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      America’s Reputation May Bounce Back After Trump, But Will the Country?

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      Donald Trump used to care what the world outside America thought of him. Before he ran for president, he was focused on turning his business into a global brand. The name “Trump” was supposed to connote all the luxury and success of the elite lifestyle. Trump hotels, Trump golf courses, Trump books and TV shows and knick-knacks: Donald Trump’s ability to sell all of that depended on his reputation as a globally successful businessman and negotiator.

      Taking American Carnage to the Next Level

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      Sure, the guy was a fraud. He wasn’t so much a negotiator as a shake-down artist. His businesses failed and went bankrupt. He had to be bailed out by his father and, later, by unscrupulous bankers. Everything about Donald Trump was a lie even before the man opened his mouth, which then added exponentially to the mendacity.

      Question of Perception

      But Trump has built his brand on the basis of perception. With his Brioni suits and inflated asset sheet, the man looks the part of a billionaire well enough to have played one on television. His hotels appear to be expensive, his casinos glitzy and his golf courses well-groomed. His reality TV show “The Apprentice” was edited to make its star look managerial rather than erratic and foolish.

      Then Trump moved from reality show to reality. Even with a team of spinmeisters, Donald Trump in the White House lost control of perceptions. His presidency couldn’t be reedited to make him look good. The corrupt underlings, the outrageous nepotism, the impeachable offenses in foreign policy, the brazen shift of wealth upward and the coddling of dictators were all on full display well before the pandemic hit and the economy tanked.

      Trump managed to elude removal and maintain his base of support despite all the bad press. But facts are stubborn things, as President John Adams once said, and the coronavirus numbers are particularly damning. If the United States had handled COVID-19 the way our neighbor to the north did, more than 100,000 Americans would still be alive today.

      Let’s dwell on that number for a moment: 100,000. Trump used to boast that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. With his bungled response to COVID-19, the president has gone from murder to mass murder. The “excess” casualties of the pandemic are akin to Trump pulling out not a gun on Fifth Avenue but a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device capable of killing tens of thousands of people. Yet, despite the carnage, Trump maintains a stable base of support among just under 45% of voters.

      The world outside the United States is not fooled, however. According to a new Pew Research Center poll, only 16% of those polled across 13 major countries have any confidence in Donald Trump as a leader. That’s lower than European heads of state like Germany’s Angela Merkel (76%) and France’s Emmanuel Macron (64%), but it’s even lower than the generally negative perception of Russia’s Vladimir Putin (23%) and China’s Xi Jinping (19%). Trump couldn’t even generate majority support among right-wing parties in the countries surveyed. The closest he comes is in Spain, where only 45% of far-right Vox party supporters have confidence in the US president.

      The truly startling fact about the Pew poll is that the 13 countries included are all American allies. And it’s not just their perception of Trump. It’s also their impression of the United States. The share of the public that holds a favorable view of America has dropped to new lows in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Australia. In only one country in the survey, South Korea, did a majority of the population (59%) have a positive assessment of America.

      Who Needs Love?

      Trump doesn’t seem to care very much about his plummeting reputation abroad. At the moment, he’s not focused on building resorts and selling Trump-branded products. For the last three years, he’s cared only about reelection. Winning a second term far outweighs any other personal indicators of worth or wealth. Spain, South Korea, Australia? These are not swing states. The citizens of other countries do not vote in US elections.

      Heck, Trump doesn’t even seem to care about the fires rampaging through the West Coast since there’s little he can do to win Electoral College votes in California and Oregon. The current US president does not consider blue states to be truly American. This is what it means to be a right-wing populist. You redefine “the people” to include only your supporters. Everyone else is anti-American. The logical conclusion of such thinking is to allow “the people” to vote and keep everyone else from the polls.

      If you’re a Trump supporter, you probably don’t care what the world thinks about you or your president. You believe that the world is divided into “shithole” countries that fear America and hoity-toity elitist countries like France and Germany that look down on America. As an exception to the rules, the United States stands alone. It doesn’t need the world’s love.

      If you despise Trump, you probably don’t care much about the Pew poll either. If Trump is defeated in November, America’s reputation will recover. That’s what happened, after all, when Barack Obama took over from George W. Bush. But here’s why the poll is important, even if Trump loses decisively in two months. 

      Regardless of the precise election results in November, a significant portion of the American population will have voted for a demonstrably incompetent, racist sociopath. You can be forgiven for pulling the lever for an untested politician, the world may allow. But continuing to support someone with Trump’s dismal track record may not reflect well on Trump’s base or, frankly, the country as a whole.

