 8 points over Joe Biden. But 59% of Americans  of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. As that lead diminished and the pandemic continued to claim lives, Trump lost his last remaining advantage. But to win after COVID-19, Democrats need to improve their messaging.

Democrats need to understand that America is still a center-right country with a large, highly motivated evangelical base. They need to cope with the repercussions of embracing democratic socialism at the national level. The Democratic Party also needs to address the fear many Americans have that the new economy may leave them behind as they see jobs move out of the country and the wage gap expands. Flirting with socialism is likely to frighten workers already nervous about the future.

The solution lies in finding smart ways to appeal to the growing base of young and minority voters without frightening rural, white constituencies. The common ground is likely to be in reliable kitchen-table issues like the economy, health care and jobs. The most important issue for the Democrats has always been jobs. They need to mount a full assault to retake this issue by focusing on how to better train America’s workforce to be job-ready for the 21^st century. They need to talk about how they will reduce income inequality by providing the specific skills necessary to get tomorrow’s jobs. And, most importantly, they need to talk about how to provide those skills to inner-city and rural voters alike.

The Democrats will enjoy the benefits and power from building a big tent party in an ever-closer majority-minority nation, particularly while the GOP wrestles with internal strife over white nationalism. But they can’t continue to lose over issues and messaging. It all starts with presenting a sensible strategy for preparing more Americans with 21^st-century skills. This election is over, but the battle for the next one has already begun. The Democrats don’t have time to waste.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What the Democrats Need to Understand About America appeared first on 51�Թ�.

We are not talking about all those good people in Nebraska, Iowa or North Dakota who would have voted for the incumbent no matter what. We are talking about the substantial number of Hispanic and Asian Americans who cast their vote for a candidate and for a party not known for their enthusiastic embrace of multiculturalism. In fact, one of the most sobering lessons from this most recent contest was that the Democrats lost — or, perhaps better, failed to appeal to — a significant part of an electorate they considered not only theirs but their “natural” constituency.

America Is No Longer One Nation

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So much for the “emerging Democratic majority” often over the past decade or so yet proving once again quite elusive. As it turned out, to the apparent surprise of journalists and pundits alike, “non-whites” are significantly less homogeneous and significantly more diverse than progressive strategists have envisioned and taken for granted. “The horror, the horror!” to quote Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.”

The Other Side

The fact is that the Democrats lost a significant share of “voters of color” — African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans. This loss not only deprived Biden of carrying Florida, but cost the Democrats congressional seats in Florida, Texas and even California. Significantly enough, as The New York Times , “the only House seats Republicans picked up that were not in districts Mr. Trump also carried were in heavily Hispanic or Asian regions.” Heavily Democratic south Texas communities along the Mexican border are a case in point — areas, to Politico, along with parts of Florida, that “had some of the sharpest swings from Democrats to Republicans this year.”

Several south Texas counties, which Hilary Clinton had carried in 2016 by large margins, this time saw support for the Democratic contender like snow on a balmy spring Sunday; other counties went outright to the other side.

Among Asian American voters, Trump picked up around a third of the vote; the same was true for Hispanic voters. In both cases, the outcome of the vote was to a large extent a reflection of the heterogeneity of these communities. In Florida, for instance, Cuban and Venezuelan Americans predominantly voted for Trump; among Cuban Americans, around 60% said in a that they intend to vote for Trump. This was particularly the case among more recent Cuban migrants who, unlike US-born Cuban Americans, are overwhelmingly registered Republicans.

In south Texas, an area heavily dependent on jobs in law enforcement, Mexican Americans for Trump. In other parts of the country, Trump received from Vietnamese and Filipino Americans. In all of these instances, the to paint Biden as a socialist appears to have carried the day. Trump himself, in one of his , had charged that Biden was “a PUPPET of CASTRO-CHAVISTAS like Crazy Bernie, AOC and Castro-Lover Karen Bass.” In addition, Trump’s stance on China appears to have to significant numbers of Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino voters, if for different reasons such as, for Vietnamese American voters, the memory of China’s “imperialist efforts” in the region.

It would be easy to dismiss all of these voters as misguided, taken in by a con man whose “muscular leadership style” among certain portions of in Texas and elsewhere. Trump’s Christian posturing appeals to conservative Catholic and evangelical Hispanics, particularly with regard to the question of abortion. As one voter is in The New York Times, “Abortion is the litmus test, Jesus is my savior and Trump is my president.” The Trump administration’s did nothing to undermine the conviction that he was the right man to fix the mess and get the country’s economy back on its feet.

Really Existing Socialism

All of these are valid reasons, as good as any to explain the outcome of this election. This, however, is not the case when it comes to the major charge, which apparently had considerable traction among a significant number of voters, that with Biden, the United States would be on the road to socialism. For a European, this is ridiculous. It is even more preposterous when it evokes the likes of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, as if Maduro had anything to do with socialism — except for his claim to be a socialist. It once again shows to what degree the experience of “really existing socialism,” as the East German regime liked to put it, has debased and discredited what once was a beacon of hope for millions of people.

Marx never envisioned that the first countries to adopt his thoughts would be economically backward ones such as Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. For Marx, the fundamental precondition for socialism was the establishment of an economy of abundance, brought about by the “unfolding of the forces of production” — technological innovation and progress which would liberate humans from the drudgery of dull, repetitious, stultifying labor. History, unfortunately, threw a curveball. In the hands of Lenin and his successors, both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, socialism turned into a development strategy designed to catch up with the advanced economies in the West.

It was a miserable failure. In East Germany, for instance, the Socialist Unity Party (SED) claimed it was marching from one victory to the next until a rude awakening in 1989, when the “first socialist state on German soil” — as Erich Honecker, the leader of the GDR, declared on October 7, 1989, a month before the fall of the Berlin Wall — was forced to declare bankruptcy, both physically and ideologically. A system that cannot even guarantee the regular supply of toilet paper — and this in normal times, not during a pandemic — is hardly the socialist “workers and farmers’ paradise” the SED touted for decades. A socialist system is supposed to meet the material needs of its citizens so that the latter are in a position to develop their intellectual and artistic potential rather than having to stand in line to, perhaps, get hold of a measly banana.

Today, more often than not, “socialism” has been turned into a bugaboo that easily scares innocent minds. In the hands of political operators without scruples, it is an ideal means to undermine and discredit progressive ideas. Take, for instance, measures to confront global warming. In southern Texas, an area heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry, Hispanics voted against Biden because of the Democrats’ to promote renewable sources of energy, seen as being left-wing.

To be sure, the transition to renewables is causing and likely to continue to cause significant social dislocations. Economic theory suggests that the only reasonable way to mitigate the impact of these dislocations is a strong safety net that allows the losers of technological innovation to get the opportunity to retrain and lead a decent life. In the past, in advanced capitalist countries, it was primarily socialist and social democratic parties that promoted the social welfare state.

Today, even the and newspaper not only voice their concern about the dramatic increase in inequality and the nefarious fallout of hyperglobalization, but also stress the importance of a strong safety net and — the horror! the horror! — of state intervention in the economy. This is not socialism but basic common sense, which, unfortunately, appears quite alien to substantial parts of the American public.

The fact that a significant number of American voters have bought into the Republican narrative of Biden the promoter of socialism is just one more reflection of the deep polarization that characterizes the current political landscape of the United States. On the one side, Trump voters, full of nostalgia for times past when the US was a “God-fearing” country, the major economic power fueled by the abundant supply of cheap oil, respected and feared around the world. On the other, Biden voters, realistic (one might hope) about America’s diminished position on the international arena, humbled by the extent to which the virus exposed the country’s lack of preparedness and subsequent shortcomings which gainsaid the notion that the US still is “the greatest country in the world,” frightened by the apparent fragility of America’s democratic institutions and widespread public willingness to trade in democracy for the proverbial strong man.

It is to be hoped that ��������’s inauguration in January will mark the beginning of what promises to be a protracted process of healing. The threat of Trump returning in 2024 like Jason Voorhees (“He’s back!”) of Friday the 13^th fame, is certainly not going to make things easy. In the meantime, let hope prevail.

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Welcome to Joe ��������’s Socialist States of America appeared first on 51�Թ�.

360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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The losing incumbent, Donald Trump, has been a singularly divisive figure in American politics over the past several years. He is a racist and a white supremacist, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe, a misogynist and a narcissist, a liar and a petulant loser. Trump repeatedly denied scientific evidence when dealing with environmental issues and the coronavirus pandemic. The is nearing 250,000 from over 10 million cases, primarily due to the mishandling of the pandemic by the Trump administration. And yet, 8 million more people than the 62 million who voted him into office in 2016 find Trump’s actions and behavior as acceptable. A staggering 70 million Americans still feel that there is nothing wrong with the soul of the nation and chose to cast their vote for Trump.

If we are forced to draw conclusions about that intangible entity referred to as the soul of America just from the votes people cast in the presidential contest, we can only surmise that it is split almost evenly between what Joe Biden and Donald Trump stand for. Refusing to accept that verdict, I investigated down-ballot races across the country with the hope of unearthing other clues that could shed a light in my quest to understand where and what America stands for today.

Should Non-Citizens Be Able to Vote?

Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have in their constitution language to the effect that the right to vote is available only to citizens of the country. Notwithstanding that, Alabama, Florida and Colorado passed constitutional amendments to make the citizenship requirement for voting more explicit. What is interesting is not that these measures with an overwhelming majority, but the fact that 23% of voters in Alabama, 20% in Florida and 33% in Colorado cast their ballots against the measure.

The 3.5 million Americans who subscribe to the idea that non-citizens should be able to vote belong to an interesting segment of the nation’s population. Perhaps they echo my thought process that it is appropriate for non-citizens to get to vote on specific issues. As non-citizens, it makes sense that they do not get to participate in the representational democratic aspects such as electing the president, governor or members of Congress. However, in keeping with the philosophy of taxation with representation, it also makes sense for them to vote in specific propositions, measures and initiatives local to their place of residence.

Criminal Justice Reforms

Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota legalized recreational marijuana, increasing the list of that have decriminalized the to 31, including Washington, DC. Only in seven states — Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming — is the possession of marijuana fully illegal, even for medicinal purposes, although in North Carolina, it is not considered a criminal offense.

Oregon became a , the first state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs. Today, America’s have a population of 2.3 million, where one in five behind bars is there on account of a drug offense. With the decriminalization of marijuana, America’s , initiated by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, may finally be coming to an end.

A harsh reality of committing a felony offense is the loss of the right to vote. In the infamous presidential election of 2000, Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in the state of by a razor-thin margin of 537 votes. Florida, along with Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, has some of the harshest possible for people who have committed a felony offense. According to the , 5.2 million people were ineligible to vote in the 2020 elections. Nearly 22%, or 1.13 million of them, are in the state of Florida. History may have been very different, and Bush may never have won the 2000 election had Florida’s laws allowed former felons who have paid their dues to the justice system and turned their lives around to vote.

This November, California made a shift to take a more liberal view on the voting rights of those with felony convictions. Californians restored the right to vote for people on parole, removing an important obstacle in allowing former felons to become full-fledged members of society. They also rejected a proposal that sought stricter parole rules and harsher sentencing.

Eliminating Symbols of Slavery

Earlier in June, retired the state flag that had incorporated a version of the Confederate battle banner in it. The people of Mississippi voted to a new flag with the symbol of magnolia and the words “In God We Trust,” removing one of the last vestiges of Confederacy in a state flag.

Rhode Island voters a measure to strip the racially insensitive phrase “Providence Plantations” from its official name, after having failed to do so in 2010. By an overwhelming majority of 80% and an impressive majority of 68%, respectively, voters in passed an initiative that removes references to slavery from their constitutions and suspends the permission of involuntary servitude as criminal punishment.

 And the Verdict Is

Toning down the populist and ill-conceived war-on-drugs rhetoric and easing the reintegration of former felons into society by restoring their voting rights are small steps toward meaningful criminal justice reform. Eliminating signifiers that celebrate the Confederacy and slavery from state names and flags is more than symbolic. They open up a path to healing, rejecting the hatred that lurks in the veneration of the icons of white supremacy.

The disappointments came from my home state of California. Here, Proposition 22 posed the question of whether such Uber and Lyft drivers should be treated as contractors or as employees with proper benefits. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Postmates pumped nearly $200 million dollars to avoid the responsibility of giving gig-workers employee status. Their marketing blitzkrieg recruited Mothers Against Drunk Driving to portray a dismal scenario of increased drunk-driving deaths should this proposition fail. In the end, capitalism won where people opted to have their cheap Uber and Lyft rides, even if it meant denying their drivers their fair share of benefits.

More poignantly, California missed its chance to reinstate affirmative action, which it ended in 1996 without giving adequate time for that initiative to have a meaningful impact. Sadly, more than 56% of voters failed to appreciate that compensating for centuries of advantages enjoyed by whites and other privileged classes would not only require counterinitiatives like affirmative action, but that they need to be given time so that African Americans and other disadvantaged minorities have a true shot at social equity.

Counterbalancing my disappointments stemming from the 70 million who are still willing to embrace Donald Trump and Californians rejecting affirmative action, I found many down-ballot measures, from Mississippi to Utah, from Arizona to New Jersey, pointing to a subtle shift in the right direction. That gives me a glimmer of hope that the soul of America may not be so dark as to be beyond redemption. And as they say, hope springs eternal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Searching for the Soul of America appeared first on 51�Թ�.

360˚ Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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That is a pity. COVID-19 has brought lessons in its wake that we will ignore at our peril. In a societal sense, the pandemic has laid bare the fragile and counterproductive assumptions that underpin the way we have organized ourselves. Education, as the primary mechanism that drives long-term change in a society, must respond in a way that protects and strengthens children today and the nation tomorrow.

Institutionalisation of Education

Three important mechanisms of social organization that have been taken for granted in education during recent decades are institutionalization, urbanization and globalization. If COVID-19 is not a one-off event — and there is no reason to assume that it is given how exploitative our engagement with our environment continues to be — each one of them must be reassessed for worth, especially for how they affect the future of our children.

Institutionalization has promoted the idea that the only learning worth our children’s time and our money is the one that is provided in schools, colleges and universities. Across most of the world, this has made learning information-centric and uncritical. It has packed children into rows and columns in classrooms and made them unfamiliar with their surroundings. It has taken them away from the productive use of their hands and bodies, and valorized “brain work,” creating an artificial crisis of periodic unemployment even before the unimaginable destruction of employment caused by COVID-19.

It has snapped children’s’ connections with their land, their environment, their culture and their communities, replacing them with words in ink on paper or typeface on a computer screen. In India, a mindless pedagogy has further ensured that institutionalization fails even in its own objectives as student achievement in “learning metrics,” mainly focused on literacy, numeracy and data, has kept falling.

With pre-school centers closed, COVID-19 has brought attention squarely to the role of parents in the holistic development of their young children. (We started Sajag, a program for coaching caregivers in nurturing care in April 2020. It now reaches over 1.5 million families and is set to expand further. Many others have started similar programs.) By forcing the closure of schools and colleges, COVID-19 presents us with the opportunity to explore what exactly is being lost when schools close. It also creates the possibility that we will discover how much there is to learn in communities, on land, in relationships and in discovery and invention, outside the school. It has the promise of suggesting a radical overhaul of what we value in education.

Urbanization of Communities

Urbanization has caused us to believe that ghettoization of people in cities is inevitable as we “develop.” With economic and social policies in most countries oriented toward this shibboleth, we have seen unhygienic conditions grow exponentially in cities, even as rural communities have been devastated by the loss of populations. Mental health challenges in urban communities have become alarming, accentuated simply by the inhuman stresses that accompany urban living. For our young, it has meant few physical spaces for wholesome growth and play, little opportunity for meaningful community engagement, and a social landscape tragically barren of nurturing experiences.

By attacking densely-packed urban communities disproportionately, COVID-19 has laid bare the fallacy of organizing ourselves solely for economic efficiency. It asks us to reconsider how physical communities should be laid out, how large they should be, how they should harmonize into the surrounding landscape and how their cultural, economic and political sinews should function.

We have also been fed the inevitability of globalization, almost as a primal force. It is true that it promises economic efficiency, but we have, in the process, lost much. Diversity is the essence of risk reduction and long-term survival and thriving, whether at the level of an organization, a community, a nation or, indeed, evolution of life itself. In a few short decades, blinded by the promise of economic efficiency, we have traded diversity away for massive inequality and loss of local skills, trades, crafts, self-reliance, agency and autonomy. Our textbooks, the only source of information promoted by our policies, have consistently failed to ignite an examination of the underlying assumptions and the all too visible outcomes among our children.

COVID-19 has alerted us to the downsides of these Faustian bargains. Its dramatic spread is certainly a result of our way of life, with air travel being the primary vector. The heart-breaking spectacle of tens of millions of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometers and sleeping on asphalt roads in ���Ի徱��’s scorching summer heat is another. They discovered that they had no means of support, no community, no fallback when their employment ceased. COVID-19 has also awakened us rudely to the reality that having the world’s fastest GDP growth rate is no protection against ending up with the world’s steepest fall in GDP and widespread misery.

Globalization of Society

The globalizing impulse has led to entire education systems being unmoored from authentic experience and unresponsive to local needs. As a result, it has fostered and valorized the creation of an alienating and alienated elite. The reaction to that is a distressing level of anti-intellectualism throughout the world. That, of course, creates the fodder for the assembly line that is perhaps the holy grail of the globalizing philosophy in the first place, but it also creates a dangerous level of instability and irrationality in society that can eventually only tear everything apart.

To the extent that we continue to regard globalization as self-evidently good, we create the potential for damaging our children, inhibiting their learning and creating a world that is less fit for them. Time has come to drop the fiction that local wisdom is somehow inferior and to engage in a meaningful dialogue that hasn’t foreclosed on the alternatives.

To disregard such fundamental questions in an education policy adopted in the middle of the pandemic makes little sense. These should be the subject of widespread dialogue, including in our schools and colleges, before and after the adoption of the policy. The sensibilities that arise from such deliberations must inform our liberal education as well as the conduct of professions such as engineering, town planning, medicine, economics, sociology and, indeed, education. An education policy that doesn’t even consider the questions relevant to how our education system should be structured has surely not paid attention.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Add to the equation that there is a deep sense among progressive activists, people of color, the underprivileged and the under-represented that over 71.5 million for Trump was a direct repudiation of their demands for a dynamic push forward for social, economic and racial justice in America. And this doesn’t even get to the immediacy of confronting a rampaging pandemic at home and an abundance of global challenges.

360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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Amid the chaos, let me be clear that I hope an armed confrontation can be avoided and that there will be enough leadership and institutional integrity to force an orderly transfer of power. However, the election results make clear that many more people voted for Trump this time than last time. Targeted right-wing messaging works, and there is no apparent antidote. Those 71.5 million votes for Trump are a terrible outcome for a nation at war with itself and in which only the right-wingers have the guns.

As ��������’s victory sets in, there will be those who cheered on Trump and his toxic message who will not rest until they try to blow something up along with the country itself. As that unfolds, there is likely to be the first foundational test of America’s political and military institutions since the Civil War. I am not sure those institutions will hold. It is certainly not clear that those institutions can ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

Healing the Nation

At some point, something will have to give. At that point, a crippled America will harvest the rancid fruit of decades of delusion about how “exceptional” the nation was as it grew intellectually lazy, willed its future to greedy and corrupt capitalists, and utterly failed to invest in a sustainable system of governance that could meet the challenges of an evolving world. Picking up the pieces will not be easy.

The 50-state solution so beloved by those wallowing in the 19th century simply must be discarded, and some new foundation for national governance must be designed and implemented. Unfortunately, with the coronavirus pandemic ripping its way through the populace and a court system packed with those 19th-century wannabes, the time for wishful thinking will have to wait. The 50-state solution will have to be urgently junked to address the pandemic with a national plan and national mandates. Maybe afterward, America can study the results of the coordinated national response and find the way to a new, vibrant, 21st-century federal system.

Meanwhile, there will be an enormous amount of focus on how America got to this point, but I want to get out front that years of “false equivalency” disguised as “balance” or “fairness” has poisoned the nation’s well of fact-based knowledge from which any democratic nation would hope that its citizens could draw. Much has been said about willful ignorance, but not enough about the fountains of falsehoods that feed those unwilling to learn much of anything that requires factual focus. Repetition of belief is no substitute for acquisition of knowledge.

The impending national convulsion has just begun. A reckoning with collective ignorance and the arrogance of ignorance is essential as the starting point for a meaningful national dialog about how America so completely lost its way. The responsible mainstream media and social media outlets have to stop honoring falsehood with repetition and that most ludicrous of questions — “What’s your response?” And to try to rebuild lost credibility, real and transparent sourcing of news reporting has to again become the rule.

Then, if government institutions are to be resurrected and strengthened, there must be some measure of accountability for those who worked so diligently to undermine governance, often to enhance their own wealth and power. Today’s list of the corrupt is really long. Trump is a sick symptom, a tool used by so many others to achieve corrupt ends. But he is also symbolic of so much of what is so wrong that his accountability is an essential component of any national reckoning.

It is important that Trump be charged with the crimes he has committed both in office and in his corrupt life that led to his election in the first place in 2016. It is equally important that those in his inner circle, including his family, his enabling aides, his attorney general and his secretary of state, all find themselves under criminal investigative scrutiny.

This will surely further divide the nation. But it will be impossible to begin the healing if there is no accountability for the intentional wrongdoing that has led to so much suffering and dysfunction. Those who corruptly profited from the past should have to pay in the present if there is to be a future with the rule of law restored to its proper place in the national pantheon of virtues.

