Subterms
Donald Trump was elected in 2016 on his promise to “Make America Great Again.” Four years later, he presides over a country that would be the laughing stock of the world if the situation were not so dire. The greatest country in the world apparently cannot provide its citizens with toilet paper, is running out […] More
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed almost the entire world on lockdown. The current crisis is often compared to historic events such as the two World Wars, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 or 9/11. The worst-case modeling of the spread of the novel coronavirus predicts millions of deaths on top of immeasurable economic consequences across […] More
In 1978-79, the United Kingdom experienced the winter of discontent. Trade unions around the country went on strike. On January 22, 1979, the UK experienced the largest strike action since the General Strike of 1926. Even gravediggers and waste collectors joined in, leaving corpses and rubbish piling up. A bitterly cold winter with blizzards and heavy […] More
With nearly every government and populace around the world now mobilized to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the sort of broad-based international coordination often seen in previous global crises remains glaringly absent, and it’s holding us back from a solution. The reasons for this lack of overarching collaboration and coordination may be several, but one stands […] More
The Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), finds himself in a difficult place, fighting three very different sorts of wars. The first — and the longest running — is the Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen that on 25 March passed its fifth anniversary. The second, the war on COVID-19, was […] More
The far right thrives on fear. It’s no surprise, then, that it would use the latest pandemic, which has generated widespread panic, to bolster its own agenda. All of the hallmarks of the far right are in play during the coronavirus crisis. It has pushed to close borders. It has demonized foreigners and particularly border-crossers. […] More
Many Western governments are willing to climb any mountain and pay any price to save lives. In the process, many of them are also politicizing their response to the coronavirus pandemic while acting too late and too meekly, setting the stage for what is yet to come. The West can learn a lot from the […] More
US President Donald Trump will go down in history as the ultimate master of hyperreal politics. No matter how far he deviates from reality, the American public consistently expresses its approval. The further he wanders from rationality, even when the consequences are measurable in the number of deaths, the more he is rewarded. In the […] More