      Such a faction could maneuver itself back into power. They’ve taken over the Republican Party, and they’ve gone all-in for Trump. Congress will soon have its first QAnon believer in Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene. Is a QAnon caucus, promoting its conspiracy theory of Satan-worshipping pedophiles ruling the world, far behind?

      Why trust such a country? Why invest in such a country? Why call such a country an ally?Yes, of course, everyone knows that democracies can throw up unpredictable leaders every now and then. But outsiders may well conclude that Trump is so far outside the parameters of normal as to call into question the very democratic system in the United States.

      Infectious Delusions

      The United States has relinquished global leadership. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given the quality of American leadership over the years. The international community should now be disabused of any illusions that the United States is acting on behalf of the good of the globe. When it comes to addressing climate change, for instance, other countries should lead. The same holds true for safeguarding public health, remedying global economic inequality, and restraining the arms trade. The United States has had a lousy global record on these issues and a pretty lousy domestic record, too.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The downside is that the United States isn’t passing on its mantle of global leadership, as Britain did to America after World War II. The tragedy here is not that there isn’t a logical successor but that the United States didn’t invest at least some of its political and economic capital into building stronger international institutions that could serve as collective global leadership.

      The “Trump effect” has been very limited globally. Brazilians elected their “Trump of the Amazon” Jair Bolsonaro. A couple countries have opted for outsiders, like comedian Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine. But otherwise, it appears that the disastrous record of Donald Trump has served as a form of immunization. What country would voluntarily embark on the same trip to Crazytown that the United States has taken over the last three years?

      It’s worth repeating here that even right-wing populists generally think that Trump has done a poor job and the United States screwed up its pandemic response. Even if illiberal nationalism continues to prevail in places like Russia, China, Hungary and Turkey, the peculiar American variant of this disease known as Trumpism has fortunately proven to be an ideological dead end globally.

      Politically speaking, the world will survive the Trumpocalypse. The United States is a different matter. Trumpism, like COVID-19, has both exposed and amplified the manifold defects of this country, from widespread racial injustice to a failing social safety net. All the world’s a stage, as the bard once said, and the international community has front row seats to watch, with a mixture of pity and fear, the tragic downfall of the once-great United States.

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Will This Be the Election to End All Elections?

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      When drafting the United States Constitution in 1787, the Founding Fathers of the new nation sought to formalize the nature of what they wished to be an innovative form of government. Trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, they devised a series of complex arrangements designed to ensure that the country would exist not as a simple nation-state governed by a hierarchy along the European model, but as a fragmented association of local governments, called states. These fundamentally autonomous entities would share a general political philosophy and mutually ensure their collective defense.

      Among the innovative but historically bizarre innovations was the mode of calculating representation in the federal government based on population. More than half of the states allowed slavery. In the southern states, slaves were the working class and represented an important percentage of the population. To satisfy the demands of those states to include slaves in the calculation while depriving them of all human rights and considering them nothing more than property, the founders agreed to count slaves considered at three-fifth the value of free white citizens. 

      The founders created one other bold innovation. Because there was no unified nation, the president of the United States would not be elected by the American people, but by a kind of negotiation among the states. Each state could send a slate of electors to an institution called the Electoral College to express its preference for a presidential candidate. If any historical model existed for this “democratic” innovation, it was the Vatican’s system for electing a pope.

      For decades after its founding, a growing number of Americans in the North found slavery to be not only inconsistent with the democratic aspirations of the young nation but also in violation of the stirring ideal expressed by a former president and slaveholder who, in 1776, proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” But slavery was one of the essential pillars of a Constitution that was designed to allow states to run their own affairs. Calling slavery into question challenged an essential premise of a Constitution built around tolerating it. 

      The US Presidential Election and the Armies of the Night

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      When the Southern states seceded from the federal union, the entire logic of the original Constitution imploded. After the Union victory, the US should have written a new Constitution. Instead, the Congress amended the existing one, keeping much of its dead wood. What emerged was a Constitution that turned the original concept of the nation on its head. Americans were henceforth called upon to pledge their allegiance to an “indivisible” nation, meaning that the states were now more like provinces or semi-autonomous districts than what they had been previously: the political core of the system.