Joe ��������’s Inauguration

However, the critical first task ahead is to ensure ��������’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. Unfortunately, that date is over 10 weeks away. Ten weeks of an angry and “victimized” Trump still empowered to “govern” will bleed so much more blood from the nation. He will have to be thwarted at every turn each and every day, so the hard work of restoration can begin now.

This must start with a national plan to confront the coronavirus pandemic that is raging across America and much of the globe. This cannot wait 10 more weeks. There is no need for a “balanced” discussion because we have no choice. We have seen how a venal leader can lead so many to their demise and so many more to a participatory march to more death and disease.

Biden must try hard to convince those participatory marchers to turn around, look at those they care about and start protecting themselves and others. This will be a hard sell, and those of us who have already seen this light will have to step up our game as well. It is no longer fine for corporate sloths and all those endangered small businesses to wink at their “no mask, no entry” signs. It is time for local governments to publicly out those businesses that do not enforce mask mandates and social distancing in their community and publicly support those that do.

I am hardly certain where any of this will end. But I am certain that the false narrative of a caring, giving and committed people has now finally been ripped from our delusional midst. America is not now, nor has it often been, much of anything to be proud of.

*[This article was co-published on the author’s , Hard Left Turn.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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First, however, it’s important to call attention to all the things that went well for America this last week. And they’re vitally important for Americans — and non-Americans, too — to understand and appreciate as the nation and its new president invest themselves in this herculean challenge ahead.

360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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For all the Sturm und Drang in the lead-up to the election, voting came off largely without a hitch. All voters who came to vote were able to do so. In most cases, waiting times were mercifully brief. tended to occur more frequently during the early voting. Those voters deserve their country’s respect and gratitude for their patience, persistence and commitment to the democratic process. Despite plenty of hiccups in primary voting that took place earlier in the year, national election day procedures and systems performed just as they were supposed to do. Early voting as well as mail-in and absentee voting, occurring in many states for the first time to minimize the dangers of COVID-19, also proceeded with few problems.

Delays in ballot tabulation occurred in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and elsewhere largely because Republican-controlled legislatures prohibited starting the counting process until November 3 — voting day. In the end, that may have redounded against them and President Donald Trump. Also, to minimize voters’ exposure to COVID-19, many states were using mail-in voting and same-day voter registration for the first time, accounting for further delays.

Vox Populi

The success of the process was bolstered throughout the nation by competent election administrators and effective election systems, manned by armies of conscientious volunteers, Republicans, Democrats and independents. Donald Trump’s predictable, sore-loser accusations of fraud and manipulation are specious and groundless. His legal claims will likely go nowhere.

Furthermore, fears of violence or public unrest at polling places or in cities never really materialized, from either the left or the right. There were few, if any, reports of voter intimidation. The American people seemed to understand that this most sacred and honored element of their much-bruised democracy was off-limits. It was their chance to express their views, wishes and wants in the most forceful and effective way possible in a democracy.

The world may also take heart in the level of participation in this election. The voter participation rate — expected to reach of the population eligible to vote once all ballots are counted – will exceed the previous high of 65.7% set in the 1908 elections. In my home state of Colorado, will reach an astounding 85%, the highest in the nation and the highest ever of any US state in modern election history.

It may be fair to credit Donald Trump for wresting American voters from their traditional election lethargy. He unquestionably stirred deep and strong sentiments among supporters and critics alike. They responded as they should in a democratic society — by going to the polls. For America, vox populi prevailed.

There is a related benefit to the increased voter turnout. It would be hard to find a period in recent US history when so many Americans took such a strong interest in public affairs. One could hardly go to the supermarket, walk through a parking garage, take a stroll through the neighborhood or sit in a classroom or office — at least those still functioning under COVID-19 restrictions — without hearing people talk about the political issues and the election. Political conversations — whether online, on social media, TV, radio, print or at the kitchen table — dominated like never before. Animated and even stressful at times, these are nevertheless heartening. It is essential that this communication take place in order to keep a democracy vibrant and innervated. An engaged citizenry makes for a stronger democracy.

Finally, the much-feared tampering by outside “influencers” also failed to materialize, though not from . Federal, state and local agencies and authorities did in fact come together to ensure that these elections were largely and that the results do indeed reflect the genuine will of the people. Intelligence agencies tipped off Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies about fake social media accounts and posts in order to restrict the reach of bots and prevent the spread of false information. That was in spite of a president who has insisted for four years that outside agents had no influence in the 2016 election, when all three US intelligence agencies — the CIA, NSC and FBI — concluded otherwise.

The upshot of the 2020 election process is that the core component of America’s democracy — the expression of the people’s will — proved strong, healthy and resilient. It worked.

Now the Hard Part

Despite that success, however, American democracy faces enormous pressures. The nation is plainly divided into two near-equal camps. Each seems unable and unwilling to listen or reach out to the opposite side, viewing the other as enemies rather than political adversaries. It is unhealthy and unsustainable. Democracy without compromise, almost a forbidden word in the rival camps, leads to stagnation and collapse. It will be President-elect ��������’s task to start the process to bridge this gaping chasm in American public life.

Just how is America divided? Some argue, rather eloquently and persuasively, that it’s a conflict of classes. In one corner is a wealthy, entitled, well-educated and aloof stratum of elites divorced from and insensitive to the needs of what is essentially a working class. This working class, in the opposite corner, provides for the elite’s essential services, contributes the manual labor to build and maintain their glass-encased office complexes and luxury homes, grows and processes their food, makes and maintains the cars and machines they depend on, cleans their cities, operates and maintains the transportation networks, and fights and dies in their wars.

The latter point bears elaboration because it is particularly illustrative of an apparent divide. Since 2001, America has been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which continue today. US forces remain present, though in fewer numbers today than five or 10 years ago, in both countries as well in other countries around the world. A recent by the Council on Foreign Relations showed that 83% of American military recruits come from families or neighborhoods whose median incomes fall below $85, 850. Only 17% came from income levels above that.

The median household income in the US was $68,703 in 2019. People of color are disproportionately represented in the enlisted ranks of the Army, Navy and Air Force (African Americans) and the Marine Corps (Hispanics). In fact, black Americans are far their country in uniform than their white counterparts.

The United States turns to its middle and lower classes to defend itself and fight its wars pretty much like every civilization throughout history dating back to the Roman Empire. But none of those were democracies. So-called elites, who benefit substantially more than their lower-income fellow citizens in terms of legal protections, opportunity, privilege and rights, bear fewer of the burdens of defending and sustaining that system of rights than those who arguably profit less from it. One does not go to Harvard, Stanford or MIT in order to enlist or even seek an officer’s commission in America’s armed forces.

Class or Geography?

However, it is another statistical nugget in the CFR study that may allow one to argue that, in fact, it isn’t class that divides America. It’s geography. Data of state-by-state contributions to the enlisted ranks of the military indicate that states of the southeast, which are less affluent, are overly represented. The more well-off states of the northeast are underrepresented.

With that in mind, consider the state-by-state . With the exception of Georgia, whose growing metropolis of Atlanta belatedly delivered the Southern state to Biden, the Southeast was Donald Trump territory. The Southeast and the Midwest, which also went for Trump, are disproportionately rural and host fewer large cities than the states along America’s two coasts, which gave their electoral votes to Joe Biden.

America’s electoral map has changed little since the end of the Civil War. The electoral maps of , just 15 years after the war, and , over 40 years afterward, are illustrative. (Note: In the 1880 map, the colors used to designate the parties is reversed from what it is today — Republicans were blue and Democrat states red.) There is one important consideration that dramatically altered the party alignment in the South. With the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Southern Democrats switched to Republican. Richard Nixon cleverly played the race card in 1968 at the height of the civil rights movement and again in 1973, cementing Southern loyalty for the Republican Party for the first time. It isn’t class that is at the heart of what divides America today. For one thing, Americans never bought into the old Marxist-Leninist argument of class warfare. It was an outmoded and unrelatable Old World argument. It didn’t apply to them.

Classes most certainly exist in the US, and Americans know it. Except for the Native Americans, all US citizens find their roots among immigrants who came overwhelmingly from lower classes. Most immigrants who came to this country through the 1970s were poor and seeking the kind of opportunities not available to them in their countries of origin. What they sought, later defined as upward mobility, was an America where class may have existed but wouldn’t matter. Most Americans, with the exception of blacks, Native Americans and other people of color, believed that class warfare could not exist in their country. Their problems, like everything else about America, were different.

The real division in America is urban versus rural, supplemented with a healthy dose of race. Two recent books make persuasive cases for class versus the urban-rural arguments. Michael Lind, in his well-researched “,” makes the case for social class divisions in America. Ezra Klein’s “” makes the case for what I would describe as American tribalism, an almost political Hatfields against the McCoys. Only it’s Republicans versus Democrats. In her review and comparison of these two excellent publications, Professor Amy Chua that Klein’s categorization embraces religion, race and geography.

But electoral politics suggest that geography, and not just on a national scale, may be the culprit and what really defines America’s current challenges. Even within predominantly Democratic states, rural counties typically were drawn to Donald Trump. Overwhelmingly Democrat and — and on the Republican side — illustrate the point. America’s differences on just about every public issue today — race, gender, abortion, guns, big government, religion, taxes … you name it — can almost always be sorted by the urban versus rural criteria.

America’s Second Reconstruction

How does Joe Biden begin to fix that? Judging from his 50 years in politics, he may be fairly well suited. He’s not an ideological iconoclast. Nor is he vindictive. He won’t launch a campaign to vanquish his opponents in the fashion of Donald Trump. His campaign rhetoric and post-election commentary all suggest that he’ll follow a moderate political course and look for compromise. And Biden comes from America’s working classes.

That is all necessary. But it’s far from sufficient. Biden needs a second Reconstruction. The ideological brainchild of Abraham Lincoln following the American Civil War, reconstruction sought to bring the South back into the American fold, promote economic reintegration and development, eradicate the vestiges of slavery, and incorporate the freed slaves into American society. It was generally considered to be successful despite Andrew Johnson’s, Lincoln’s successor, efforts to weaken it. A pro-Reconstruction, Republican-controlled Congress and President Ulysses Grant ensured steady progress. Nevertheless, it was tragically cut short, sacrificed in the political horse-trading to win Southern Democrats’ support for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes following the disputed 1876 election.

With it went a united nation, with black Americans finally getting a taste of the forbidden American fruit of opportunity and upward mobility. Jim Crow, segregation and lynching became the order of the day, effectively slavery without the formal system. Also lost were the South’s opportunity to capitalize on what would soon explode in the North and elsewhere — the Industrial Revolution. Like the Great Emancipator, his noble dream of Reconstruction followed Lincoln to an early grave.

Reconstruction remains unfinished business in America. And not just in the South. Rural areas throughout America need reconstruction. They need capital, infrastructure, better health care, improved schools and opportunities, especially jobs. This must especially include areas of concentrations of black, brown and Indigenous Americans. To capitalize fully on its great bounty, America’s rural communities need to connect to their urban counterparts.

Donald Trump may have correctly read the frustrations and anxieties of rural America. But he manipulated those earnest feelings to advance the Trump brand. He offered no solutions. Instead, Americans heard verbal palliatives that made rural Americans feel that someone in Washington was finally listening. But the frustrations of being outside America’s prosperity are still with rural citizens and people of color.

Biden will have to find a way to earn their trust and then begin a new reconstruction. His program, starting with coming to grips with the pandemic and getting it under control, may offer the broad outlines for a new Reconstruction. To earn that trust and start the healing process of his country, Biden may wish to refer to Lincoln’s . With a large dose of humility, grace and forgiveness, President-elect Biden must listen to rural Americans, especially to those of color, all of whom want not only to share in America’s bounty but also to preserve what is important to their cherished lifestyles. America’s diversity is an unquestionable strength of its democracy. That must include its urban-rural diversity, too.

It may be historical irony that to heal a deeply divided nation, the newly elected president must look back to another president who sought to heal the much deeper divisions of a broken nation. This time, it must be made to work. The country’s future may depend on it.

*[This piece was updated on 11/11/2020, at 08:41 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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I published an in July 2016 stating that I believed that Donald Trump had narcissistic personality disorder, and tried to warn America what would be in store for it if we elected him president. Exactly four years ago, on the eve of the US presidential election, I wrote an article predicting that Trump would win. My view was based largely on the belief that Hillary Clinton’s intended “coronation” was premature, that she was a flawed candidate, and that Trump had succeeded in tapping into an important vein in American political culture — the neglected blue-collar voter. I published that at 3:00 the morning after the election, one of the very first to have acknowledged the birth of Trumpism.

In that piece, I wrote:

“It is doubtful that Mr. Trump will be able to heal our terribly divided nation, which he so handily and successfully contributed to. Now that the battle lines are drawn — between those who cling to an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ vision of America, in which everyone is white, conservative, straight and Christian, and those who recognize and accept the multi-racial, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation of this great land — there is no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, certainly not with a leader hell bent on fanning tendencies toward divisiveness, rather than unity. While we are certainly not all going to be joining hands together and singing kumbaya, no matter who is president, we are not going to get there by having a Divider-in-Chief at the helm.”

We have seen the result of four years under his thumb. America has rarely been more partisan or divided. Those who yearned for an Ozzie-and-Harriet vision of America have become more emboldened four years later, apparently believing that America can once again become a bastion of white conservatism, replete with racism, bigotry and misogyny. That is unlikely to happen. America has become too diverse, and sufficient progress has been made toward equality to revert to that sad vision. The partisanship will surely only continue to get worse in the coming four years. The question is, can we ever return to a time when bipartisanship reigns?

It was of course just a generation ago when that was the norm. I’d that Joe Biden can take us some ways in that direction, but what will probably be required to return to that era is sustained leadership by someone who has not spent decades with their snout in the trough inside the Beltway. Biden is not that man, but neither are the majority of politicians in Congress who have made being a politician a way of life rather than a temporary service to their community, state or nation.

To achieve that, America will need a wholesale change in how it is governed in Washington, complete with cleaning house, term limits, mandatory accountability pledges and an end to special interests, lobbyists and corruption, among other things. There’s little chance that will be happening any time soon. It appears that we will have to settle for just heading down that road, which would be a victory in itself, knowing that America has saved itself from perhaps insurmountable damage of a second Trump term.

As for Trump, he will surely not be going quietly into the night. We can expect that he will challenge the results of the election for days and weeks, if not months, to come, his fragile ego refusing to acknowledge that he is the ultimate “loser.” While he toils and writhes in egomaniac agony, he will be planning his next act, which may be some combination of reality television or radio show, creation of a media empire or planning his own political comeback in 2024. Donald Trump has made an undeniable, indelible mark on the American political landscape, for better or worse, and his ego will not allow him to simply walk away as George W. Bush did.

As for his followers, surely they will not be changing their political stripes or beliefs any time soon, nor should they be expected to. From their perspective, they have found a political voice, so Trump will have a loyal legion of fans supporting him no matter what he decides to do. That ensures that America will be in for many more years of Trumpism, and his legacy will of course live on in the Supreme Court for decades.

America got the leader it deserved for the past four years, but for the first time since 1992, it has decided to reverse course after Trump has served a single term. Let us hope that Joe Biden can at least start down the road of healing this fractured nation and that whatever he is able to achieve in the coming four years serves as a useful counterpunch to Trumpism. While America can endure Donald Trump’s legacy bubbling beneath the surface, it cannot afford another four years of a Trump presidency. We have to believe that, having said no to another Trump term, America has decided that another four years of him is a price that is just too high to pay. The question is, will the answer be the same when Trump runs again in 2024?

*[Daniel Wagner is the  of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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What is surprising is not the outcome of this election, but the surprise of those surprised by it. After all, over the past four years, dozens of books, articles, papers and blog posts have been written purporting to explain why Trump won in 2016 and why he continued to hold on to his constituency, despite everything. Yet four years later, few seem to have taken the findings to heart.

Simple Explanations

Unfortunately enough, in today’s world, simple explanations no longer suffice to get to the heart of things. Social scientists like simple, monocausal explanations. Rational choice theories maintain that what counts for voters is their pocketbook. As a famous adage has it, It’s the economy, stupid. Yet as Thomas Frank, in his well-known book “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” in 2004, over the past few decades, among ordinary people, cultural issues have increasingly outweighed economics as a matter of public concern. To be sure, Frank’s conclusions encountered considerable opposition, but recent developments appear to substantiate his interpretation.

Take the story of West Virginia’s coal mining community. In 2016, Trump promised to resurrect coal, that “clean beautiful coal” that had guaranteed well-paying jobs in one of America’s most depressed regions, the Appalachians. But after four years in office, Trump had done nothing to halt the closing of coal mines. And yet, coal mining communities continued to support Trump. Why? Partly because of his “America First” slogan, but also because of his anti-abortion stance and, last but not least, because he to be the “only one standing in the way of the entire industry closing down.”

Nationalist pride mixed with cultural concerns and economic wishful thinking — this is the ideational brew that has appealed to substantial parts of the American electorate and, apparently, continues to do so. Voters in the state of Michigan are a case in point. Michigan was once the hub of America’s automotive industry, providing well-paying jobs to thousands of American workers. Detroit’s well-deserved moniker was Motor City. For a while, Detroit was also known for a new sound in music, Motown. Motown moved, the automotive industry collapsed, people fled the city. In 1950, Detroit a population of 1.8 million, the fifth-largest city in the United States. By 2019, its population had declined to a bit more than 670,000, the city a shadow of its former self. In 2016, Trump promised that the automotive industry would come back to Michigan. It didn’t. Trump 2020 otherwise: “We brought you a lot of car plants, Michigan! We brought you a lot of car plants. You know that, right?” His enthusiastic supporters knew it. Why? Because Trump told them so.

No matter that reality was the opposite. In fact, not only since the “coming of Trump” had not one auto plant been built in Michigan, but, as Mark Danner in The New York Review of Books, “since his ascension not less than three thousand Michiganders had lost jobs in the vital auto sector.” Apparently, the power of make-belief trumps anything, even facts. But then, facts are nothing but the machinations of the lamestream media, out there to discredit the wonderful work of the Great Leader.

Reality No Longer Counts

If reality no longer counts in politics, what is left? It has been that contemporary American politics is “close to a religion.” Religions tend to have a Manichean bent, centered upon a fundamental struggle between the forces of good and of evil, between light and darkness, God and Satan. Ironically enough, the notion of political religion entered the social sciences in the context of totalitarianism — fascism, Nazism and Stalinism. This obviously is not intended to conflate Trump with any of these regimes. Trump, as I have stated before, is a populist, and populism must not be mixed up with totalitarianism.

Modern populism, as exemplified in its crudest form by Donald Trump, follows the logic introduced by the German political theorist Carl Schmitt. Central to Schmitt’s thinking is the notion that politics is above all grounded in the distinction between friend and enemy. A number of recent surveys suggest that this antagonism, popularly known as polarization, has become central to understanding contemporary American politics. Donald Trump has been a master in evoking and fueling a range of emotions, from disgust to resentment, from anxiety to rage, that have contributed to and have exacerbated existing political animosities, widening, in the process, the existing partisan divide.

Surveys reveal that the Schmittian spirit has deeply penetrated American society and the electorate. In December last year, for instance, in a comprehensive on partisanship, 55% of Republicans said that Democrats, and 47% percent of Democrats said that Republicans, were “more immoral” when compared with other Americans. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this spirit, with its quasi-religious overtones, has even reached into American families.

Held Together With String, Can America Hold?

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A recent article in The Jesuit Review the story of a Catholic Trump supporter whose four children, all of them working in science-related fields, “hate Donald Trump” and think “he is evil.” The father obviously disagrees, reflected, for instance, in his refusal to wear a protective mask when in public. In response, one of his sons told him that if he should ever have children, he would not want his father around since he was a “bad influence.” That, the father is quoted as saying, “just broke my heart.”

A recent New York Times tells the story of a twin who no longer feels close to her brother because of his views on Trump, with which she does not merely disagree but which she finds “unfathomable.” Any attempt to discuss the divide separating the two siblings end in anger and mutual acrimony, putting a severe strain on their relationship.

Over the past years, there has been a number of accounts of Americans canceling participation in family Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings in order to avoid having to deal with relatives from the other side of the political chasm. A New York Times from late 2016,  “Political Divide Splits Relationships — and Thanksgiving, Too,” recounts the particularly poignant case of a software designer who decided “to move her wedding so that her fiancé’s grandmother and aunt, strong Trump supporters from Florida, could not attend.”

Two Visions

To be sure, anecdotal evidence is what it is, anecdotal evidence. But in conjunction with representative surveys, it provides further support for the deep chasm that divides contemporary American society. The motto of the American seal is E pluribus unum — Out of many, one. The past few years have clearly shown — and the result of the recent election has reconfirmed it — that the motto should be modified, at least for the time being, from E pluribus unum to E pluribus duum. What we are seeing today even more so than four years ago is a territorial entity with a population not only living in two diametrically opposed realities, but with two diametrically opposed views on reality.

In the European literature on radical right-wing populism, one of the more prominent interpretative frames of analysis is the notion of informing electoral support for or against the radical populist right — visions of either an open or of a closed society. In today’s world, a better characterization of these radically divergent visions might be cosmopolitanism versus parochialism. Sociologically, cosmopolitan dispositions are particularly prevalent in metropolitan areas and global cities, parochial dispositions in rural, small-town areas. A cursory glance at the American electoral map provides an almost perfect illustration of these dynamics. Anecdotal evidence fills in the details.

Take, for instance, a recent New York Times on farmers in Nebraska, most of them ardent Trump supporters. They were thrilled when Trump claimed in 2016 that he would stick up for the “forgotten men and women of our country,” who, he promised would “be forgotten no longer.” Four years later, Trump supporters in “places like rural Nebraska say they feel remembered. To them, these four years have brought a sense of belonging in a country led by someone who sticks up for, and understands, their most cherished beliefs.”

This sense of regained dignity and respect, and a renewed sense of belonging among large parts of what has come to be known as flyover country — the vast landmass between the two coasts, home to all those Americans who in recent decades have increasingly felt not only but like “strangers in their own land” — explains to a large extent why they have continued to stick with Trump. The fact that he has largely failed to deliver? Not important. But Trump’s tariff war with China hurt Midwestern farmers in particular, forcing the Trump administration to come up with a multi-billion rescue package — at the expense of the American taxpayer.

Religion is based on faith, not facts. You have to believe that God created the world some 10,000 years ago, even if science tells you that 250 million years ago, a cataclysmic event wiped out much of life on this planet. You have to believe that global warming is nothing but a hoax, another one of these liberal ploys to prevent you from pursuing the American dream. This year, roughly two-thirds of Democrats that climate change was an important issue; among Republicans, less than 15%.

Political religion is a zero sum game. There is no compromise between those who believe that life starts with conception and those who think that women should have a choice on whether or not to bring their pregnancy to full term. There is no middle ground between those for whom Black Lives Matter is a fundamental civil rights issue and those for whom it is nothing but an excuse for large-scale violence. There is nothing that those who believe women are at a systematic disadvantage and those who believe that the most discriminated person in today’s world is the white male.

No matter the ultimate outcome of this election, it is not going to change the fundamental political crisis that way precedes the advent of Donald Trump. As has often been noted, Trump is not its cause but its expression. As I have written before, Trump is nothing but an empty signifier, which allows all those who have been disenchanted with the trajectory of American history and politics over the past decades to project their disenchantment and rage, their frustrations and ressentiment, their disgust and fears onto one man.

The ultimate outcome of this election is going to change nothing with regard to the deep-seated problems that have sundered apart the fabric of what once was, for all of its faults and blemishes, a dynamic democracy. In a recent poll, a two-thirds majority of respondents said they that democracy in the United States was in grave peril. Regardless of who is ultimately going to lead America come next year, it will take considerably more than mere rhetoric to restore confidence in the workings of what, after all, is one of the world’s most established democracies.

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Another 60 million or so voted on Election Day, making the total number of citizens who voted reach nearly 160 million, according to estimates. This works out to a historic 66.8% of the 239.2 million Americans eligible to vote in 2020.

These people had one reason to participate in the democratic process. They wanted their vote to count. They wanted their ballot to be counted. Intellectually, it is easy to rationalize the logic that a person exercising their franchise wants their voice heard. That rationale took a far more significant meaning when I got a chance to observe the face, the countenance and emotions of a person when they showed up at a vote center and said, “I would like to vote.”

Listening to Voters

I worked as an election officer in my local county for the 2020 elections and had the opportunity to observe first-hand nearly 1,500 people who stopped by at my vote center. What I experienced when I directly interacted with many of them made my usual intellectual rationale pale in significance, allowing me to viscerally appreciate the importance of every single vote.

It was heartwarming to observe a nonagenarian lady and her septuagenarian daughter come in together to cast their vote — the daughter assisting her mother with the process.

There was an elderly lady who required the assistance of her husband, a mobility walking aid device and a portable oxygen tank in order for her to come to the vote center and drop off her vote-by-mail envelope. She could have dropped it in one of the 100 ballot boxes the county had set up. Yet for this lady, it was important to come to a vote center — even if it meant taking one small step at a time from the parking lot — and be assured that her vote would count by an election official before dropping her envelope in the proper bag.

There was an octogenarian man who was not comfortable coming into the vote center due to COVID-19. We assisted him by setting up a polling station out in the open so he could exercise his right to vote. Despite being worried about his health and the pandemic, this old man decided to come in person and ensure that his voice was heard.

Worried that using the United States Postal Service may not get their ballot to their county in time, an older couple was willing to drive more than 400 miles in order to drop off their ballot in their county of residence. Thankfully, we were able to assure them that dropping their vote-by-mail envelope in our vote center would ensure their ballot would reach the appropriate county and their vote counted.

Another person who was concerned that the vote-by-mail envelope she had mailed had not been recorded in the system made several phone calls to various people — including Senator Kamala Harris’ office — before deciding to come to a vote center to understand what had happened. In her conversation with me, she kept repeating, “All I want is for my vote to count.” Thankfully, we were also able to assist her and allay her fears that her voice would not be heard in what she felt was “the most important election she has ever voted in.”

Yet another person who works for the city but registered to vote in a neighboring county that was a couple of hours drive away accosted me when I was taking a break to get some fresh air. Explaining his special circumstances, he clarified with me exactly how he could vote. Once he understood the process, I could hear him talking to his manager asking for time off on Election Day so he could drive to his county and exercise his franchise.

Living in one of the most diverse counties in America, we were also able to assist several monolingual voters with the process. One of our bilingual aides spent nearly an hour assisting a first-time voter who only spoke Spanish. Another aide assisted a Vietnamese family who were somewhat overwhelmed by the voting process.

Every Vote Counts

These are only a handful of the many instances when I could sense the palpable concern of the voter who needed to be assured that despite efforts by the sitting president to discredit the democratic process, their voice would be heard.

I am just one average citizen, living in one corner of America, but one who actively participated in the elections this year. My eyes misted over on more than one occasion when I interacted with people who braved many personal challenges, be it physical, emotional or a linguistic one, in order to exercise their democratic right. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of people across the length and breadth of the country had to overcome their own personal obstacles in order to cast their vote in this election.

As I cleared my thoughts and got back to my job after each moving interaction I experienced, one aspect became crystal clear: that every vote matters. And every vote that has been cast must be counted. Whether it is in a blue state or a red state. Whether it is in a battleground state where the incumbent is leading or the challenger is leading. Even if it takes several days, in order to uphold the fundamentals of democracy, every vote that has been cast must be counted.

As that one voter put it, “All I want is for my vote to count.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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What will this look like in practice? One only needs to look as far as one of the United States’ closest allies in the hemisphere, Colombia, for a glimpse of the challenges that await Trump’s successor.

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Colombian politics has its own Trump-like figure. His name is Alvaro Uribe Velez. Elected in 2002, Uribe governed for eight years as a conservative politician. His aggressive military campaigns against the country’s guerilla groups brought long-sought stability and security to much of the country and transformed him into a for many Colombians. But his presidency was also marred by controversy. He has been accused of facilitating widespread human abuses, and drug .

Despite — or perhaps because of — this dual legacy, Uribe has remained a central figure in Colombian politics since leaving the presidential palace. He continues to serve as the leader of the country’s ruling political party, the Democratic Center, and sat as a senator until summer 2020 when he pending the results of a criminal investigation against him.

The influence Uribe continues to wield on the Colombian political scene should serve as a warning to whoever succeeds Trump in the Oval Office. In Colombia, Uribe’s willingness and ability to mobilize broad swaths of the population to support his interests has proved a challenge for governance by opposing politicians.

Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos experienced this firsthand in 2016 as he tried to sell the people a to end the country’s 60-year-long civil war with a guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC). As the most visible and vocal of the deal, Uribe consistently belittled both Santos as a politician and the peace he negotiated with the FARC. “Peace yes, but not like this” became his cry in public speeches, interviews and perhaps his — and Trump’s — favorite platform, . His vitriolic attacks played a part in Colombians’ rejection of the peace deal in a national referendum, a humiliating defeat for Santos.

Trump May Still Influence US Politics

The small margins of this year’s US presidential election suggest that a Democratic successor to Trump will have to confront a former president with a similarly devoted following as the one Uribe has maintained in Colombia. Trump is unlikely to bow graciously out of politics. With a large base that continues to support him, he could still influence politics informally, by calling on his followers to engage in (possibly violent) .

The president’s continued popularity among Republican voters may also force the GOP to maintain its current far-right policy positions to retain voters in future elections. The election of a QAnon conspiracy to the House of Representatives confirms that Trump’s influence reaches beyond the presidency.

Indeed, Democrats are not the only ones who should be worried about Trump’s continued influence after leaving office. Uribe’s handpicked successor in the 2018 presidential election, President Ivan Duque, has struggled to govern under the shadow of the former leader. Like the US, Colombia today is deeply polarized. Though Duque and his allies hold a in the Senate, distrust and frustration with the government sent 200,000 Colombians to the streets of the country’s major cities in protest last year.  

But Duque’s reliance on support from Uribe’s hardline followers has effectively precluded him from building bridges with his opponents, lest he be seen as abandoning Uribe’s legacy. Unable to fully satisfy either camp, Duque’s approval rating has languished far 50% for most of his presidency.

Confronting the Legacy

Republicans will face a similar challenge if they wish to maintain Trump’s base while also trying to repair the deep divisions that he has sown among US society.

It may seem extreme to compare the United States to Colombia, a country that has teetered on the edge of collapse and conflict for over 60 years. But the reality is that the US is also a post-conflict country. Our civil war may have ended in 1865, but events in 2020 — the partisan reactions to the coronavirus pandemic, racial tensions following the extrajudicial killings of black Americans, and a presidential vote that remains too close to call three days after the election — have proved that the legacy of the violence and the polarization it sowed persist today.

Whoever succeeds Donald Trump must confront this legacy head-on. But as Colombia shows, doing so with Trump in the background will be far from easy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What Will a Post-Trump America Look Like? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The Kikuyus themselves responded by targeting other communities. A bloodbath ensued. The New York Times that “ethnic violence, fueled by political passions” was threatening to ruin the reputation of a country regarded as one of the most promising in Africa. It turns out that this promise was illusory. Rival ethnic groups within arbitrary colonial borders were held loosely together by self-interest and little national identity. The country was held together with string.

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About 20 years ago, Stephen Heiniger, then a British policeman, visited a dear friend in New York. Like my view of Kenya, he observed that New York was held together with string. The Guatemalan who worked in a restaurant’s kitchen had little in common with the owner. He did not really identify with New York or even the US. The immigrant was slaving away to make money to send back to his family, socializing largely with people from his part of the world.

What Heiniger observed about New York 20 years ago is increasingly true for America today. The country is full of such loose groups held together by self-interest. This is largely defined in terms of success, which in turn is mainly measured by money. A strong social, regional or national identity and common purpose in a large, diverse and unequal land is increasingly lacking.

In the 2020 presidential election, America might be about to emulate Kenya. Political passions run so strong that the threat of violence looms high. Not since the Civil War ended in 1865 has America been so divided. The reputation of a country long considered the most promising in the world faces damage, if not ruin.

The Mother of All Elections

Michael Hirsh, the deputy news editor of Foreign Policy, this is the most important election ever. It is more important than the seminal elections of 1800, 1860 and 1932. These led to the triumphs of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt respectively, changing the course of history. In each of these elections, America was divided but managed to hold together and move forward.

Hirsh argues that the 2020 election is the most significant because President Donald Trump has damaged institutions of American democracy to such a degree that the future of “the 244-year-old American experiment of a republic of laws” is at stake.” He blames Trump for openly encouraging racial violence, stoking division and failing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hirsh reflects the unease of many members of the American elite. For a long time, they have self-consciously thought of themselves as a modern-day Rome. Now, they fear that America could end up “as just another abject discard on the ash heap of failed republics going back to ancient Rome and Greece.”

As during the times of the Cold War, Americans fear an enemy. This time it is another communist country, a former ally named the People’s Republic of China. Hirsh believes the US is stumbling precisely at “a moment when [it] has lost its material preponderance” to China. Its “central place in stabilizing the global system” is on the ballot.

The Economist Hirsh’s view. It makes a case for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a breezy editorial that seems to have been penned in the Oxford Union. It declares Biden not to be the miracle cure for what is ailing America but a good man needed to “restore steadiness and civility to the White House.”

Media organizations from The New York Times to The Times of India agree upon the importance of the 2020 election. They have published millions of words on the subject and sought out pollsters to predict the election outcome. As the day of reckoning draws nigh, campaigning has reached fever pitch. Candidates for the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House are all summing up their final arguments to Americans who have not voted yet. Even as citizens go to the polls on November 3, the Senate has confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority over liberals. Everything is on the ballot in 2020, including and especially the courts.

To understand the presidential election, it might be useful to cast our eyes to an event 30 years ago. In August 1990, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein “invaded and annexed Kuwait.” The US swung into action to liberate an oil-rich country that its cash-poor neighbor had gobbled. Hussein “the mother of all battles” but suffered abject defeat. This was a heady time for the US. The Berlin Wall had fallen. George H.W. Bush had come to the White House “a kinder and gentler nation” and “no new taxes.” Ronald Reagan’s revolution of getting the government off people’s backs and bringing the Soviet Union to its knees seemed to have succeeded. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had .

President Bush had presided over the ultimate triumph of America. The dreaded Cold War with its specter of nuclear destruction was finally over. America’s liberal democracy and free market economy were deemed the only way forward. Francis Fukuyama waxed lyrical about the end of and humanity was supposed to enter the gates of paradise, with all earthlings securing unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

After a spectacular victory in the Gulf and the glorious subjugation of the Soviet Union, Bush should have romped to victory in the 1992 election. Instead, he lost. The economy had been slowing and deficits had been growing, forcing Bush to raise taxes. Many Americans went apoplectic. They could not forgive the president for breaking his promise. There was unease even then with the new era of globalization that Bush kicked off.

In that election, Texan billionaire Ross Perot made a dash for the White House campaigning against this brave new world. He against “shipping millions of jobs overseas” because of “one-way trade agreements.” Perot argued that countries with lower wages, lesser health care or retirement benefits and laxer environmental laws would attract factories away from American shores. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the cards, Perot famously predicted “there will be a giant sucking sound going south.” Perot did not win, but he took enough votes away from Bush to pave Bill Clinton’s primrose path to the White House.

In 2020, Trump is running for a second term as Perot’s angry child. He has “bad” trade deals like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Biden is the successor to Bush and Clinton. He was vice president when the US negotiated the TPP. The die is cast for a clash between two radically different visions for the future.

Who Will Win?

In 2016, I had an uncanny feeling that both Brexit and Trump’s triumph were not only possible but probable. In February that year, I examined the UK’s troubled marriage with Europe and argued that British Prime Minister David Cameron had promised more than he delivered, which would cause him problems later. In July, I posited that we could soon be living in the age of Trump because of increasing inequality and rising rage against entrenched elites.

I followed the two articles with a talk at in August on the global rise of the far right. Aggrieved by the superciliousness of journalists based in New York and Washington, I resonated deeply with the “left-behind” voters. They believed that American elites had turned rapaciously parasitic and sanctimoniously hypocritical. It seemed inevitable that some Pied Piper would lead a populist reaction.

In 2020, I do not have my finger on the pulse in the same way as in 2016. Social distancing and limited travel in the era of COVID-19 has made it difficult to estimate what really is going on. Besides, Americans say radically different things depending on which candidate they support. Often, they are very guarded or say little, making it hard to judge what is truly happening.

Democrats seem convinced that the nation is horrified by four years of a Trump presidency. They see him as crass, racist, misogynist, dishonest and deeply dangerous. Democrats believe that Americans will punish Trump for damaging institutions, spreading hatred and lowering the dignity of his office. Opinion polls give the Democratic Party a handsome even in some key battleground swing states. Pollsters were wrong in 2016, but they might have improved their methods since. Therefore, Democrats believe that they could retain their majority in the House of Representatives, flip the Senate and win back the White House.

Republicans do not seem to have much faith in these polls. Many are confident of another close victory. They predict losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College. Republican strategists are banking on the silent white vote to turn out in their favor. Many voters are uncomfortable with the Black Lives Matter movement, calls to “defund the police” and prospects of higher taxes. They fear Biden to be a Trojan horse for the culture warriors of the far left led by Kamala Harris, his running mate. They worry about identity politics and the strains it places on the social fabric. Republicans also hope to pick up minority support from Hispanics who oppose abortion, Indians who back Trump’s good friend Narendra Modi, Taiwanese who hate China and others.

Making Sense of Donald Trump

When I speak to Americans, one thing is clear. This election is a referendum on President Trump. His manifest flaws have been chronicled by numerous publications and innumerable late-night comedy shows. Yet Trump still retains the trust of many Americans. Why?

The best answer came from some militia members I spoke to in West Virginia. They conceded that Trump lies but gave him credit for telling one big truth: Things had turned much too ugly for far too many people like them. 

Some of these militia members were veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were filled with a burning sense of injustice. These gentlemen had withering contempt for the likes of Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton who served President George W. Bush. They viewed wars abroad as a criminal waste of American blood and treasure. These war veterans pointed out that Bremer, Wolfowitz and Bolton had been courtiers who climbed up the Washington greasy pole without ever serving in uniform. They remarked that Bush himself was a draft dodger who wriggled out of serving in Vietnam because of his father but sent others to die on foreign shores.

These West Virginians went on to say that their children had few prospects. Since 1991, working-class jobs have left for China. So, their children need a good education to compete for the few decent jobs in the services sector. However, they study in schools with few resources and overstretched teachers.

The militia members’ argument is simple but powerful. Only children who study in private schools or state schools in districts where houses cost a million dollars or more get into top universities, which cost a mere $300,000 or so for an undergraduate degree. Affluent foreign students also make a beeline for America after high school. Such is the competition that most parents hire expensive admissions consultants for their children. So, those who come from hardworking ordinary American families are simply outgunned.

The celebrated entrepreneurs of the US might be dropouts, but top corporates hire largely, if not exclusively, from top universities. The West Virginians pointed out that, before Barrett’s , “all nine justices of the nation’s highest court would have attended law school at either Yale or Harvard universities.” Those who go to posh schools and top universities effortlessly enter the cushy salaried class. They can walk in and buy a million-dollar home with a tiny down payment. All they need apart from their job is a good credit score. In contrast, ordinary Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

One militia member went on to discuss the bailout in some detail. He told me he had voted for change twice but got more of the same instead. This gentleman blamed President Barack Obama for caving in to Wall Street. He said veterans struggled to get by while bankers got big bonuses from taxpayer money. For him, this showed that Democrats had sold out to Wall Street. He declared that fortunes of the new feudal superclass have been made through the serfdom of an ever-increasing underclass. In his memorable words, the system has “f**ked us over. Now, we will f**k it up.”

The West Virginians brought to life many arguments I have made over the last decade. In July 2013, I argued that increasing inequality, lack of access to quality education and an erosion of liberty were chipping away at the very basis of the American dream. Over the years, I have cited many studies that chronicled how America was becoming more unequal. In fact, inequality of both income and wealth has worsened even more during the COVID-19 pandemic. Note the economy has tanked but stock markets have stayed high. Social mobility continues to plummet. Poverty is shooting up dramatically. So is hunger. Surviving the terrible American nightmare has become more of a reality than achieving the great American dream.

Such developments have led to much anger. In an eloquent interview, Trump supporter-turned-opponent explained why the president won the support of the white working class in places like West Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016. For this class, the television celebrity was “an avatar to express their anger.” In rural and suburban areas, blighted factory towns and rundown neighborhoods, Trump was the “orange wrecking ball” to “disrupt and change the system.”

Another interview by Trump’s former strategist, , is equally instructive. He rightly says that the American economy is no longer based on capitalism but on neo-feudalism. This former Goldman Sachs highflier argues that the underclass and the superclass don’t pay for anything. The working and middle class are left taking the tab. Quantitative easing (QE) might have saved the economy from collapse but has largely benefited the wealthy. In a clever turn of phrase, Bannon calls QE the bailing out of the guilty who had crashed the system itself. Trump is a “very imperfect instrument” for this populist revolt.

Likable Uncle Joe and Dancing Kamala

Many Republicans tell me that they like Biden. They think he is a good and likable man. These folks have reservations about his son but admire his late son Beau who served in the US Army. However, Republicans fear Biden could be turning senile and Harris would be the real power behind the throne. They reserve their special ire for Harris who they damn for practicing identity politics. Even many Democrats are uncomfortable about her cozy relationships with the Silicon Valley mafia who Americans feel care more about India than Indiana. 

For Republicans, Harris is a disingenuous elitist who plays the race card to win votes and sympathy. She had no compunctions putting young black men into jail for minor crimes as a prosecutor to further her political career. They detest the fact that Harris played the race card against Biden during the Democratic presidential primaries. She made a big deal about his opposition to mandatory of colored children to largely white schools. Now, Harris is merrily her way to the White House on a presidential ticket with the same man she excoriated not too long ago. Politics is a bloodsport, but some find Harris a bit too canny and bloodthirsty.

��������’s take a different view. They think he is still in good health and has good judgment. As per The Economist, the former vice president is “a centrist, an institutionalist, a consensus-builder.” He is exactly what the doctor ordered for a deeply-traumatized nation. Biden will not only steer the Democratic Party forward but also get rid of the scourge of Trump for the Republicans. Decency and civility will return to public life and the White House. Many point to ��������’s impassioned 1986 speech against the Reagan administration’s support for the South African regime as evidence of his deep commitment to equality and justice.

Democrats see reservations against Harris as evidence of America’s deep-seated sexism and racism. With Indian and Jamaican parents, Harris is multiracial like Obama. For many, she is the future of America. She could be the first woman vice president, breaking the key glass ceiling. Immigrants like her parents provide America the talent to stay top dog. As long as Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk and John Oliver make a beeline for America, Uncle Sam will triumph over the Middle Kingdom.