      Thanks to this patchwork, the nation was unified. The American people theoretically became more important than the states as the ultimate reference in the definition of rights. The implicit sovereignty of the individual states was compromised but not erased from the Constitution. It was as if a diversity of clans suddenly decided it was just one big, happy family.

      Another ambiguous shift in the democratic concept was taking place in the background. By 1880 every state accepted to cast their votes in the Electoral College for the presidential candidate on the basis of the popular vote within the state. Unlike the abolition of slavery, this shift required no modification of the Constitution. Accordingly, as the Supreme Court declared in Bush v. Gore in 2000, states “can take back the power to appoint electors.” 

      The Trump 2020 campaign noticed this loophole. The states can choose to ignore the popular vote. In a sobering article for The Atlantic, Barton Gellman writes that Republicans are “discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority.” Gellman pressed the Trump campaign to explain its eventual strategy and only received this response: “It’s outrageous that President Trump and his team are being villainized for upholding the rule of law and transparently fighting for a free and fair election.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Free and fair election:

      The title habitually used by parties to describe elections which they have found the means to distort and even overturn the results of — a phenomenon formerly observed with some frequency in some South American and African republics and which, since the year 2000, has become a respected trend in at least one North American nation.

      Contextual Note

      The hypothesis laid out by The Atlantic is that Republican governors could declare the official results suspect and arbitrarily nominate electors favorable to Trump to vote in the Electoral College. Were this to happen, there is no question that Democrats and indeed most Americans would call foul. The nation would be faced with a constitutional crisis of major proportions, leading to serious civil unrest and possibly a citizens’ civil war.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Most reasonable people would see this as the kind of outlandish violation of democracy that only someone as brazen as Donald Trump would dare to attempt. They could not imagine that any respectable politician would accept to be party to such a transparently anti-democratic ploy, tantamount to a coup d’état that could irreparably tarnish their reputations.

      But Gellman cites Lawrence Tabas, the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s chairman, who appears to find the scenario palatable: “It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution.” Another Republican, Pennsylvania’s state Senate majority leader, Jake Corman, used the classic I- would-never-do-this-by-choice argument: “We don’t want to go down that road, but we understand where the law takes us, and we’ll follow the law.”

      For many assertive Americans, the law has become the screen behind which major offenses against public morality can conveniently be justified. If it’s legal, it’s moral, and hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Everyone is expected to use the advantages the law provides. Politics is all about gaining and holding on to power anyway. The law provides the required setting. 

      Historical Note

      The laws written in 1787 that President Trump’s people are relying on were written for a totally different political entity. But for them, everything the Constitution contains, however inappropriate to today’s world, is sacred. Whether it’s gun rights or the Electoral College, Americans must learn to live with it and even love it.

      Because of the mythology surrounding its Constitution, the United States has become a nation that attributes an inordinate amount of its authority to lawyers. It was, after all, the first nation in history to be defined by law rather than secular cultural heritage. Americans see the Constitution as the nation’s virtual birth certificate. The Constitution can be amended, but it can never be replaced. In contrast, since the founding of the US, France has had five different republics, each with a new constitution. The French are currently toying seriously with the idea of moving on to drafting a sixth one.

      The impending constitutional crisis is unprecedented, though Gellman refers to one similar incident that occurred in 1876, a contested election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. One major difference is that neither candidate was an incumbent who could use the tools of presidential power. Another notable difference is that neither had quite the reputation that Donald Trump has of twisting both the law and the truth to secure a “deal” on the terms he prefers.

      Gellman warns the nation that these are not normal times: “Something far out of the norm is likely to happen.” The consequences are impossible to predict. “The political system,” he tells us, “may no longer be strong enough to preserve its integrity.” Is the sacred Constitution in peril?

      Democrats appear to be hoping that Joe Biden will emerge victorious, either on election day or after months of legal wrangling and the trauma of massive civil protest. They believe his victory will usher in a return to “normalcy” and business as usual, similar to the Obama years. But before he can begin the rituals of governing, whenever that may occur, the life of the nation is likely to have undergone a series of radical changes. Alongside an ongoing pandemic, a deepening economic crisis and a general loss of faith in all forms of institutional authority, the vaunted system of checks and balances imagined by the founders in 1787 may find itself both seriously unchecked and totally unbalanced.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      When God Hates America

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      Anyone familiar with the ritual called the State of the Union is also familiar with the fact it invariably ends with the exhortation “God bless America.” Few are probably aware of the fact that the first president to utter it was none other than Richard Nixon, who “dropped the phrase during an attempt at damage control for the burgeoning Watergate scandal on April 30, 1973.” God did bless America at the time, if only by ridding the country of “Tricky Dick.”