Democrats make good arguments for the Biden-Harris ticket, but they lack the passion Trump supporters displayed. The fervor of the 2008 Barack Obama or the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaigns is distinctly missing. Democrats are not offering a clear vision or a program for the future. They are running on kicking out Trump and restoring American democracy. It remains to be seen if this will enthuse working-class voters to switch their support to the party of Roosevelt.

Another Battle in a Long War

Both Biden and Trump have declared they are for America’s soul. It is the mother of all battles in what could prove to be a protracted war. The country is now economically, educationally, socially, culturally and virtually divided. The division that cable news networks exacerbated a few decades ago is now on steroids thanks to social media. Algorithms have created filter bubbles and echo chambers. People see more and more of the same. In the post-truth world of fake news, people cannot even agree upon basic facts.

In this unequal and polarized world, institutions are falling short. Congressmen who face reelection every two years are constantly fundraising. They have little time to write laws or hold the executive accountable. Senators often stick around forever, some until they die. Partisanship is so intense that little gets done. Judges are increasingly appointed on partisan grounds and this is damaging their legitimacy.

At the heart of the matter is a simple question: What holds America together? Bannon has a point when he says that immigration and trade benefit the affluent by lowering costs and raising profits. If hedge funds in Greenwich, Connecticut and internet oligopolies in Silicon Valley, California invest globally and move money through complex legal structures in different countries, what do they have in common with a plumber in Hattiesburg, Mississippi or a carpenter in Great Falls, Montana?

After the ethnic cleansing in 2007-08, Kenyan leaders signed a power-sharing agreement and the country drifted back to normalcy. As Kenya gears up for elections in 2022, fear and loathing are in the air again. The dormant divisions in this former colony threaten to erupt. The same is true for America. Young black men suffer violent policing and mass incarceration in America’s unjust criminal justice system. The white working class feels betrayed. The woke generation wants to upend the old social order. Feminists want to burn down the patriarchy. Catholics and evangelicals aim to outlaw abortion. With America’s different tribes pulling in different directions, things are truly held together with string.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Throughout his tenure in office, President Donald Trump has mastered the art of hoodwinking and fooling his supporters, mesmerized by his larger-than-life ego, his sloganeering, his ability to promote himself as “one of them,” as the chosen one who would make America great again. Of course, he wasn’t, and he didn’t. And he could have cared less about all these voters who fell for him. And fall they did, and hard.

Ultimate Populist

Four years ago, Donald Trump presented himself as the ultimate populist, as the one candidate who listened, who understood, who felt “your pain.” The tragedy is, of course, that those who fell for him did so because they actually did feel pain. A lot of it. Their pain was real, and still is, perhaps even more so than four years ago. It is easy to dismiss Trump’s 2016 supporters as misguided , ignorant and unsophisticated. This is what Hillary Clinton did at the time, and she paid dearly for it.

There is a kernel of truth to the disparaging notion of the East Coast elites who are largely clueless with regard to the rest of the country. Otherwise how to explain the wave of journalists from The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post rushing to obscure places in flyover country in a quest to find out how “these people” ticked. There is also more than a kernel of truth to the charge that the liberal elite has nothing but disdain if not outright contempt for “ordinary people” and a complete disinterest in their daily struggles to make ends meet. Unfortunately enough, today more than ever over the past few decades, the United States abounds in those who are in this predicament. According to official estimates, already in 2017, more than 50% percent of Americans did not have enough cash to cover a . Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, things have hardly improved.

Trump won in 2016 because he managed to eke out a tiny advantage in critial swing states. Among the most prominent of these were Ohio and Pennsylvania. Once in the heartland of American industrial might, both states were devastated by deindustrialization. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore the American public with the heart-wrenching story of Flint, Michigan, once a major hub of the American automotive industry.

Flint, however, was only one of many stories of the collapse of the American Dream, the end of an era where Americans still were the most prosperous people on the planet, where anyone who managed to expertly wield a screwdriver could aspire to a middle-class life with a housewife, two children and two cars. As it turned out, Flint was paradigmatic of what had happened throughout the Midwest, from northern Indiana to Ohio to western Pennsylvania.

American liberals are quite inconsiderate. They have come up with a number of denigrating notions, such as “flyover country” for the vast swath of land between the two coasts. For the states devastated by deindustrialization, the moniker is “Rust Belt.” Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan — all of them are part of the Rust Belt — remnants of a bygone era, mired in nostalgia for a time when was “recognized as challenging, dangerous, and important.” These were the days when cities, such as Youngstown, Ohio, Flint, Michigan, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, still counted for something, unlike today.

Failed to Deliver

Trump may lose tomorrow’s election because he fundamentally swindled his Rust Belt voters, much as he did his coal constituency. In both cases, he promised at the time of his election in 2016 that he would revive ailing industries. He failed to deliver on both counts. Steel and car manufacturing have not come back to the upper Midwest, and coal has virtually collapsed in crucial mining states such as West Virginia.

To be sure, this was inevitable, given international competitive pressures engendered by globalization. Only, during his 2016 campaign, Trump chose a rhetoric of resentment instead of telling it “as it is.” Among other things, he blamed deindustrialization and massive job losses on unfair from low-wage emerging and developing countries that “enriched” themselves “while leaving the United States littered with abandoned factories and underemployed workers.”

Not surprisingly, Trump’s rhetoric found open ears and minds among working-class communities in the Midwest hit hard by offshoring and deindustrialization. And for good reasons: Ordinary people could care less about the dynamics of international commodity markets, the profit margins of large corporations, shareholder value or the pressures exerted by financial markets. What they care about is primarily their ability to put food on the table, their concern that their children will lead a better life, and their concrete worries about the future. What they care about is that good-paying jobs return to their communities. This is what Trump promised in 2016.  This is what he failed to deliver.

Trump’s working-class constituency should have taken notice as early as 2017 when the president “job-creation advice” from the leaders of corporations that were shedding thousands of workers as they moved production abroad to Mexico, India, China and elsewhere. In fact, as a recent Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch revealed, during Trump’s nearly four-year tenure, more than 200,000 workers lost their jobs as a result of corporate offshoring. Altogether, more than 300,000 jobs were lost to trade during his presidency.

To add insult to injury, about “one of every four taxpayers’ dollars spent by the federal government on procurement contracts during the Trump administration went to the pockets of companies that offshored American jobs during his administration.” In fact, half of the top 10 recipients of public contracts were companies that were offshoring jobs during Trump’s tenure.” Trump also did little to dissuade corporations from continuing to close down factories in the American “heartland.”

Decline

Take the case of , Ohio, one of Trump’s campaign hotspots in 2016 and one of those industrial cities where many former Democrats switched to Donald Trump. Once a flourishing industrial city, by the turn of the new century, it was little more than a shadow of its former self. Youngstown’s decline started in the late 1970s with the collapse of the steel industry. In the years that followed, the region lost more than 50,000 jobs. It never recovered. In the first decade of the 21^st century, the region saw the largest population decline of any of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. By 2018, it was among the cities in the United States.

In late 2018, General Motors (GM) announced it would shut down its plant in the region, leaving 1,500 workers without a job. This came in to some 3,000 workers that had been let go since 2017. In 2016, some 40% of unionized auto workers (UAW) had voted for Trump. Yet when UAW leaders appealed to Trump to save their plant, he did not respond. When he finally met with GM’s CEO, she noted that the only thing that concerned her was “shareholder value.” Shareholders appreciated her determination. In late 2018, the industry’s leading trade magazine her, for the second time, “Industry Leader of the Year.” So much for Trump’s heartfelt concern for the plight of ordinary American workers.

And then there is coal. In 2017, a few days after taking office, Trump “beautiful clean coal” and viewed his administration was “going to put our miners back to work. Miners are going back to work. Miners are going back to work, folks. Sorry to tell you that, but they’re going back to work.” They didn’t. On the contrary, under Trump, the coal industry has virtually . By early 2020, not least as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, “more job losses and mine closures in the coal industry than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower was president 60 years ago, and despite Donald Trump’s fervent promises to revive the coal sector.”

This has been good news for the environment, but bad news for coal miners. The reality is, coal is one of the most toxic and harmful sources of energy — nothing beautiful or clean about it. The burning of massive amounts of coal in Siberia some 250 million years ago caused the most extensive of living species in our planet’s history, wiping out 96% of all marine species and around 70% of terrestrial vertebrates. Of course, coal miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona and elsewhere could care less what happened some 250 million years ago. What concerns them is the fact that over the past four years, the source of their livelihood has virtually disappeared under their feet, Trump’s assurances notwithstanding.

A Bad Deal

And yet, some voters in West Virginia, the Appalachian state hit particularly hard by the collapse of coal, still maintained their loyalty to a president who had made boisterous promises and delivered little, if not nothing. Attracted by his “America First” rhetoric and his stance on abortion, they continued to Trump as “the only one standing in the way of the entire industry closing down.” At the same time, they seemed more intent on blaming their predicament on those liberals harping on about climate change than on embracing policy options propagating a reasonable alternative to coal.  

One way Trump sought to make good on his promises is protectionism. By now, the story is familiar, particularly with respect to Trump’s trade war with China. Hardly surprising, the most important target of American protectionism was steel. By raising tariffs on steel — under the guise of security considerations — Trump intended to shield domestic producers against international competition and allow them to raise their prices. The policy was a great success. According to informed calculations, the tariff did raise the price of domestic steel considerably, boosting the earnings of the US steel industry and creating some 8,700 new jobs. At the same time, higher prices pushed up the costs for steel users by a whopping $5.6 billion. This meant that had to “pay an extra $650,000 for each job created” in the steel industry. The art of the bad deal.

Trump promoted himself in 2016 as a savvy businessman with vast experience in the art of the deal. As it turned out, his deal-making skills were more hot air than reality. Esquire magazine explored the huge gap between claim and reality as early as mid-2018, that “maybe the president isn’t actually that good a negotiator and/or businessman.” There was “abundant evidence,” the article charged, “that Trump, the consummate tough guy, often comes off worse in negotiations because he doesn’t actually know any details about the issues at hand and actually does not like confrontations.”

The disastrous course of Trumpian brinkmanship in his confrontation with China was glaring proof of Trump’s ineptness — with dramatic consequences. One of the sectors affected by Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports were health-related goods, comprising a quarter of all imported medical products. Trump slapped tariffs on nearly $5 billion of US medical imports from China. With the global supply of medical wares drying up at the beginning of the pandemic, the United States faced serious shortages of vital medical equipment at a time it needed it most, partially the country’s ability to confront the pandemic.

To be sure, there are many reasons Donald Trump may lose the election. His letting down of his core constituencies in the Rust Belt is only one of many. At the moment, polling shows Trump’s challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the critical Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with the two currently in Ohio. In-depth studies over the next few weeks and months will undoubtedly reveal whether Trump lost support among major constituencies that four years earlier had been seduced by his rhetoric and personal style. In the end, however, Lincoln’s purported phrase may once again prove its worth. After all, you can’t fool all people all of the time, not even all of your former supporters.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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My comment questioned the physical and intellectual abilities of Uncle Joe, and the paranoid Facebook users didn’t wait, calling me a “Russian Troll” and reporting me for potential foreign meddling in US politics. I am neither a Russian hacker nor a Donald Trump supporter, but this small incident shows the extent of suspicion, tension and polarization preceding the US presidential election on November 3.

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The United States of America — which has been the sole hegemon of the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a crusader for democracy in several areas across the globe, notably in the Middle East — is actually not a democracy itself. With its bipartisan structure, the country is actually a biocracy where two big blocs dominate the political sphere. A classical binary of Democrats vs. Republicans that obstructs any new thoughts or movements from penetrating the system.

Democrats encapsulate a big range of liberals, sexual and religious minorities, feminists, migrants and progressive ideologies, and they usually adopt a softer approach to foreign policy. On the other hand, Republicans are advocates of traditional family values, pro-life, the constitutional right of owning weapons, conservative beliefs and a more belligerent foreign policy.

The peril of biocracies is the high risk of radicalization of the two poles in cases of deep social unrest or economic crisis, leaving the society in a Manichean dystopia. And this is exactly what is happening today in America.

A Pre-Civil War Climate

The extreme polarization of the political discourse across the layers of American society forces citizens into an impossible either-or logic that divides the country into two conflicting factions with a completely different set of values, visions and perceptions of reality. For external observers, this may even be symptomatic of pre-civil war climates. Narrow political calculations continue to feed fissures rather than concord, as if both the donkey (Democratic) and the elephant (Republican) parties are determined to disrupt social cohesion and destroy institutions for the sake of electoral gains.

The media are undeniably aggravating the crisis. With the constant insolence of the current president to correspondents, many iconic staples of US journalism decided to breach their pact of neutrality and declared themselves as anti-Trump militants. Outlets like The New York Times and CNN have even campaigned openly for certain candidates as a first in a school of journalism that has been praising itself for its impartiality and distance from partisan agendas. In February 2017, The Washington Post introduced a below its online masthead: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” In this case, it willingly ignored that darkness also means a politicized, subjective and biased press.

One thing is for sure: Both presidential candidates are white, septuagenarian males who are equally uncharismatic, incompetent abominations. One is a populist reality-TV show clown with an obsession for posting blunt Twitter statements and making provocative, racist and sexist comments. The other is a demented “” with clear cognitive failure, doubtful links with Ukrainian oligarchs and whose only virtue is being Barack Obama’s wingman. Sometimes, I feel both parties are intentionally sabotaging themselves by presenting their worst contenders, or maybe it is another application of American chaos theory but domestically this time.

Hawaiian Shirts and Cabal Vampires

New trends are on the rise after this year’s Black Lives Matter protests and the calls to defund the police. Armed militias like a movement called the started to appear during demonstrations armed to the teeth and wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts. This far-right, anti-government and extremist political group is not the only one. On the opposing side, we could observe organized African-Americans and violent activists. Limited instances of mutual provocations and incidents took place over the past few months between the two factions, but things could escalate fast at any occasion due the explosive mix of anger, historical baggage and firearms. 

Another worrying phenomenon is the proliferation of conspiracy theories online. QAnon is the biggest online and offline umbrella movement that has boomed amid the COVID-19 crisis. Its followers believe that President Trump is a biblical savior sent to combat a shadow organization of “Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.” This mother of all theories then breaks into several tentacular sub-theories like , human through nanochips, alien and subterranean invasions, ’ population control, NASA’s flat Earth lies and world leaders consuming minors’ blood, among more absurd and amusing conspiracies.

Social media platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, carried major crackdowns on accounts, groups and content promoting “the great American awakening.” Censorship is only aggravating the situation, promoting a single narrative and providing more reasons for conspiracies to flourish and become mainstream to the extent that many Republican are QAnon supporters. Some even call it a new religion. Add to the mix digital meddling and social engineering by Russian, Chinese and Iranian and you will understand why I am being called a troll for expressing an unpopular opinion.

French philosopher and lawyer Joseph de Maistre used to say, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” That dictum does not apply to large portions of American society. A country that is a melting pot of ideas, innovations, hard work and diversity, and which cannot be reduced to its despicable leadership. Unfortunately, in politics, you only hear the loudest voices while much of the population lays in the center, silently observing the two clashing poles in horror as they un-unite the United States.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Since the 1800s, the Electoral College system has not functioned as the framers of the Constitution had intended. It was designed to be representational by district, but since Thomas Jefferson instituted the winner-take-all approach, the regimen has morphed into a muddled, skewed, corrupt mess, leaving many Americans feeling like the system is rigged.

Perpetuating Inequality

Consider this: By 2040, 30% of Americans from smaller, more rural states will elect 70 of the 100 US senators. By then, 70% of Americans will live in just 15 states and 50% of them will live in just eight of those states. Rather than help ensure equal representation under the law, the Electoral College has merely become a means of perpetuating inequality and unfairness, and is not representative of the country’s diversity. And since each state governing body can decide how the electors will vote, it is rife with partisanship and amenable to corruption.

It is only because the college exists that any candidate who may not have won the most votes can become a victor in an election. Electing leaders who do not have a majority of the popular vote is becoming more commonplace. The first time an election was lost to the candidate with the most votes was in 2000, when Al Gore won by about 500,000 votes. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won by nearly 3 million votes. On November 3, Trump could lose by 6 or 8 million this time and still conceivably win an electoral victory. Americans increasingly believe that their votes do not count and see the system as illegitimate. That must change.

The US House of Representatives hasn’t been enlarged since 1929. It is time to have a constitutional amendment to expand it to be more representative of population dispersion and the diversity of the country. Beyond that, the entire structure of the electoral system badly needs to be reformed and modernized to better reflect the composition of American society and remove some of its impurities. America needs meaningful systemic change that truly shakes up the system, not more business as usual. It is time for the American people to take back their government from career politicians, lobbyists, special interests and an elite who have all gamed the system to their own advantage.

While around one in four Americans identify as — more than either Democrats or Republicans — the vast majority vote for Democrat or Republican candidates rather than independents. Independent parties have historically performed poorly in state and national elections because independent voters do not vote for them, part of the issue being that independent parties and candidates sometimes represent the “looney left” or the radical right. But a bigger contributor is the absence of a meaningful independent party platform.

Meaningful Change

Going forward, candidates for any party should agree in advance to serve only one term. The immediate effect would be to strip the lobbyists and special interests of their ability to influence the way lawmakers from any party voted because those lawmakers would not need their money to get reelected. Such an approach would permit lawmakers to focus on what they were sent to Washington or the state house to do: govern, rather than spend 80% (or more) of their time raising money for their reelection and perpetuating a corrupt political system.

Meaningful, significant change is not going to occur from within mainstream political parties in America — it will only come from outside them. The party platform I would propose is based on all elected representatives subscribing to honesty, integrity, transparency and, more importantly, accountability for their action or inaction. If any elected representative in such a party fails to deliver what they say they will deliver, they would need to agree in advance to be removed from office before their term is finished.

All such elected representatives would need to agree to adhere to the laws which they pass — that such laws also apply to them, with no health plans for themselves or their families that are different than what they pass into law for everyone else. The idea would be to bring fairness, honor and dignity back to their offices and to the people they serve.

Too many of our elected officials have forgotten who sent them to Washington, who they work for and why they are there. The Democratic and Republican parties have been hijacked by extremists. The electoral system does not function as it was intended. That is why it is time for radical reform, and the American people should demand it from their government and parties.

*[Daniel Wagner is the  of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by the P5+1 group — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — and the Iranians in a diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet today, the agreement is standing on its last legs. US President Donald Trump, who campaigned against the agreement during the 2016 presidential election, has imposed a policy of on Iran in order to force it to negotiate a better deal.

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For the Trump administration, an improved agreement would address Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and its expansionist policies in the Middle East — two issues that the Obama administration and the European Union failed to incorporate in the JCPOA. This infuriated US allies in the Middle East, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which in particular has been on the receiving end of Iran’s destabilizing actions in the Gulf.

With the presidential election on November 3, the question of whether US policy toward Iran will change should Biden win the keys to the White House is attracting the attention of pundits and policymakers in the Arab region. 

Joe ��������’s Position on Iran

Biden, who was vice president under the Obama administration, explained in a recent his proposed position regarding Iran. He said, “I have no illusions about the challenges the regime in Iran poses to America’s security interests, to our friends and partners and to [Iran’s] own people.” He listed four key principles as he outlined his approach.

First, he promised that a Biden administration would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Second, he committed himself to rejoin the JCPOA if Iran returns to “strict compliance with the nuclear deal,” and only as “a starting point for follow-on negotiations.” In ��������’s words, these negotiations would aim at strengthening and extending the nuclear deal’s provisions and addressing “other issues of concern.” Third, he made a commitment to “push back against Iran‘s destabilizing activities” in the Middle East, which threaten US allies in the region. He also promised to continue to use “targeted sanctions against Iran‘s human rights abuses, its support for terrorism and ballistic missile program.”

Finally, he said, if the Iranians choose to threaten vital American interests and troops in the region, the US would not hesitate to confront them. Despite this, Biden wrote that he is “ready to walk the path of diplomacy if Iran takes steps to show it is ready too.”

But Will His Policy Be Any Different to Trump’s?

In relation to Saudi Arabia, Biden issued a statement on the second anniversary of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in which he , “Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

Although Biden’s approach is a departure from Trump’s maximum pressure on Iran and with regard to Saudi Arabia in its intervention in Yemen, it is possible that Biden might end up — at least concerning Iran —a�����⾱�Բ� Trump’s same tactics. This is partly because, according to Biden himself, Iran has stockpiled 10 times as much enriched uranium since Trump has been in office. This is further complicated by the fact there is no guarantee that Iran will surrender its stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Additionally, Iran has repeatedly declared that it will not negotiate additional provisions to the JCPOA, which is in direct conflict with ��������’s intention to put enforce additional restrictions on Tehran. Moreover, putting pressure on Iran to end its destabilizing regional activities, as Biden has promised, would certainly lead to points of confrontation between the two countries, especially in Iraq and Syria. If any of these scenarios take place, a Biden administration would be forced to impose even tougher sanctions on Iran with the help of EU countries.

Three Key Factors

Biden’s decision to rejoin the JCPOA rests on three issues. The first is the balance of power within Congress between the Republicans and the Democrats. The second is how Iran fits into his overall policy toward China. Finally, the position of the Saudi kingdom and its allies regarding any future agreement with Iran would play a key role.

First, it is well known that members of Congress from both parties resisted then-President Barack Obama’s policy of negotiating with Iran and insisted on reviewing any agreement before the US would ratify it. For this reason, a majority in Congress the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act in 2015, which forced the president to send any agreement he reaches with Iran to the US Congress for review.

When the P5+1 hit a breakthrough with the JCPOA, Obama sent the draft agreement to Congress as per the act, but the nuclear deal was neither approved nor rejected. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly the deal. Yet Republicans in the Senate could the agreement because they did not have a 60-vote majority to move forward with a vote against the JCPOA. In other words, almost half of Congress — which consists of the House and the Senate — were against the Iran deal.

If Biden becomes the 46th US president and decides to rejoin the agreement, he will face the same dilemma as Congress will have to review the JCPOA yet again, a process that will create tension between the president and Congress. Though considering the president needs Congress to pass domestic reforms related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the US economy, Biden would most likely not be in rush to act on Iran.

Second, Biden would link the deal with Iran with his policy toward China. As president, Biden will continue Obama’s policy of redirecting the US military presence from the Middle East and other regions toward East Asia to confront China’s growing influence in the region.

Meanwhile, Beijing has expanded its position in the Gulf where it has established several strategic partnerships, which are essential to connect China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to markets in Europe. With Iran’s of a strategic comprehensive partnership agreement with China in 2016 and its to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Iran is very much part of the BRI.

Thus, a Biden administration will likely tie Iran to its China containment policy. That is to say, any US policy that aims to weaken China will have to incorporate some pressure on the Iranians to be effective, including maintaining existing sanctions on Iran. Further, Iranian ties with China will push the US under ��������’s leadership to strengthen its relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in order to prevent China from extending its influence into the Middle East. The Biden administration cannot do so without taking into consideration the interests of Saudi Arabia, which are linked to the kind of agreement the US may strike with Iran.

Finally, while the US has become self-sufficient in terms of oil supply, the world economy is still reliant on Saudi oil exports. Saudi Arabia is also the heart of the Muslim world, and it maintains control over of global trade that passes through the Red Sea. The kingdom’s significance as a stabilizing factor in the Middle East is also increased with the demise of Syria, Iraq and the domestic troubles in Egypt, not to mention the challenges that Turkey is causing for the US in the region.

Accordingly, a Biden administration cannot afford to turn its back on Saudi interests. Such a policy would force Saudi Arabia to diversify its security, which would undoubtedly include strengthening its relations with China and other US rivals like Russia. This is something the US cannot afford to happen if it wishes to effectively confront its main competitors — China and Russia.

As for Yemen, there is no reason that prevents Saudi Arabia and a Biden administration from reaching an agreement. In 2015, the kingdom intervened in Yemen to prevent Iran from threatening its southern borders. Saudi Arabia wants the war to end sooner rather than later, and it wants the Yemenis to thrive in their own state. However, the Yemen conflict is connected to the Iranian expansionist policies in the Middle East, and ��������’s administration would have to address this in its approach toward Iran.

When adding to these reasons the fact that the conservatives won the Iranian in early 2020 and are poised to win the presidential election in June 2021, it is highly doubtful that Iran will accept a renegotiated nuclear deal with the US.

For all these reasons, returning to the JCPOA is unlikely.

*[51�Թ� is a media of Gulf State Analytics.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The contrast between the alternative policies couldn’t be starker. The most baffling aspect is the Republican decision to adopt the the party used in 2016. It would have been logical to update the document and delete sentences such as “Over the last eight years, the Administration has triggered an avalanche of regulation that wreaks havoc across our economy and yields minimal environmental benefits.” The next sentence states that “The central fact of any environmental policy is that year by year, the environment is improving.” Did someone in the Republican camp actually review this document?

Trumping the Climate

But before comparing the Republican and the Democratic platforms, it would be useful to recap the actions of the current administration relating to the environment and climate change. Based on research from ,  and other sources, more than 70 environmental rules and regulations have been officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Trump. Another 26 rollbacks are still in progress. Here are some of the most significant rollbacks introduced.

Paris Climate Agreement. The formal notice given by the Trump administration to withdraw from the 2015 Paris accords was a clear signal of its intent to not only cease its cooperation in global actions to address climate change but also to question the science behind it. By doing so, the US became one of only three countries not to sign on to the Paris Climate Agreement. The pulling out of any major player from international climate accords has to be seen as a huge setback — and it is. Perhaps more importantly, such action also undermines US involvement and leadership in other UN and international forums. It may also strain US trade and other relationships with the EU and other nations.

Clean Power Plan. As one of President Barack Obama’s key environmental policies, the plan required the energy sector to cut carbon emissions by 32% by 2030. It was rolled back by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2017 citing “unfair burdens on the power sector and a ‘war on coal.’” The GOP platform states that “We will likewise forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, something never envisaged when Congress passed the Clean Air Act.” It can be argued that the energy sector is already heading toward low-carbon alternatives, and clean energy is no more a war on coal than a healthy diet is on junk food. Admittedly, the transition to low-carbon energy will nevertheless require government initiatives and incentives, at least in the short term.

Air pollution regulations. The control of hazardous air pollution has been significantly diminished through the weakening of the Clean Air Act, whereby major polluters such as power plants and petroleum refineries, after reducing their emissions below the required limits, can be reclassified and can emit dangerous pollutants to a higher limit. Using my earlier analogy, this is like having a single healthy meal, then continuing to eat junk food.

Methane flaring rules. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than, say, carbon dioxide. The rollback of EPA standards for methane and other volatile organic compounds that were set back in 2012 and which resulted in significant reductions in methane emissions. Relaxing those regulations gives states control of their own standards, creating discrepancies in flaring rules between states.

Oil and natural gas. The move to encourage more oil and gas production clearly works against clean air initiatives. Apart from greenhouse gas emissions, the burning of fossil fuels emits significant amounts of other pollutants into the environment. Admittedly, there are economic and international demand-and-supply factors for consideration here. No doubt, US self-sufficiency in oil and gas supply is an important and appropriate dynamic.

Fuel economy rules. The weakening of the fuel economy rules reduced the previously set target of 54 mpg by 2025 for cars made after 2012 to 34 mpg. The fuel efficiency of road vehicles is an important aspect of economic transport and air pollution and its health impacts.

Overall, the fundamental direction of the above changes in policy pulls back progress made by the Obama administration toward cleaner air and mitigating climate change, giving a higher priority to oil and gas, as well as assumed economic growth. More broadly, it ignores the importance of the global agreement and action on climate change and significantly undermines scientific consensus. Ironically, it could also be seen to be contrary to current and future market and economic forces, and as defiance of science in general. Furthermore, it’s intriguing that the establishment of a low-carbon economy, with its technology-driven projects and the building of more resilient infrastructure, isn’t seen as job-creating.

The Trump administration made numerous other dealing with water and wildlife management and opening of public land for business. Clearly, the Trump administration does not see climate change as a national emergency or an area of priority for policy direction, nor does it see a low-carbon economy as an economic opportunity.

The continuing increase in wildfire frequency and severity as well as other extreme weather events alongside Trump’s persistent denial of climate change impacts continues to intrigue and frustrate experts in the field. On the one hand, the GOP platform asserts that “Government should not play favorites among energy producers” and on the other, appears to ignore renewable energy sources even though these are just as much “God-given natural resource” as oil and gas.

The Biden Plan

Now let’s look briefly at the for the environment and climate change. In summary, the stated initiatives in the are as follows.

Climate change. The platform is unequivocal in its acceptance of climate change and its social, economic and environmental impacts, pledging a $2-trillion accelerated investment in “ambitious climate progress” during his first term. It is also unambiguous in the measures it plans to take to reduce inequities in how climate change affects low-income families, and the importance of building “a thriving, equitable, and globally competitive clean energy economy that puts workers and communities first and leaves no one behind.” Economists agree that due to advances made in clean energy and its economics, net-zero emissions are not only achievable, but are now cost-effective and provide a cleaner environment in a world with a growing population and the inevitable increase in the consumption of resources.

Paris Climate Agreement. The platform is once again clear in its intent to “rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and, on day one, seek higher ambition from nations around the world, putting the United States back in the position of global leadership where we belong.” This would help recalibrate the global efforts and provide a boost to the international impetus for progress on climate change. The importance of binding global agreements and actions cannot be overstated if the world is to significantly mitigate climate change.

Toward net-zero emissions. The platform commits to “eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 through technology-neutral standards for clean energy and energy efficiency.” It further commits to the installation of 500 million solar panels, including 8 million solar roofs and 60,000 wind turbines and to turning “American ingenuity into American jobs by leveraging federal policy to manufacture renewable energy solutions in America.” Reading the platform’s language and overall framework and knowing what I know about renewable energy and low-carbon technologies, I can’t help feeling that the Democratic platform must have accessed credible and comprehensively developed scientific and economic analyses.

Auto industry. The Democrats pledge to “inform ambitious executive actions that will enable the United States to lead the way in building a clean, 21^st century transportation system and stronger domestic manufacturing base for electric vehicles powered by high-wage and union jobs … and accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles in the United States while reclaiming market share for domestically produced vehicles.” Numerous other initiatives include transitioning the entire fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives within five years and to support private adoption of affordable low-pollution and zero-emission vehicles by partnering with state and local governments to install at least 500,000 charging stations.

Sustainable communities. The platform is ambitiously broad in its coverage of sustainable initiatives across all communities including agriculture, marginalized communities, climate resilience, disaster management, planting of trees for reduction of heat stress, education and training, public land management, energy efficiency and sustainable housing, sustainable energy grids in remote and tribal communities — all with job creation and economic growth in mind.

How the above differences in policy and direction in the US election are likely to play out in November are difficult to ascertain. Whichever way America votes will considerably affect the nation’s future in addressing not only its own climate change responses, but will carry a significant impact for the rest of the world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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However, Biden’s use of the word “soul” is not new to American political discourse, according to historian . Behind Biden’s message is an appeal to euro-centric  or certain traditions attempting to underscore the reality that the US political and economic system is broken — dividing people culturally and socially along the way. Biden claims our beliefs, values and political norms have been dismantled, corrupted and co-opted by those who either do not understand them, take them for granted or perhaps couldn’t care less about them for the sake of their interests.

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The blame is placed on President Donald Trump and his associates at  and  for good reasons. Trump and his ilk have distorted or corrupted liberal traditions, republican citizenship and democratic institutions and, at the same time, they have disregarded individual rights, civic fairness and human decency.

Trump has wrought a new divisive politics, from his self-serving slogans (“” to “”) and rhetorical tweet storms to his elite-centered social policies. Together, this has ushered into the mainstream of American life radical right-wing ideas, extra racial and immigrant animus, and anti-media hostility. These divisions have reached unimaginable heights, with dire consequences reflected further in Trump’s and the Republicans’ lack of leadership around the coronavirus pandemic, racial and social , the homelessness crisis and rising , among others.  

Both Trump and Biden are operating within a symbolic/performative political frame that supposedly addresses the real needs of the American working people. Yet the competing slogans and the performative politics we have witnessed over the past few months have done more to perpetuate the bitter partisanship us “trampling on each other for our scraps of bread,” as E.L. Doctorow pointed out in 1992. So, what we instead need is a transformative (redistributive) politics that directly answers the complex quotidian concerns of the majority working-class people across race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and civic or legal status now and after the election.

Sloganism and Performative Politics

American author William Safire once wrote that slogans can serve as a “rallying cry” or a “catchphrase” that often “crystallizes an idea” or “defines an issue.” Most importantly, according to Safire, some slogans even “thrill, exhort and inspire” people into action. Sloganism has become an American  ideological tool and strategic marketing imperative that guides both the Republican and Democratic parties, especially during presidential elections.

The 2020 election seems different because there is more urgency to win at any cost, even at the expense of democracy itself, from both major parties and their supporters. American voters seem to gravitate more to familiar or comfortable slogans, without critically assessing the purpose or the message behind them. Many lose themselves in the symbols and patriotic images that slogans invoke. Even Biden seems to a “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” as both aspirational and inspirational, if not transformational.

These slogans and the broader performative electoral context that gives rise to them obscure the political and economic structures creating and sustaining the underlying problems facing the working class. This includes wealth inequality, lack of labor and political power, declining wages, unemployment, affordable housing issues and limited access to quality health care. Taken together, all of this makes many Americans more vulnerable during public health crises, environmental disasters and economic downturns.

What Forms Transformative Politics Take Also Matters

We need to consider the forms of transformative politics that Trump, as the incumbent president, has engaged in that run counter to his “Keep America Great” slogan. Trump’s housing policy, for example, is not based on what the working class need, especially in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis. His slogan does nothing to help those in need of affording housing, rent control and extended eviction moratoriums.

Trump’s proposed  budgets and other policies on public and assisted  reflect his real intentions. Yet his form of transformative politics was evident just a few years ago, too. “Trump’s administration has proposed legislation that would sharply raise rents for tenants in public and other federally subsidized housing,”  Thomas J. Waters back in 2018. Regarding the economy, this is what Trump’s transformative politics under his slogan “Keep America Great” , according to Jerry White: “While tens of millions of people are confronting the worst economic and social crisis since the Great Depression, the multitrillion-dollar CARES Act bailout for Wall Street has led to booming bank profits. Goldman Sachs on [October 14] announced that its third-quarter profit nearly doubled to $3.62 billion.”

President Trump’s with failing to control the spread of the coronavirus are as irresponsible as his politics, economic views and policy positions. Trump used taxpayer-funded hospital services at Walter Reed Medical Center to “heal” from the COVID-19 disease, while ordinary Americans who do not have access to such quality services — despite paying taxes — die by the hundreds of thousands. Other Republicans have been too. This is not what Americans want at any level of government.

Another way of looking at the impact of Trump’s form of transformative politics is his federal judge , including the placement of Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Federal Circuit to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Her place in the nation’s highest court has the potential of negatively transforming the lives of millions of Americans. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse argued in a recent  that the effects of replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg with Barrett would eliminate many people’s access to health care. Moreover, Justice Barrett would signify a major shift in the court’s ideological makeup with transformative political, social and economic consequences.

Barrett, with her ultra-conservative credentials and  judicial philosophy, could play a role in overturning Roe v. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court case to protect women’s reproductive rights, including access to abortion. Her appointment could also lead to the elimination of the Affordable Care Act, which protects over 20 million people with preexisting medical conditions. Most importantly, with another conservative justice in the court, Trump could secure an election victory by disqualifying mail-in ballots and allowing  tactics (reducing drop-boxes, for instance) with impunity.

On voting rights and the role Barrett may play on any potential challenge to the election outcome, Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman : “President Trump has explicitly said that he wants the Supreme Court to look at the ballots. So, everything about Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination is illegitimate, but it’s especially illegitimate if Trump wants to get her on there so that he can install himself in a second term.” This form of transformative politics in the name of “keeping America great” would thus undermine the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all Americans, eroding the underlying political culture that is often ingrained since childhood, and thus further deteriorating American voters’ trust in their democratic institutions.

In terms of protecting workers and industries, Trump has failed to fulfill his promises as his 2016 slogan, “Make America Great Again,” suggested. Yet he continues to make similar arguments about bringing back manufacturing jobs and providing health care to working-class Americans. In reality, Trump’s policies have led to more offshore  than ever before.

Finally, although Trump does not possess a presidential temperament that has been a requirement since at least the 1960s, he has remained popular among many within the Rust Belt states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though that could change). This is due to his performative nature as a reality-TV celebrity and, of course, his longstanding image as a so-called successful businessman, despite recent about his failure to pay income taxes (only $750 in 2017 and 2019) because he lost more money than he made in the past 15 years.

Importance of Class Solidarity for Transformative Politics

What are the real concerns of American voters who are in the majority working class? Although some people are convinced by catchy slogans and performative politics, most working-class Americans expect real reforms in the short and long terms. Ed Yong of The Atlantic recently out, “Showiness is often mistaken for effectiveness.”

Americans want real redistributive policies and need even more critical structural changes around issues like education reform, police brutality, affordable housing, employment opportunities, a living wage, health care, infrastructure and taxation, among others. Framing the election in either rhetorical, symbolic or moralistic terms only goes so far in the voters’ minds. According to the , the economy (79%), health care (68%), Supreme Court nominations (64%), the coronavirus outbreak (62%) and violent crime (59%) are the most important issues for registered voters this year.

Policies that impact real people are the key to creating universal and transformative changes that will benefit all, if not most Americans. As Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project : “Given the demographic composition of the different economic classes, it really is the case that class-based wealth redistribution will also heavily reduce the disparities between different demographic groups.” He adds that every “$1 redistributed from the top 10 percent to the bottom 50 percent reduces the class gap between those groups by $2 while also reducing the white/black gap by 52 cents, the old/young gap by 57 cents, and the college/high-school gap by 75 cents. This kind of leveling is where our focus should be.”

Regrettably, we have seen an increase in symbolic politics from both liberals and conservatives over the past several years that ignore or down-play voters’ demand for transformative (redistributive) politics. Both Trump and Biden have remained within the same neoliberal capitalist framework where concerns over racial, class-based inequalities are outdone by superfluous debates over removing Confederate flags and monuments of racist historical figures. Less debated are issues dealing with demilitarizing police departments and properly funding public schools.

As Professor Toure Reed of Illinois State University recently : “For the past several decades now, liberals and conservatives alike have been disposed to view racial inequality through one of two racialist frames: the ingrained, if not inborn cultural deficiencies of black and brown poor people; or the ingrained, if not inborn racism of whites. The political-economic underpinnings of inequality, however, have been of little interest to either Democrats or Republicans.”  

Yet economic redistribution is rarely, if ever, seriously discussed in public, the media or even in academia. Why? Because that would force both Democrats and Republicans — who are often beholden to Wall Street firms, K-Street lobbyists and the broader investor class — to reveal positions, strategies and policies that produce the forms and types of racial and wealth inequalities that they ought to be addressing for the betterment of all Americans. But to do so means potentially putting themselves and their supporters out of business. Lastly, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed, Jr. show that a race-only policy focus or using race as a , especially in the medical industry, may lead to dire real-world consequences for working-class communities across race and other categories of ascriptive difference.

Of course, if we were to focus on a broad class analysis (as measured by an individual’s relational position within a power structure that determines who produces what goods and services and when), that would put the neoliberal capitalist and political establishment in jeopardy of being closely scrutinized by those critical of the elite/investor class’ malfeasance, which is something that mega corporations, media conglomerates and the big pharmaceutical industry, among others, do not want.

This may partly explain why Trump — and, at times, Biden — would rather engage in performative politics and empty promises than deal directly with what ails most of the poor and working-class people, who are often essential making the neoliberal capitalist system work. It is easier to frame things with slogans like “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” and “Keep America Great” than talk about wealth redistribution, single-payer universal health care, a  and workers’ rights.

There is a big difference between what Trump has accomplished — and for whom — over these past four years and what Biden stands for and promises if elected president. Despite Trump’s claims that Biden is a radical social democrat, the former vice president’s record over the past 40 years shows he is neither a radical nor a social democrat. At best, Biden is a moderate liberal with certain progressive tendencies. 

Within this context, Biden has tried to navigate and balance competing interests within the Democratic Party. There has been tension between the progressives represented by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and “” and ��������’s own Clinton-Obama neoliberal establishment (Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer). ��������’s historic choice of Senator Kamala Harris, who is the first woman of Indian and Jamaican descent on any major party ticket, is supposed to appease the progressive wing while also satisfy the neoliberal Democratic establishment.

Yet Harris on the ticket would also appeal to those moderates in the Republican Party who want to return to pre-Trump norms. However, this moderate-to-liberal past has been distorted by a misguided and opportunistic Trump who continues spreading falsehoods and lies about ��������’s record, vision and plans.

At the Republican National Convention in August, Trump : “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens. And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.” Later, he offered a different picture to counter ��������’s “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” slogan. While ��������’s version offers a hopeful message, Trump provides a dire and apocalyptic vision of an America under a Biden-Harris administration. “Joe Biden is not the savior of America’s soul — he is the destroyer of America’s jobs, and if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of American greatness,” Trump said.

Nevertheless, the president failed to heed his own messaging. His political short-sidedness has once again brewed controversy. Trump has called service members or those who lost their lives at war “losers” and “suckers.” Jeffrey Goldberg, while referring to John Kelly’s reaction to Trump’s off-putting questions and comments about US soldiers, , “Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.” Trump’s performative politics then backfired because the commander-in-chief is expected to respect service members and their families, not insult them.

Trump has lost the of many military families despite his speeches otherwise during the most important election in a generation. Unfortunately, this attitude from the president is not new and reflects his well-known tendency toward self-absorption and self-imagery that places the well-being of others, including the entire country, in a secondary position.

This attitude endangers the men and women serving in the military at home and abroad. It weakens the image of the military and the working-class citizens who volunteer to serve in that capacity for often economic reasons, which is something Trump himself avoided during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth captured Trump and his position well when she the president the “coward in chief” during an interview with MSNBC in September.

Transformative Politics Viewed From Likely Voters’ Perspective

Whether Trump’s political strategy of invoking fear of a Biden-Harris administration proves effective, only time will tell. Yet, according to the latest national polls of likely voters presented by , Biden is running ahead of Trump. The Quinnipiac University’s state-by-state  also show Biden leading in key swing states (including Georgia), though Florida is too close to call either way, as per the .

The regional or state-by-state approach to understand likely voters should be our focus instead of the national polls. The latter are usually conflated by Democratic likely voters in California, New York and New England states, which masks the fact that the Electoral College historically determines the presidency, not the national popular vote. This makes both Midwestern swing states — Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin — as well as  pivotal grounds in presidential elections. 

Several other factors must be taken into consideration in this most critically important election. The  over absentee ballots, vote-by-mail and early voting versus in-person, same-day voting has increased over the past few weeks amidst the rising numbers of COVID-19 infections.

Most likely Republican voters (Trump supporters, presumably) have said they will vote on Election Day (70%), while those who lean Democratic have said almost the inverse: they will vote early and by-mail/absentee ballot (74%). Still, Republican Party officials have begun to make strides toward convincing many of their supporters to reconsider the vote-by-mail or absentee ballot option over in-person voting, attempting to keep up with the Democrats while contradicting President Trump’s claims about the potential corruption and voter fraud of the mail-in ballot process. Trump’s comments have been  by many election experts.

Voting in the United States is controlled and managed by local and states officials, while the federal government through the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) regulates, administers and enforces federal campaign finance laws. The Trump administration and the Republican Party have been engaged in voter tactics that further erode Americans’ views and confidence in long-standing democratic practices and institutions. Yet potential voter intimidation at voting places and the elimination of drop-off boxes are two more reasons to be vigilant.

A Transformative Paradigm Shift in the Presidential Election Cycle

American poor and working-class people demand better from a republic that promotes freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness. These standards require a political and economic system that provides stable employment, a living wage, modern infrastructure, access to a fast internet connection, quality health care for all, affordable and modern housing and more. This means real transformative elections and politics.

In the end, the American voter is expected to make an important choice on which party will bring about those kinds of transformative changes. Many states now provide a variety of voting  because of the pandemic. At the time of publishing, over 75 million people have  either early in person or by mail. An increase in early voter turnout should lead to a paradigm shift in the ways we talk about voter participation and how states deal with presidential elections in the future. Although the increase in mail-in and absentee ballots is due to circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic, the additional voting options beyond the traditional in-person method should be made permanent, especially if we want to uphold the ideals of freedom, equality, community and democracy in the US.

Media, social commentators, scholars and political pundits alike need to talk less about Election Day that is based on anachronistic constitutional rules and norms and more about a fall election quarter where registered voters often begin casting ballots as early as September in . This transformative paradigm shift will, in turn, lead to less pressure in having to declare a winner on election night and, more importantly, prevent President Trump and others in the future from claiming that the election is rigged, corrupt and illegitimate or even unconstitutional.

What will become the new normal in American political and social life? Will we be a liberal, social or racial democracy? Will we become a real democracy based on working-class  across races and less on racial divisions across and between classes? These are some of the most critical questions of our time that should keep us busy in trying to hold elected officials, the media and ourselves accountable if we want to keep any semblance of our republic intact.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Apart from outside challengers, the liberal international order’s project is threatened from the inside as well. In fact, both in a variety of forms and shapes represent a growing threat not only to the rule of law, party politics and parliamentary democracy, but to the international order tout court. Ikenberry considers the COVID-19 pandemic as the moment possibly marking the , specifically the spring of 2020, “when the United States and its allies, facing the gravest public health threat and economic catastrophe of the postwar era, could not even agree on a simple communiqué of common cause.”

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However, Ikenberry admits that “the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic engulfing the world these days is only exposing and accelerating what was already happening for years.” As the COVID-19 pandemic risks to mark the end of the world liberal order, will the upcoming US election represent the last call for the existing system or what still remains of it?

A Brief History of the Liberal World Order

The liberal world order was forged in the aftermath of the Second World War upon a set of principles governing the international system. Based on the leadership of the United States and exerted through five core institutions — the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and NATO — with all its limits and weaknesses, granted economic development and security to a significant part of the world during the Cold War. Free market societies, supported by strong welfare policies, produced a long-term yet fragile balance between instances of economic competition, social inclusion and cohesion.

The dynamic worked well until the 1980s, when the foresightedness of preserving such a fragile balance gradually vanished. Liberal premises (equality of opportunities) and liberal promises (a more equal, peaceful and wealthy world) have been subverted by neoliberal politics and economic ideological positions, regressive and anti-progressivist in nature.

Today, a order has almost replaced the liberal one, bringing with it the opening of the markets through economic privatization, financialization and deregulation that results in national governments unable to shield citizens from social inequality deriving from unregulated globalization. Neoliberal politics and technocracies, often by taking advantage of emergencies and crises, have financial bubbles and rising economic inequality. This has taken place in light of an abstract intellectual orthodoxy, often reduced in opening international markets even if detrimental to social order, as argued, among others, by .

These days, the majority of the mass media points to radical-right populism and nationalism as the main threat to liberal democracy and its “international space.” In fact, the of the radical right has become an international phenomenon, with radical-right and nationalist parties experiencing growing electoral support among the middle classes globally. Yet Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen & Co are not the only threat: A new balance between state sovereignty and the coordinative action of international institutions is paramount to saving the international liberal order.

If we want liberal democracies to escape a ’ kind of dilemma, such as having to choose between the trivialization of politics proposed by populists or the gray hyper-complexity of technocratic governance, it is key to point out elements of convergence, different from the status quo and envisioning a general interest — not the sum of particular interests — to change non-cooperative behavior.

Everything’s Not Lost

From abandoning the World Health Organization (WHO) in the middle of a global pandemic to the signing of the Abraham Accords and openly flirting with right-wing extremists and white supremacists like the Proud Boys or QAnon adherents, President Donald Trump’s radical and populist rule has given up on multilateralism for a chaotic and opportunistic unilateralism. Trump has galvanized radical and far-right nationalist and populist parties worldwide, while his administration’s lack of interest in multilateral governance, in times of increasingly global nature of the issues policymakers are called to deal with, has implied both the weakening of the international order and the risk of handing it over to authoritarian challengers.

Paradoxically, some of those challengers, particularly China, have now even recognized that international institutions and organizations such as the WHO, with all their shortcomings, do have a comparative advantage in confronting global trends such as pandemics, climate change or large-scale migration.

However, on the other side of the Atlantic, old historic allies, in particular Germany, have not given up on the possibility to resume multilateralism with the US, as recently argued, among others, by Max Bergmann on and Peter Wittig in . While the Trump administration jeopardized decades of liberal international order, transatlantic relations and multilateralism, Germany kept fighting to keep it alive. Germany’s Zivilmacht — civilian power, to use Hanns Maull’s formulation — even if often expressed internationally in geoeconomic terms, with key business partnerships established with China or Russia, has never allowed business interests to undermine its regional and international commitments.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has demonstrated leadership in the recent poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s key opposition figure, or when forced to act unilaterally during the 2015 refugee crisis, providing to reluctant EU member states despite being at home, or in the case of the €750-billion ($821-billion) , produced in close partnership with France. These crises made Angela Merkel the most trusted leader worldwide (and, for the time being, ), holding that spot since 2017, when Trump succeeded Barack Obama as US president, according to . This trust was even more during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Germany’s leadership considered most favorably in relation to the US, France, China, UK and Russia.

As we await the 2020 US presidential election, we should not forget one lesson: In a globalized world, crises can be unique occasions to rediscover the mistreated virtues of multilateralism and collective decision-making. A victory for Donald Trump next week would translate into a coup de grace for the liberal world order, as countries as Germany will not be able to take on America’s role as global leader, in particular if other European Union member states are neither able nor willing to join their efforts.

If Joe Biden enters the Oval Office next January, there is a chance for the liberal system to survive, but it would require both bold vision and reforms, as suggested by Ikenberry. However, if globalization keeps increasing financialization and deregulation, only a simulacrum of the liberal world order will remain.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In November, both US President Donald Trump and Burmese State Minister Aung San Suu Kyi will be seeking reelection for their respective roles. In addition to being heads of state, both are the de facto leaders of their respective parties, and each wields a unique brand of populism. They both have exhibited substantial failings when it on matters of race and ethnicity during their current terms: Trump in his response to the Black Livers Matter movement, and Suu Kyi in her defense of the Rohingya genocide.

Voter Equality

What is interesting to note is that the Black Livers Matter movement and the Rohingya genocide both share a dimension of demographic politics. African slaves were first to the British colony of Virginia in the 17^th century, while the Rohingyas are believed to have with British colonialists starting in the 19^th century. Both groups have suffered systemic violence stemming from these histories, the former because of race and the latter because of both race and religion, with their right to vote consistently obstructed. While the Rohingya face , African Americans continue to face despite the many strides that have been made toward voter equality in the United States.

The major difference between these two electoral processes is that November will mark the 59^th US presidential election but only the second free vote Myanmar has had in 25 years. It is easy to assume that the US, being the modern world’s , would have a more inclusive voting process than Myanmar, whose shaky democratic transition was by military coups. However, an argument can be made that voting regulations in both countries exclude the demographics judged to be undesirable by political elites, and these regulations evolve over time as a response to the excluded groups’ attempts to overcome them.

There are many ways to restrict voting by demographic. The most obvious would be to deny citizenship, since only citizens can cast their votes in national elections. Other options include making sure the targeted group cannot vote due to fear or inconvenience, that they have no desirable candidates to vote for, or that their votes count less than other votes.

Both the US and Myanmar have a stratified citizenship system, and they share similarities in their history of denying citizenship as well. In the US, citizens enjoy the most privileges, while neither nationals nor permanent residents can vote or hold office. As an example, Americans born in American Samoa are to this day not considered US citizens, and like those born in Puerto Rico were not considered US citizens until the in 1917. The act superseded the of 1790 that limited naturalization to “free white persons,” effectively barring Native Americans, slaves and freedmen from obtaining citizenship and the ability to challenge other citizens in the court of law.

In Myanmar, distinctions are made between full citizens, associate citizens and naturalized citizens depending on various factors. To be naturalized as a citizen, an applicant must also be able to speak one of the national languages well (of which the Rohingya language is not one), be “of good character” and “of sound mind.” The last few requirements are sufficiently vague to allow rejections without justification as well as made-up reasons that are difficult to challenge or overturn. No matter their rank, Burmese citizens are issued color-coded , and their privileges are given in descending order.

No registration cards were issued to the Rohingyas since the 1970s, and since every step in life, from school enrolment to job applications requires identification, it is no surprise that the Rohingya remain one of the most and most disenfranchised minorities not only in Myanmar, but globally.

Fear and Bureaucracy

Despite the protection of the of 1965 that outlawed disenfranchisement through the use of literacy tests and the requirement of “good moral character” among other criteria, African Americans in the United States still suffer and new around polling stations. The act also does not cover the many ongoing efforts that currently limit voting participation, such as , , and decreasing the number of . By associating certain party leanings to certain locations and moving patterns, these tactics allow users to exclude demographics deemed unfavorable to their position.

In Myanmar, the Rohingya were issued specific  in 2010 that did not confer citizenship but allowed them to vote, suspected to be distributed by the then-ruling party as a . The cards were then before the 2015 elections that led to Suu Kyi’s victory. While the Rohingya who do not hold a national registration card cannot vote altogether at the moment, the tactics used by the Myanmar government also rely on capricious bureaucracy to limit the vote.

Since the Rohingya have no right to vote and their candidates are from standing for election, the comparisons cannot continue beyond the two categories listed above. But the overlap in voter suppression tactics goes to show that a lengthier democratic tradition is not an automatic guard against voter exclusion. Disenfranchisement takes many forms, and it occurs in democracies irrespective of their age. The consequences of voter suppression are no less dire even if they do not result in immediate life-and-death situations — because disenfranchisement is disempowerment. It is nothing less than the deliberate undercutting of a group’s ability to make itself respected and heard.

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of .]

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Today, America faces unprecedented challenges from foreign powers, especially China and North Korea. To meet the challenges, we must build a coherent foreign policy that the world — especially our allies — can understand and support. We are witnessing China increasingly flexing its muscles on the Indian border, in Hong Kong, in the South China Sea and with Taiwan. America puts itself at risk to not realize that China is investing much of its resources into a growing, multifaceted military.

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The US needs to build alliances throughout Asia to ensure our stability for the next century. We need to be doubling down on our relationships with India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and especially South Korea. South Korea is the world’s 12th-largest economic power and one of America’s strongest allies for the last 60 years. It has been a bastion of democracy housing one of the largest US military bases in Asia. It also houses an essential element of the West’s global supply chain for technology, transportation and telecommunications. This supply chain is more important than ever if relations with China continue to deteriorate.

While the importance of a strong South Korea policy is at an all-time high, US President Donald Trump managed to stick his finger in the eye of our Korean allies. In 2019, Trump demanded “out of thin air” that the Koreans pay $4.7 billion per year to station US military forces on the Korean Peninsula, according to .

There is no question that our allies have to pay their fair share for defense. However, cost-sharing negotiations must be based on rationale and data. At precisely the time we need strong allies in Asia, President Trump is burning bridges. This is a major political gaffe that America needs to correct before our relationship suffers long-term damage. If the South Koreans cannot count on reasonable and predictable US foreign policy, they will have little choice but to abandon Washington and to seek out other alliances.

The South Koreans weren’t the only ones taken by surprise. Even Republican Senators Cory Gardner and Marco Rubio were unprepared to discuss the president’s comments. Senator Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, , “If South Korea decides that it is better off without the United States, President Trump will have undermined an over 60-year shared commitment to peace, stability, and rule of law.”

The United States can do better. We need to deepen our relationship with South Korea as an essential partner for dealing with North Korea and China. We should be doing the same with other Asian countries and continue to promote the policies that Democratic and Republican secretaries of state have built over decades. A president needs to communicate a consistent game plan that the American people — and our allies — can understand and count on.

Presidential leadership needs to be even-handed and sensitive to the concerns of our allies. Demands should be replaced by reasonable requests and ample explanations. Insisting that allies vastly increase payments to the United States might make good domestic election-year politics at the cost of American safety in the world.

If we do not rethink the importance of our allies soon, we may be left to fight the next war alone.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Overheard conversation between two diners.

“Another great show, Don. You were terrific as usual. Your bluster is so intimidating. I loved the way you thundered on about that one guy’s shortcomings and made him cry.”

“Yeah, I thought I was excellent. Most of these ‘Apprentice’ wannabes are useless. They couldn’t run a newsstand where there’s no television.”

“You know, Don, I think you could do anything you want. You should run for president. You’d do a better job than some of these clowns. Last year, Obama had his worst year in office: He accused Russia of invading Ukraine, ordered airstrikes in Syria and, now, he’s got protesters chanting ‘black lives matter.’  He’s even talking about bypassing Congress’ opposition to his plan to allow 4 million immigrants to apply for work permits. Man, he’s in trouble.”

“I could take care of business.”

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“Then why don’t you? Run for the big job. Think about it: You could do for America what you’ve done for TV. It’s been running since 2004 and you’ve made it one of the most popular shows in history. You can use ‘The Apprentice’ formula, nominating project leaders who can take responsibility and make strategic decisions. You can call them into the Situation Room and tell them to brief you. If you don’t like their work, you know what to say, right? You’re dismissed! Just kidding, Don.”

The World’s Most Famous Bouffant

When people thought they’d seen enough of the world’s most famous bouffant, they were treated to “The further adventures of … .” Except not in another reality TV show, but an American presidency, a presidency that had the thrills and creative destruction of “The Apprentice.” No one, surely not even Trump himself, thought he stood a chance when he decided to take on established figures in the GOP and the hugely experienced Democrats, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton.

His upset election triumph over her was so improbable that it briefly managed the impossible, making people forget North Korea’s nuclear tests, the Syrian Civil War, the election of openly anti-American President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and the surprising decision by Britain to leave the European Union. All people were thinking and talking about was Trump, who became a member of an exclusive club: He was one of only five presidents to win office while losing the popular vote.

What happened? Had Americans lost their senses? After all, Trump had no political experience whatsoever. Even the most inexperienced presidents in history had either served at senior levels in the military or in the legal system. Trump was an entrepreneur-turned-reality TV star. But his leap into the unknown came in the second decade of the 21^st century when small matters like this seemed of secondary importance.

What mattered more was Trump’s ability to deliver a booming, rumbling, roaring performance and easy-on-the-intellect messages that people could understand. Cut taxes. Ban Muslims. Bomb the shit out of ISIS. Build a wall with Mexico. Bring home American troops. Tear up trade agreements. Move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

There were other similarly attention-grabbing commitments. Trump’s gift to America was spectacle. There had never been such a spectacular candidate, and perhaps that’s what nearly half of America wanted: a captivating leader. America has developed a culture in which everything, no matter how solemn, can be alchemized into handsome if meretricious entertainment. And, if you disagree, I have a two-word response: Kim Kardashian.

Over the past four years, Trump has dominated world affairs. His foreign policy decisions have effectively redefined US relations with the rest of the world. His fiscal policies have made Wall Street deliriously happy. His attitudes toward racism have divided his own nation as well as huge parts of the world. Trump has angered and delighted, probably in a rough ratio of 60:40. Whatever the world thinks about Trump, the undeniable reality is that he is the most ubiquitous American president in history. There hasn’t been a day in the last four years when Donald Trump has not been reported as doing or saying something headline-grabbing. Reality TV shows that hog our attention are doing their jobs. Presidents who do it are probably doing something other than politicking.

For many politicians, a scandalous claim of an affair would be embarrassing, if not ruinous. But porn star that she and Trump had a liaison in 2006 seemed entirely congruent. In fact, it would have been more of a surprise had the president not been entangled in some sort of sex imbroglio.

There is even a global movement that regards Trump as far more than a politician. For QAnon, Trump is waging a surreptitious war against a cabal of plutocrats and Hollywood celebrities who engage in pedophilia, sex trafficking and harvesting blood from dead children. Not even a drama, let alone a reality TV show, could have scripted a more fantastic narrative than this. The nearest equivalent I can think of is in Yaohnanen, on the South Pacific island of Tanna, where Britain’s Prince Philip is worshipped as a sort of messiah, a son of the ancestral mountain god.

Trump has not repurposed himself as president. He has adapted the presidency to his own requirements, surrounding himself with senior-level advisers, assigning them tasks, then firing or promoting them. His staff as of October 7, it was 91%. No one has been safe while Trump has been behind the Oval Office desk, not even the first senator to endorse Trump’s presidential candidacy in early 2016, Jeff Sessions; he was fired in 2017. Many others have resigned, but the revolving door approach to senior political appointments and dismissals suggests a style of leadership in which delegation is key, much like in TV.

Still Fresh

Now the big question is whether this novelty is still fresh. Even the most fascinating, amusing and engaging celebrities have a shelf life. Trump has delighted and infuriated people in roughly equal measures. Every faux pas — and there have been a good few of them — is somehow glossed over as blithely as if he’d thrown up in the back of an Uber. Every success is hailed, usually by him, as a groundbreaking masterstroke. Sometimes, to be fair, it is. The rapprochement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was genuinely significant.

But awarding himself an A+ for the “phenomenal job” he had done during his tenure grated with as many as it amused. And the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has provided his opponent Joe Biden with a gift-wrapped opportunity to expose him. “We have it under control. It’s gonna be just fine,” Trump everyone in January. A month later, he called the coronavirus a “hoax.” “The virus will not have a chance against us,” he claimed as the death rate climbed toward the current figure of 222,000. He blamed “China’s cover-up” and criticized the World Health Organization. His complacency was unnerving even to skeptics.

When Trump and Melania were stricken only a month before the election, many must have muttered something about hubris. But, with characteristic bravado, Trump used his brief incapacitation as an occasion to show he doesn’t scare easily. Nor should anyone else. “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” he . “Don’t let it dominate your life.” Once more, he treated an abstract malefactor as if it were a challenge on “The Apprentice.” “Covid isn’t that serious,” he dismissively. It was typical Trump, making light of what is, to others, a near-irresolvable problem. Then again, that’s been his modus operandi throughout his presidency. For Trump, there hasn’t been a problem that doesn’t have a solution. It’s just that most people are “losers” and don’t want to discover it. He always can. This is why he’s intolerant of journalists whom he calls negative when they attack him. The problems may be larger and more complex than those on “The Apprentice,” but they all have resolutions.

Most Americans have made up their mind about how they’re going to cast their ballot. Trump’s illness might evoke sympathy, but it won’t affect anyone’s choice. Trump is already back on the road, swatting away criticisms with his usual humorous self-assurance. His flamboyant, often preposterous, occasionally laughable and always entertaining style of leadership has dazzled America and, indeed, the world for four years now. Polls suggest Americans are satiated and ready for a return to a more traditional leader.  

What worries them most? An extravagantly bombastic president who never doubts the wisdom of his own choices or a more measured and reflective personality who will probably lead competently but never offer the kind of extravaganza to which Americans, as well as the rest of the world, have become accustomed?

*[Ellis Cashmore is the author of “.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Michael Froman, the vice president of Mastercard, set the tone with his that “one thing is clear: nationalism, populism, nativism, and protectionism are on the rise. Economic insecurities, as well as a growing sense of lost sovereignty, have contributed to an unprecedented degree of political polarization, and not just in the US.”

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The reference to the United States is hardly surprising. For the past several years, anyone writing on populism and its various aspects has invariably invoked two major events: Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Both have been framed as part of a larger populist revolt, which is characterized as one of the most significant and distinctive, if not outright defining, political features of today’s world. But is it really that clear-cut, that obvious?

It largely depends on how populism is defined. Is it merely an expression of widespread disaffection with a political system that appears to have largely failed to take seriously and address the grievances of the “ordinary people”? Or is it something entirely more serious, something that poses a fundamental challenge, if not a threat to liberal democracy?

It Can’t Happen Here

As is so often the case, there is ample support for both interpretations. This might explain the passionate, diametrically opposed sentiments Donald Trump has and continues to evoke. Despite everything — his shallowness coupled with an egotism that borders on the pathological, his dishonesty and myriads of lies, his vulgarity, callousness and utter lack of empathy, his obvious ignorance and glaring incompetence — a substantial part of the American electorate will support him, no matter what.

At the same time, because of what Trump embodies, stands for and projects, a substantial part of the American electorate has nothing but contempt for a president who once claimed that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Manhattan and still maintain the support of his voters. Unfortunately, he might have been right.

Statements like that led a number of commentators ahead of the 2016 election to express fears that a Trump presidency might descend into . Some of them Lewis Sinclair’s 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here,” pointing out the eerie resemblance between Sinclair’s Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip and Donald Trump. Several years into his presidency, the of whether or not Trump is a fascist is still in full swing.

The answer is fairly obvious, at least for those who have spent some time studying fascist regimes, such as Benito Mussolini’s totalitarian state. This, in fact, is one of the central tenets of fascism — the glorification of the . As Mussolini once put it, “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state!” What this phrase means, at least in theory, is nothing less than the complete subordination of the individual to the exigencies of the state and its supreme leader. Reality, of course, looked a bit different, as Federico Fellini has so brilliantly .

It is for this reason alone that the fascism charge against Trump makes little sense, given America’s long tradition of, and abiding allegiance to, individualism. It is the rampant individualism that permeates American social and economic life, which, for instance, has been identified as a major reason for the widespread in recent weeks to wear masks. Under the circumstances, it is probably best to abandon the fascism charge altogether, if only because comparing Trump to the likes of Mussolini and particularly Hitler can only but contribute to the trivialization of fascism and Nazism, responsible for mass murder and horrendous suffering on a massive scale.

If Not Fascist, Then What?

If not a fascist, what then is Trump? Over the course of his presidency, it has become increasingly obvious that Donald Trump represents the epitome of a radical right-wing populist — and of the worst kind. Radical right-wing populism is a blend of populism and nativism, which promotes a fundamental social and political transformation of the existing liberal system. This is along the lines of Victor Orban’s of “illiberal democracy” — the endpoint of a slow process of eroding and ultimately asphyxiating both the ideational and institutional foundations of liberal representative democracy. In the past, the populist model of illiberal democracy was largely confined to Latin American regimes, starting with Juan Perón in Argentina and ending with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

In the United States, the most outstanding example of this kind of populism was Huey Long, first the governor of, then the senator for Louisiana in the late 1920s and early 1930s. And, in fact, commentators have parallels between Long, “with his loud mouth and boorish ways,” as a contemporary him, and Trump. Both men “presented themselves to the electorate as insurgents, outsiders seeking to disrupt the established order and tackle vested interests, promising widespread economic and political reform.” Both men, once in office, displayed authoritarian dispositions and established and consolidated a system of cronyism, if not outright corruption, fundamentally at odds with the tenets of America’s model of liberal democracy.

Here, however, the resemblance ends. Unlike Trump, Long was genuinely concerned about the plight of the poor and, particularly as senator, pushed for a centering around redistributive policies. In fact, his most memorable , as Adrian Mercer points out, “aimed at the state’s poor, dispossessed, and marginalised, was encapsulated in the “Share our Wealth” programme which offered voters a promised land where, in his famous phrase, “every man a king.”

According to the prominent economist , Long proposed capping annual incomes at $1 million and inheritances at $5.1 million. The resulting revenues were supposed to go into a basic income of $2,500, provide pensions to the elderly, free health care to veterans and free education to students attending college or vocational training. And unlike Trump, Huey Long never had the chance to run for president. He was murdered in 1935, his triggered by his maneuvering in Louisiana’s legislature to rid himself of one of his political opponents.

Populists justify this kind of shenanigans (getting rid of opponents via legislative means) as expressions of the “will of the people.” The people’s will is deemed confirmed via numerous elections and popular referenda and summed up, as it were, by the populist leader who incarnates the people — “El pueblo soy yo,” as the title of Enrique Krauze’s on populism puts it. Since the populist leader is nothing but the expression of the will of the people — what Ernesto Laclau has called an “empty signifier” onto whom the people can project their anxieties, fears, fury, resentments and, yes, aspirations — there is no need for checks and balances and competitive pluralism. The is a state “in which the political power relativizes the rule of law, democracy and human rights in politically sensitive cases; constitutionalizes populist nationalism; and takes advantage of identity politics, new patrimonialism, clientelism, and state-controlled corruption.”

In order to bring this about, populists have employed what Stephen Gardbaum has to as “revolutionary constitutionalism.” This entails “using the constitution-making (and amendment) process as a tool of ordinary rather than higher politics to entrench an existing or newly empowered government’s position through measures that concentrate its power and render successful electoral opposition more difficult.” This is what happened, in one form or another, in Hungary, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador under populist regimes.

“Own People”

Illiberal democracy is only one side of the radical right-wing populist coin. The other, and significantly more important one — particularly in the case of political parties in competitive representative democracies such as exist in Western Europe that have little chance to gain an absolute majority — is nativism. Nativist doctrine maintains that the interests of the “native-born” should have absolute priority over those new to the national community. The “own people” should always come first: citizens before non-citizens, the native-born before foreigners, the own nation before the rest of the world. Popular slogans such as National Rally’s “La France aux français,” (“France for the French”), “Les français d’abord” (“The French First”), or Vlaams Blok’s “Eigen Volk Eerst” (“Own People First”) attest to the centrality of nativism in the radical populist right’s ideational repertoire.

Politically, nativists stand for protecting a country’s job market and welfare benefits against “outgroup” competitors. At the same time, they promote a wide array of measures designed to defend, maintain and revive the cherished heritage of the autochthonous population’s culture, customs and values. As far as the government is concerned, nativist doctrine demands that it a “reasonable partiality towards compatriots by protecting and advancing the socioeconomic and cultural welfare of its own citizens, more often than not defined in ethnic terms.”

Radical right-wing populism is hardly new to American politics. In fact, nativism originated in the United States in the first half of the 19^th century, with the arrival of waves of immigrants from Europe, the vast majority of them Catholics from Ireland and the southern parts of Germany. In response, Protestants organized secret societies and associations set on countering what they considered the “deadly threat” to the republic posed by an alien force they deemed intent on subverting the country’s institutions and ultimately subordinating America to the pope.

Over time, the various anti-Catholic organizations merged into a political party, popularly known as the Know Nothings, which combined anti-elite populism with a strong dose of nativism. For a few years in antebellum America, the Know Nothings posed a significant threat to the established political system before falling apart over a new contentious issue — abolitionism. Ironically enough, many Know Nothings joined Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party, bringing with them a legacy of anti-Catholicism.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Republican Party under Donald Trump has been to the Know Nothings, given its “loathing for immigrants.” This comparison is both fair and unfair: fair because the Know Nothings stoked anxieties and fears of a Catholic takeover of the United States, which was ludicrous, to say the least; unfair because unlike today’s Trump-subservient minions in the Republican Party, the Know Nothings never outright opposed immigration, not even from Catholic countries, and never advocated closing America’s shores or building a wall. What they demanded instead was extending the period of naturalization to 21 years, equal to the period it took for a “native-born” to become a citizen with full citizen rights.

Greatest Suction Pump in the World

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, nativist sentiments have received a significant boost. Surveys suggest a substantial increase in public support for economic protectionism, particularly with respect to critical and strategically important sectors such as health and food. At the same time, calls for regaining national sovereignty, particularly as it regards national borders, and for shoring up a sense of national identity have gained increasing support, not only among the public, but also among the political establishment.

Last but not least, the pandemic has provided new justifications for demands to further reduce access to social benefits to the “undeserving” — primarily migrants from non-Western countries — in order to further reduce the welfare state’s pull effect which, as nativists charge, is a major reason why migrants and “bogus refugees” seek to enter Western Europe.

The ultimate objective is to completely shut down the “suction pumps” — “pompes aspirantes,” as the National Rally likes to put it — such as generous welfare benefits that are held to be the main reason migrants are attracted to Western Europe. Nativists justify their position by claiming that the influx of migrants and the resulting growing ethnocultural diversity threaten to weaken social solidarity and, in the processes, undermine support for the welfare state — what in the welfare state literature is known as the progressive dilemma. It stands to reason that in the wake of COVID-19, “welfare chauvinist” sentiments have grown, even if the absence of reliable survey data a conclusive statement.

Given these trends and developments, it is probably safe to say that with COVID-19, the “opportunity structure” for radical right-wing populist mobilization has considerably improved. Whether or not this will actually benefit the radical populist right at the polls depends to a large extent on their ability to exploit the political opportunities the pandemic has opened up. The November election is likely to provide the first tentative answers.

During his tenure as president of the United States, Donald Trump has provided ample evidence that he is the paragon of a radical right-wing populist leader well versed in eliciting some of the worst impulses and affects in human nature. As has recently put it in The New York Times, “Trump has shown America its resentments. He has modeled its rage.” This explains to a large extent why his appeal among substantial parts of the American electorate remains strong until today. Trump’s amazing staying power, despite his glaring incompetence and lack of positive human emotions, has largely been based on his uncanny ability to sense the grievances and resentments of his various constituencies and turn them into a simplistic narrative of victimization, with himself as the prime victim.

Populism is a particular style of politics that to a large extent plays on affect and emotions. The gamut is wide, ranging from anxiety, fear, anger and resentment to disdain and contempt, to name but the most important. One, however, is of particular importance in contemporary radical right-wing populist discourse: nostalgia. Nostalgia is that yearning for a happier past “when the world was still in order,” as the Germans like to say. In the United States, these were the days of “Leave it to Beaver” and “Happy Days,” the world evoked in “American Graffiti” and “Diner.” These were the days when a factory job could still guarantee a middle-class life, complete with a house, two cars and two-and-a-half children.

These were the days when men were still men, women knew their place in society, gays did not dare to come out of the closet, and marriage was limited to a union between a man and a woman. These were the days when the United States was the dominant world power, economically, militarily, even culturally, with Western European audiences were glued to “Dallas” and “Charlie’s Angels.” These were the days when Americans had reason to claim that theirs was “the greatest country in the world.”

Today, only those Americans who have never set foot out of their neck of the woods, who still believe that Ontario is part of the United States, would subscribe to this notion. For the rest, the realization has sunk in that America is no longer what its cheerleaders on Fox News claim it to be, that the nation is not only coming apart at the seams but increasingly falling behind the rest of advanced capitalist countries and thus no longer attractive as a destination.

Take, for instance, the case of Norway. In 2018, Trump made it known to the world that he wished for more Norwegians to come and settle in the US rather than all those migrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti or the African nations. As it turns out, Norwegians — hundreds of thousands of whom migrated to the United States in the 19^th century — waved off Trump’s invitation. In 2016, a mere 500 Norwegians to the US, 10% less than in the previous year.

The End of the American Dream

For the past several decades, a large number of Americans have deluded themselves in believing that theirs is indeed the greatest country on earth. Even Trump’s famous slogan, “Make America Great Again,” apparently failed to alert them to the fact that the tag line might indicate that America was no longer great. And if it actually did, they could always claim that if America was no longer what it used to be, it was all Obama’s fault or the result of an evil plot by the left. Reality, however, tends to be tenacious and rather impervious to spin. Ironically enough, it is that reality which to a large extent explains Trump’s continued appeal.

In fact, numerous studies over the past few years have shown that what permeates American society is a profound malaise, which to a large extent has preceded the current pandemic. As a Pew from early 2019 put it, “Looking to the Future, Public Sees an America in Decline on Many Fronts.” At the same time, the Trump presidency, despite all of its bluster and hype, has done nothing to reverse these sentiments. In September, less than 30% of likely voters the country was going in the right direction — virtually unchanged from the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency. And yet, Trump has remained politically competitive and might still win the November election. It would be intellectually dishonest to claim that there is one indisputable explanation for why this is the case. The fact is that there are numerous plausible explanations, all of which throw light on different parts of reality.

This brings us back to Ernesto Laclau’s theory on populism, particularly his notion of the empty signifier briefly mentioned earlier on. Laclau’s take on populism is to start with the most basic unit of analysis, disparate grievances and demands expressed by ordinary people. If the political establishment fails to meet them, these unsatisfied grievances and demands, particularly if they establish a common denominator — “they could care less about us” — create what Laclau a “frontier,” a gap between those below and those on top, which is the perfect basis for populist mobilization.

In order to understand these dynamics, it is necessary to proceed in two steps. The first step regards the socioeconomic and socio-structural conditions and developments that have given rise to grievances and demands. The second step regards the nature of these grievances and demands, and how they play themselves out politically. One word of caution, however: Not all grievances and demands are the result of recent developments. Some of them have been simmering for a long time, until they found an outlet in the presidency of Donald Trump.

One of the most widely cited explanations of the outcome of the 2016 election is Diana Mutz’s from 2018. Mutz advances two arguments. On the basis of empirical evidence, she postulates that Trump’s victory was informed by both a “perceived status threat by high-status groups” — white Americans of European stock — and “American insecurity about whether the United States is still the dominant global economic superpower.”

Status Loss

This is hardly the first time that there is a strong sense of decline in the United States. Already in the late 1980s, there were similar concerns, only that time with respect to Japan and Western Europe. Task forces were set up at prominent institutions like MIT, commissioned to examine what had gone wrong and come up with ideas of how America could its “productive edge.” With the boom of the 1990s, fueled by the dotcom bubble, the concern with decline quickly dissolved in thin air.

Today, the situation is fundamentally different. With the rapid ascent of China, the United States is faced with a substantially more serious challenge. As Joseph Nye a year ago in the Financial Times, “Many in Washington, both Republicans and Democrats, fear that the rise of China will spell the end of the American era. This exaggerated fear itself can become a cause of conflict.” Nye was skeptical about China’s potential to pose a serious threat to the United States anytime soon. Others less so,  above all Donald Trump. His increasing belligerence toward China reflected not only personal acrimony  but a broader irritation with the that “an economic system different from the U.S. has succeeded so remarkably.”

There are, of course, a number of quite real reasons for American anxieties and irritation when it comes to China. For one, China has become America’s main creditor, holding hundreds of billions of US debt. Secondly, there is a sense that China is largely responsible for American deindustrialization. To be sure, this is largely bogus. Deindustrialization has a number of causes, most prominently perhaps the pervasive influence of financialization. But it is far easier to blame China than confront domestic failures and shortcomings.

Deindustrialization is, of course, one of the major drivers of the second development identified by Mutz, the perceived loss of status by hitherto relatively high-status groups. Much has recently been written about the importance of status loss for explaining the success of radical right-wing populism. The , as Sarah Engler and David Weisstanner describe, is fairly straightforward: “The relative deterioration in material conditions … translates into a lower subjective social status of vulnerable groups who then turn towards the radical right.” In the past, loss of status resulting from socioeconomic modernization affected primarily routine blue-collar workers, losing out to competition from cheap labor in developing countries. Today, the range of potential victims of globalization is much greater, reaching all the way into professional groups. This is to a large extent due to the rapid pace of innovation in emerging technologies, such as robotics, AI, 5G and nanotechnology, to name but a few.

What all of these technologies have in common is that they are highly capital-intensive, digitalized and increasingly automated. This means that they are unlikely to benefit traditional blue-collar workers. On the contrary, like earlier offshoring and outsourcing of industrial production, the emerging automation-driven economy offers few opportunities for low-skilled workers performing routine tasks that are easily robotized. Even worse, with “increasingly able to perform not only manual and routine cognitive tasks but also non-routine manual and cognitive tasks.”

AI-driven is expected to threaten even skilled workers, albeit to a lesser extent than oftentimes claimed. Those who most from these developments are highly-educated, high-skilled workers, particularly if well-versed in STEM disciplines, which allow them to perform tasks that are complementary to automation, such as robot design, maintenance, supervision and management.

The socio-structural consequences are well-known from earlier rounds of technological and organizational innovation, such as the introduction of CNC machinery, CAM/CAD applications, flexible manufacturing systems, just-in-time production: the devaluation of formal degrees (high school diploma, bachelor’s degree, vocational degrees), structural unemployment, early retirement, regional disparities and growing inequality.

As a result, a growing number of working-age persons have been left with the impression that they have become “structurally irrelevant,” their skills and experience obsolete, their labor no longer needed, their place of home “.” Take, for instance, oil drilling. In 2014, oil prices fell precipitously. As a result, a large number of oil industry workers lost their jobs. When oil prices rose again, many of them were never recalled. Because of automated drilling, only a fraction of the initial workforce was needed. Of 440,000 workers, roughly never found their way back. The same has happened, albeit on a smaller scale, in the coal industry, which Trump promised he would save. The happened: Many mines shut down during his tenure, accelerating coal’s decline and leaving hundreds out of work.

Resentment Exhausted?

The decline of America’s coal industry provides another glimpse into the dynamics of American decline — the decline of the American male. With the collapse of the coal industry in large parts of the United States, the status of men has fundamentally changed. In the past, as a recent report in The New York Times on the of coal mining in the Appalachians describes, coal miners had good jobs, “with good benefits and an income approaching six figures when all the overtime was added.” The men worked underground, the women stayed home to take care of the children.

With the closing of the mines, the gender balance was completely reversed. While men were laid off, women went back to work. Men were left with the impression that their “very identity” had been “declared insolvent.” Dan Cassino, of Fairleigh Dickinson University, has persuasively that men who feel their masculinity threatened react in a particular way. They refuse to do the dishes, buy guns, refuse to wear masks, and vote Republican. They epitomize in the starkest of terms possible the decline of world marked by the likes of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood.

Radical right-wing populism is above all a politics of resentment. Resentment is one of the most potent emotions as an impetus of populist mobilization. Donald Trump has been a master in provoking, stoking and capitalizing on resentment. Resentment is provoked by a profound sense of injustice, of a strong sense of being ignored, if not being taken seriously. This is the central message of a number of studies that have appeared in recent years, from J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” to Katherine J. Cramer’s “The Politics of Resentment.”

It also explains the continued support for Trump on the part of American evangelicals and devout Catholics despite his horrendous moral flaws. For decades, both groups have been the butt of jokes, their beliefs ridiculed, their concerns dismissed. In Donald Trump, they found a presidential candidate who projected himself as on a mission from God dedicated to restoring Christianity’s rightful place at the center of American society. In this way, Trump appealed to wide-spread American Christian resentment against an increasingly secularized society, which embraced values with respect to marriage and the sanctity of life diametrically opposed to their fundamental beliefs.

On November 3, the American electorate is called upon to elect its president. The choice is between a patently populist incumbent and a representative of the establishment. No matter who will win the election, one thing is clear: The grievances that propelled Donald Trump into the Oval Office four years ago have not been met. Quite the contrary: The COVID-19 pandemic has only but added to the malaise endemic to American society’s mood over the past several years. Trump’s presidency has done little to nothing to alleviate this malaise. Resentment still dominates American politics — a politics more polarized than ever. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine that the United States is going to regain the confidence and bravado that once made it the greatest country in the world.

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of the .]

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In the US, have voter ID laws, with 18 of those requiring a photo ID; notably in and , strict photo voter ID laws were recently struck down. These ID laws significantly affect transgender voters who may have difficulty obtaining an ID that accurately reflects their name, gender and appearance. As a result, transgender citizens with identification documents that do not match their gender may be turned away at the polls. By some , approximately 42% of eligible transgender voters do not have identification documents that reflect their name and gender.

Disenfranchisement

When it is permitted, the administrative process of updating voter identification cards can also be onerous and involve significant financial and administrative hurdles for trans people, discouraging voting. At least 14 states have burdensome to alter the gender section on IDs, including a court order, proof of gender-affirming surgery or an amended birth certificate. This is despite the fact many trans people do not want, cannot access or afford surgery or other gender-affirming care. In addition, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of gender-affirming procedures have been put as non-emergency care and surgeries are postponed.

These requirements potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of trans citizens. The UCLA Williams Institute that “In the November 2020 general election, over 378,000 voting-eligible transgender people may face barriers to voting due to voter registration requirements and voter ID laws, including 81,000 who could face disenfranchisement in strict photo ID states.” These difficulties have only been exacerbated by the when courts and the Department of Motor Vehicles offices closed across the country for weeks, hindering the process of updating identification documents.

Of course, the potential for disenfranchisement is even higher for transgender people facing other vectors of oppression related to their race, criminal history, ethnicity, age, income or ability. For instance, as Human Rights Watch , the practice of disenfranchising felons and of removing inactive voters from the rolls can disproportionately affect transgender voters who experience housing insecurity and incarceration — often due to the criminalization of HIV transmission or sex work — at higher rates.

Transgender people also often face harassment and discrimination at the polls, even from poll workers. Human Rights Campaign in 2019 that fear of discrimination has led “49 percent of transgender adults, and 55 percent of trans adults of color to avoid voting in at least one election in their lives.” This fear is not without basis. The Williams Institute also that after presenting inaccurate IDs at a polling station, many experience voter suppression: “Respondents reported being verbally harassed (25%), denied services or benefits (16%), being asked to leave the venue where they presented the identification (9%), and being assaulted or attacked (2%).”

Ensuring Equal Access to Suffrage

Access to suffrage, regardless of gender identity, is , and all undue constraints on who can vote should be eliminated. While the responsibility this November will, unfortunately, fall primarily on trans and non-binary voters to create a that may include voting by mail when possible, it is the state’s responsibility to ensure equal access for these communities.

Across the globe, there are models on which to base reform. In several countries such as Argentina, Colombia and Denmark, citizens can self-determine their gender on their IDs. In Malta, there is also an “X” or third gender/decline-to-state option for passports. Having this third option is extremely important for including trans and non-binary voters, yet in the US, only 19 states and the District of Colombia residents to select a non-binary option on their driver’s licenses. Further, changing one’s gender on an identification card should not require proof of medical intervention and should be based solely on self-identification.

In addition to these longer-term reforms, there are also opportunities to prevent discrimination against trans and non-binary voters in this electoral cycle. Advocacy groups should continue to encourage members of the LGBTQ+ community to become poll workers. Simultaneously, the government should all poll workers on interacting with transgender and non-binary voters and ensuring that they are not denied a ballot. Notably, voters can also report any intimidation at the polls to the nonpartisan at 866-OUR-VOTE. These steps can ensure that members of these communities will feel safe going to the polls and making their voices heard.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Prima facie, the NEP might make many Indians happy because it has something in it for everyone. However, a careful read reveals that the NEP does little to change the direction of our education. It largely promises cosmetic changes. In essence, the NEP is a collection of myriad aspirational expressions, not a coherent policy framework.

The ideologues of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may find the references to ancient wisdom of India heartening. It might lead to young Indians learning that Banabhatta outlined 64 forms of art or Sushruta pioneered glorious surgical techniques. However, it does little to prepare the young to shape the future.

Given my advocacy of long-term policymaking, I should have reasons to thank those who drafted the NEP. They have taken a 20-year view and set goals for 2040. Just as we plan over a 20-year timespan, not a five-year one, for our children, so should our national plans. Yet a bad 20-year plan is worse than its bad five-year counterpart, and that is my problem with the NEP.

What Are the Changes Proposed?

Let me pick on a key aspect of the plan. The NEP proposes the . This means that, all over the country, students will learn three languages. These are Hindi, English and the regional language of the respective state. The government believes that it is abolishing language barriers in the country. Instead, this has triggered off a storm in non-Hindi speaking states. In Tamil Nadu, there has been long-standing opposition to Hindi as compulsory learning or administration. The three-language formula has been around since 1968 but failed to take off because parts of India resent the domination and imposition of Hindi.

There is another tiny little matter. Demand for learning in English has taken off around the country, including and especially in Hindi-speaking areas. Thanks to the legacy of colonization, the advent of globalization and a host of other factors, English has emerged as the language of success in India. The people do not care for the three-language formula one jot. Yet the BJP’s NEP is flogging a dead horse.

Many have lauded the NEP for promoting multidisciplinary education. This has long been discussed. At far too young an age, Indians are cast into rigid silos of arts, science and commerce. As a result, they lose love for learning and end up at lower-productivity levels than their counterparts in Europe or East Asia. The NEP allows students to change disciplines more easily along the same lines as in the US. However, this flexibility will only benefit the country if quality education is offered in different disciplines. For instance, English and history are taught terribly in a rote-based manner in most schools. Shifting from science or commerce to study either subject might enable a student to pass more easily but would achieve little else.

The NEP offers greater flexibility in earning degrees either over a period of time or across subjects. Offering multiple entry and exit points in higher education is a good idea. It may help people find their true interests and give them second or third chances in life. However, the key logical next step is to unlink degrees from jobs, where academic degrees are immaterial. A new form of recruiting that is based on demonstrated merit and knowledge of the work itself is the way forward for the country. The NEP has missed that opportunity to curb ���Ի徱��’s fixation with degrees and promote a culture of focus on work.

Supporters claim that the NEP is focusing on work by combining vocational education with school and college education. In due course of time, vocational education will be on par with other degree programs. A carpenter, a plumber or an electrician will command the same respect as someone with a �������ٱ��’s degree in literature, history or sociology. This argument is disingenuous. Increasing “respect” for vocational programs involves changes in social perceptions. It requires much deeper and drastic changes than those envisaged by the NEP.

Bad Thinking and Poor Drafting

In fact, the NEP is full of seemingly good ideas that have simply not been thought through. It has passing references to fostering creativity and instituting a 360-degree view in student report cards. It also throws in digital education, adult learning and lok-vidya (folk education) about local heritage and culture. Yet the NEP fails to tell anyone how these ideas will come into practice.

The drafters of the NEP forget that soundbites are not policy. Nor are tweaks. Turning a 5+3+2+2 system into a 10+2 or 5+3+3 one does not change the way students are taught or the way they learn. Similarly, giving a certificate after year one, a diploma after year two and a bachelor’s after year three does not change syllabi, pedagogy and learning. Yes, a student can drop out after a year with a certificate, but would that be worth the paper it was written on?

To change education, India must improve the quality and commitment of its teachers. Training them in institutions with new names or giving students multiple exits or entries in a four-year bachelor of education program offers flexibility in getting a degree but does not improve the quality of their instruction.

In comparison with earlier education policies, the National Education Policy is a poorly-drafted document. It is a testament to how India has regressed under the BJP. The demonetization policy was instituted by a hasty, poorly-drafted document. It seems that the government does not have the intellectual policymaking firepower of its predecessors.

One sentence in paragraph 4.13 on page 14 of the NEP captures drafting woes common to recent government documents when it proclaims: “In particular, students who wish to change one or more of the three languages they are studying may do so in Grade 6 or 7, as long as they are able to demonstrate basic proficiency in three languages (including one language of India at the literature level) by the end of secondary school.”

Does this mean that students can change the languages they are learning as long as they can travel into the future, i.e., Grade 12, and prove they are proficient in the new languages they choose? Or does it mean that students must be prepared to prove proficiency in the languages they choose in Grade 12? Sadly, the NEP is full of such unadulterated absolute nonsense.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The US presidential election is certainly no exception. At least part of the reason that matters to Washington is because, for the first time since America became a global superpower, it now has a proper peer. The former Soviet Union may have been a military peer, but it was not a peer on any other level. That is not true with China, which now rivals the US in some arenas or is on its way to doing so. In some aspects of science, technology, the global economy, diplomacy and political influence, Beijing is already more consequential to much of the rest of the world than America is.

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Given its single-minded focus on creating an alternative world order crafted in Beijing’s image, as well as the tremendous resources it is devoting to that task, there is little reason to believe that China’s trajectory will change in the coming decade and beyond. One could argue, in fact, that the outcome of the election matters almost as much to Beijing as it does to America, for it will define the type and scope of headwind Beijing faces for at least the next four years.

A second Trump term of course implies more of the same: trade war, challenging Beijing at every opportunity, the war of words, and not giving an inch on anything. But it also implies four more years of discord and disarray between America and its many allies. Both America and China have paid a serious price for having Donald Trump in the White House, but Beijing has certainly benefitted while Washington has suffered from the fractious nature of America’s relationship with its allies.

Under a Biden presidency, that is likely to be greatly reduced, which should concern Beijing a lot, for it has enabled the Communist Party of China (CPP) to act with virtual impunity on the global stage while America and its allies passively look on. That is what has enabled Beijing to expropriate and militarize the Spratly and Paracel Islands, bulldoze its way into more than 70 countries without opposition via the Belt and Road Initiative, and significantly increase its influence in the world’s multilateral organizations, among other things. That damage has already been done and, in truth, there is relatively little Joe Biden or any subsequent US administration may be able to do about it.

What Biden can do in response is repair those alliances and lead an effort to coordinate and unify the West’s future responses to Beijing’s actions. It is by acting in unison that the West will not only get Beijing’s attention, but begin to reverse the tide. Beijing has few real allies, and some of its “allies” have dual allegiances between Beijing and Washington. When push comes to shove in a time of crisis, Saudi Arabia, for example, is not likely to pivot in Beijing’s direction, despite China’s growing economic ties with the kingdom. The same is true with a variety of other allies that China believes are in its camp but which Washington has cultivated over the decades. Beijing is a new arrival to the party.

So, what is at stake for Beijing is an unfortunate choice: endure four more years of Trump’s tirades or (at least) four years of a US administration that values America’s alliances and intends to reinvigorate them. Biden is not likely to try to reverse the course Trump has embarked upon with Beijing. That ship has sailed. US Congress is on board with Trump’s contention that Xi Jinping and the CCP are bad actors and that the Chinese government is America’s greatest adversary. ��������’s foreign policy is unlikely to be substantively differently oriented.

In that regard, while this is undoubtedly the most important election of most Americans’ lifetimes, it is also crucially important for Beijing. The gloves are off on both sides and they are not going to be put back on. The question is, does Beijing prefer Trump or Biden? While the answer is probably neither, knowing that bilateral relations are not going to revert to where they were under Barack Obama, Beijing may actually prefer Trump over Biden in the hope that the damage done to America’s alliances may become permanent. In the meantime, the CCP will continue to use Trump to whip up nationalism at home, which of course suits its ultimate objective of strengthening Xi’s and the CCP’s grip on power.

*[Daniel Wagner is the  of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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Of course, it says more about the moral fault lines at the heart of US politics than it does about US-Turkish relations. These fault lines are being given the scorched earth treatment once more as the election season draws to a close. But what does the future hold for US-Turkish relations, once so unshakable and now so fractious, despite President Trump’s personal warmth toward Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Will it make any difference if the old man at the helm is Joe Biden instead?

Let the Old Men Talk

As the above quote reveals, much about US-Turkish relations today is being driven by personalities. Individuals always matter in international relations, but their importance is accentuated by the rise of figures who command strong populist appeal, who are firmly embedded in positions of power and who espouse an essentially patriarchal and conservative vision of the exercise of that power. It means relations are not the smooth ride they were during the Cold War era. Today, these populist figures thrive on being bullish and awkward leaders.

In Donald Trump, Turkey’s leader, like many others, has found a man with whom they can engage. Indeed, President Erdogan is said to have a regular hotline to the White House. The US president is openly admiring of strong and often autocratic leadership. It’s a style he clearly feels he epitomized in the business world and which he has brought to his presidency. That his tenure as the president of the United States may be briefer than that of many of the populist and autocratic leaders he admires is the one spoiler.

It may also be a spoiler for the US more broadly. In the past few years, such world leaders have grown self-confident in the global order lead by Donald Trump. A Biden administration that chastises them for their faults on human rights, conflict resolution or democratic norms might well receive a hostile response. This poses a conundrum for the United States. A president who set out specifically to put America first may have made it far harder for a successor who wants to begin collaborating again.

What Would Biden Do?

The signs are that as president, Joe Biden would not have as easy a relationship with Erdogan as Trump has had. Given that getting on with Turkey has increasingly come to mean getting on with its president, this matters a great deal. Almost a year ago, Biden said in an interview with The New York Times that he regarded Erdogan as an “autocrat.” He also expressed misgivings about Turkey’s actions in Syria, confrontations in the eastern Mediterranean about energy resources, and the stationing of NATO nuclear weapons on Turkish soil.

Though these comments went unacknowledged at the time, the Turkish government has since raised heated objections as ��������’s presidential bid has gathered steam. There will also be real concerns in Ankara about ��������’s longstanding support for Kurdish rights, including his belief that President Trump has dealt shoddily with his nation’s Kurdish allies in Syria after they helped to subdue the Islamic State group. Such a position would bring back some of the tensions of the Obama presidency.

Clearly, upon gaining the presidency, one would expect a measure of realignment from the Biden White House. The former vice president’s strong stance against Erdogan would have to become more nuanced as occurs for all those who gain actual power. President Erdogan is not an autocrat. He may have authoritarian instincts, but autocrats do not allow elections with credible results, nor do they allow their opponents to win the mayoralty in their largest cities. 

The complex and competing tensions of the region in which Turkey lies will necessitate the US working with Turkey to a large degree. That requires finding common ground and mutual interest. But necessity can only get you so far. To generate any real warmth to his relationship with President Erdogan, Joe Biden will have to reveal some dissatisfaction with the global status quo or at least some sympathy with those, such as the Turkish president, who are driven by this belief.  That such concern genuinely motivates Biden might be a hard sell.  

No Smooth Rides

Nothing about the past few years of US-Turkish relations has been smooth, from the furor over the jailing of American pastor Andrew Brunson to the simmering Turkish anger at US refusal to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the head of the movement held responsible in Turkey for the failed 2016 coup attempt. That incident, which has defined the trajectory of the country over the past five years, was a pivotal one not only internally but also externally.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick and decisive in backing Erdogan at a point when the success of the coup was still unclear. The US, on the other hand, was less wholehearted, and there was the sense that it hesitated and that US personnel might even have been complicit at the Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey. In moments of crisis, you learn whom you can really trust. In the personality politics of today, President Erdogan learned much from that episode. It fed into his already established worldview in which the West was inherently predatory and untrustworthy.

None of this means that Turkey or its president are wedded to deep friendships with US opponents such as Russia, Iran or China. Indeed, Turkey’s relations with Russia over the past five years have been exceptionally turbulent. But it does mean that Turkey has, in President Erdogan, a pugnaciously nationalist leader who is unafraid of picking fights. It means he has picked several with the US itself, and yet, with President Trump at the helm, you always feel that, however unsavory things get, the Turkish president is always half-admired for his obstinate aggression.

If there is a new president in the Oval Office come 2021, it will pose many more challenges for both sides. The relationship will not be easy, and without the bromance that occasionally surfaces between the current leaders, it could be a more dangerous one. US-Turkish strategic goals have been diverging for years. This causes systemic strain to the relationship. The Trump presidency may, inadvertently, have eased some of that strain, but it will not go away. A president less in tune with the current administration in Ankara could tear it further apart. For bilateral relations, for NATO and for the whole Middle East and Mediterranean region that could be a very destabilizing prospect.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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360° Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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In recent years, the Naxalite insurgency has ebbed. So, this attack sent shock waves across administration in general and the forest department in particular. Fortunately, no one died in the attack. The Naxals asked staff to vacate the premises and warned of consequences if police were informed before destruction. Even as the police swung into action to apprehend the attackers, forest officials huddled together for introspection.

Forests, Minerals and Indigenous People

I have served in the jungles of Jharkhand as a forestry professional. The attack has made me reflect deeply. Naxalite attacks in Jharkhand are not new. For years, Naxals have intimidated state functionaries through various means, including attacks and assassinations. To understand the persisting nature of the Naxalite insurgency, we have to examine Jharkhand closely.

Jharkhand is a state that lies to the south of Bihar and the west of Bengal, two fertile Gangetic states of India. To its southeast and southwest, it borders two other poor but resource-rich states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Jharkhand literally means “bushland.” It is endowed with rich natural resources, including both forests and minerals such as coal, iron, copper, mica and uranium.

Jharkhand is predominantly inhabited by diverse indigenous communities. The Indian Constitution gives these communities a “scheduled tribes” status. As per the 2011 , they comprise 8.2% of ���Ի徱��’s population. In contrast, scheduled tribes form a much higher 26.3% of the population in Jharkhand. Historically, Jharkhand was a part of Bihar and the people of Jharkhand felt neglected and marginalized. Therefore, they agitated for a separate state both to safeguard their identity and to achieve control over their rich resources of “jal, jungle aur jameen,” Hindi for water, forests and land.

On November 15, 2000, Jharkhand was formed. I remember the date fondly. A grand function was held in Ranchi’s Raj Bhawan, the governor’s house. I was still what is called a “probationer” in government parlance. As an officer of the Indian Forest Service (IFS), I was doing my training at the Shri Krishna Institute Public Administration just across the road from the Raj Bhawan. Many officers were visiting from Patna and staying at the institute’s guest house. They were also milling around the resplendent surroundings of the Raj Bhawan.

The staff of the guest house who belonged to the scheduled tribes were in a jubilant mood. I asked one of them, a gentleman named Khalkho, as to what the formation of Jharkhand meant for him. His instant response, “abua dishum, abua raj,” which translates as “our state, our rule,” still rings in my ears. Khalkho also went on to inform me that henceforth it would be his children, not dikus, the local term for outsiders, who would get preference in  jobs.

Despite two decades of abua raj in abua dishum, all is clearly not well in Jharkhand. Berkela is barely 15 kilometers from Chaibasa, the district headquarters of Pashchimi Singhbhum. Scheduled tribes form of the population in the district, and the region is rich both in mineral and forest resources. Forest cover forms about 47% of the area, making the district rich in biodiversity. The famous Saranda forest, known for excellent Sal trees and its natural regeneration, is also located here. Much of the Jharkhand’s mineral wealth, especially iron ore, is found under these forests.

These rich resources have not improved the living standards of scheduled tribes of the area. Instead, the forests have become home to the Naxals who take refuge there. Various development agencies have shied away from this area. Only the forest department dares to venture there to fulfill its duty to protect and conserve Pashchimi Singhbum’s forests for posterity. The Naxal attack will certainly sap the department’s morale.

To combat Naxalism, the forest department has to connect with local communities. Addressing their livelihood issues is essential for winning the trust of marginalized people in a resource-rich land. Only winning goodwill in Pashchimi Singhbhum and elsewhere would help combat the Naxal menace.

Yet there is a problem. First, the mandate of the forest department is mainly the protection, conservation and development of forests, not providing livelihood or improving living standards for local communities. Second, the department lacks adequate resources to reach out to communities even if it was given the mandate to do so. The budget allocations for forest departments across India have been low and Jharkhand is no exception.

Involve Indigenous Communities to Save Forests

Few realize that forests and indigenous communities have a symbiotic relationship whether in the Amazon or in Pashchimi Singhbhum. They worship nature and tend to revere trees. They have used forest resources sustainably for centuries if not millennia. Therefore, it is important for any forest department to work with these communities. To be fair to the forest department in Jharkhand, it is already making an effort to do so. However, it faces a vicious timber mafia that is hell-bent on chopping down trees to meet rising urban demand. Mining — legal and illegal — is another threat to forests and local communities. Too often, the forest department finds itself outgunned and is unable to protect these communities or the forests they live in.

of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations aims to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.” To achieve this, the government of Jharkhand has to focus on people-oriented natural resources governance. Simply put, they have to involve local communities in the conservation of forests and make the forest department work closely with them.

My experience of working in various forests in Jharkhand tells me that sometimes, overzealous measures by dogmatic forest officials do more harm than good. They often take draconian action against indigenous communities for petty offenses that probably should not have been illegal in the first place. After all, these communities have to live. The forests are their only sustenance. So, draconian implementation of some laws leads to the forest department losing the trust and faith of the indigenous communities.

Of course, there are many forest officials who are empathetic, courageous and exceptional. They interact with local communities on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, these officials maintain high moral standards even when their very lives are in danger.

The Naxals are not like Russian or Chinese communists of the last century. They do not really have any ideology. Instead, they have become a vocation for unemployed, disgruntled and misguided youths. Many Naxals are recruited by intimidation and are then subjected to indoctrination. Quite a few of them start enjoying the power that comes from wielding a gun. These youths invariably come from marginalized indigenous communities and find Naxal propaganda seductive.

To counter the Naxals, both the state and central governments must gain the confidence of the indigenous communities living in the forests. To do so, the government must protect their forest-based livelihood. It must also generate sustained employment through forest-based skill development programs that teach indigenous communities to put their incredibly rare know-how to good use.

Such policies would increase the living standard of local people. They would also turn the indigenous communities into the eyes and ears of the government, thwarting Naxal violence. These policies would also involve the delegation of some powers and financial authority to local forest officials and indigenous communities. It would be fair to say that it is time for a real abua raj in abua dishum.

*(, the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of 51�Թ�, provided inputs for this article.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Trump’s following is vastly greater than Jones or Koresh, partly because he is a US president but also because social media and the artificial intelligence (AI) that backs it has vastly magnified his powers, possibly beyond the point that even he realizes. For Trump’s disciples, social media filters out any contrary news about their chosen one and feeds them undiluted negativity about his opponents. Trump’s devoted followers exist in a bubble where Democrats are flesh-eating pedophiles or Marxist revolutionaries, and where Trump has been chosen by God to save America.  

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For the evangelicals, Trump has been sent to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation and usher in the end times. No amount of fact-checking or reality will penetrate. For his followers, Trump is always right, incapable of doing wrong and uniquely gifted to lead them to the promised land. Those who do not understand this are either souls waiting to be saved or, more likely, those that have chosen Satan and the path to hell. Any potential pro-Trump opinion or even nascent tendency is picked up by social media algorithms and magnified and echoed back to the individual over and over, sucking them into a rabbit hole of Trumpian fantasy.

Trump may be a fraud and a con man, but he has seized the leadership of this cult. His leadership, which in earlier years would have been mocked as an embarrassment, is instead viewed as messianic by his cult. This superhuman power enables him to command his followers to disbelieve anything in the “fake news media,” defy law and ignore social norms. He has already threatened disorder if he loses the election. America is a tinderbox of racial tension, social discord, dramatic inequality, a deadly pandemic and economic collapse. Like Jones and Koresh, Trump has the capability to precipitate disaster, but on a far greater scale. 

The force multiplier behind this cult is the AI run by Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and all the other social media giants. The super-computers which run the discern our likes, emotions, prejudices, tastes, political views and sexuality. The databases they collect are huge, and the AI profile of each of us detailed and perceptive. These computers are always on, always connected, and the algorithms employed are far more powerful than we realize. They overwhelm the human ability to filter the stream of self-reinforcing messages and subtle exploitation of our subconscious, wherever you fall on the political spectrum. The continuous social media feed that surrounds each of us in a bubble of “reality” is in fact highly subjective, tailored individually and continually reinforces our own beliefs and prejudices. Cult members exist in an individually crafted matrix. The singularity may have already arrived.

The singularity is the point in the future when AI overtakes human intelligence and becomes self-replicating. This was thought to signal the rise of the machines and an existential threat to human existence — think of Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator.” Stephen Hawking that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

The AI revolution has enabled both the Trump cult and its opponents to flourish to the point where society has fragmented into warring factions who believe the others are out to destroy them. Instead of the machines fighting us, the machines have devised a way to make us fight each other, and the November election is shaping up to be a key battle.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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