      Yet it is probably fitting that it was Nixon who first came up with this phrase. Nixon represents something that is fundamental to the human condition, at least in its American form: the drive to succeed, no matter what, the force of self-delusion (“I’m not a crook”) and the fundamental hypocrisy that is central to the American experience.

      Nixon marks the origins of much of what is wrong today in the United States. It was his so-called Southern strategy — the appeal to the worst racist animus of white voters in the South — that not only won him the election, twice, but which marked the Republican Party for decades to come. Donald Trump owes his victory in the presidential election of 2016 to a large extent to Richard Nixon — a victory that has poisoned the country beyond repair.

      How MAGA Sunk the United States

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      Trump’s callous response to some of the worst calamities in recent history, from the disastrous impact of COVID-19 to the hellish wildfire inferno engulfing the western states, suggests that God has been looking less than kindly on his “city upon a hill” envisioned to represent a model of Christian charity, as John Winthrop put it in 1630. In fact, one might even suspect that God has come to hate it — that he hates it so much, in fact, that he allowed for the election of Donald Trump, the worthy heir to Richard Nixon.

      Nixon, of course, was a crook. But compared to Trump, he was one of Woody Allen’s “smalltime crooks,” little more than a minor league player. At the same time, however, he prepared the ground and paved the way for the current president who has made the appeal to white anxiety and resentment central to his administration. Trump, of course, has gone out of his way to invoke God’s blessing, waving the Bible (albeit upside down) in front of a church “he rarely attends and whose leaders and congregation work against the policies he trumpets,” in a craven attempt to play to his base: the dwindling number of fundamentalist Christians who consider him their last bulwark against an increasingly discombobulating, if not threatening, reality.

      Walking With Dinosaurs

      Donald Trump is the epitome of the stereotypical American, boisterous and narrowminded (“still the greatest country in the world”), hypocritical to the max (waving a Bible while boasting that he can grab any woman by her private parts and get away with it), and completely oblivious to how the rest of the world regards the US these days (“we should have more people from Norway” at a time when no Norwegian in his or her right mind would want to move to a “shithole country” like the US). At the same time, he is reminiscent of the playground bully who runs away crying, like Scut Farkus’ toadie, Grover Dill, in “A Christmas Story” (“I’m gonna tell my dad”) — when somebody dares to stand up to him, particularly if it is a woman.

      The United States is still the most (practicing) Christian nation among advanced Western democracies. In the most recent Pew survey on religion in America, around two-thirds identified as Christians. To be sure, this was substantially lower than just a decade ago. Yet compared to Western Europe, it is a remarkably high level. This, however, is only part of the story. What is considerably more important is the fact that a substantial number of Americans insist on taking the Bible literally, as the absolute Truth, even if that truth runs against not only science but even common sense (who in their right mind would believe that Jesus walked with dinosaurs?).

      Now, one would expect that those who profess to be genuinely dedicated Christians would follow what the good book teaches. Basic exhortations such as don’t lie, don’t cheat, be kind, compassionate and merciful toward your fellow sister and brother, independent of their ethnic background, economic circumstances or sexual orientation. And, above all, be humble and don’t take the moral high ground with that smug self-righteousness, which is particularly irritating in the eyes of the Lord, whom America’s dedicated Christians claim as their ultimate authority.

      As is written in Isaiah 64:6, “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” Or as Jesus once put it, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). For the self-righteous, such sentiments are alien. The self-righteous are hypocrites who condemn others in order to show that they are morally superior. The Pharisees are a prime example of this kind of smug self-righteousness, which Jesus condemns in the most scathing terms.

      In the United States, the equivalent are TV “evangelists” such as Pat Robertson, the host of the “700 Club,” a Christian news and TV program with an audience going into the millions. Or there are Christian “leaders” such as Jerry Falwell Jr., the disgraced former president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, whose sexual shenanigans were too much even for evangelicals who have no qualms supporting a president who has boasted of getting away with … see above.

      And there are TV and radio commentators such as Tucker Carson at Fox News, who is still trying to figure out how to find his way out of Trump’s backside, and Rush Limbaugh, famous for dismissing COVID-19 as nothing more than the common flu and, later on, after tens of thousands of Americans had died from the respiratory disease, charging that following medical experts and wearing masks was “un-American” and nothing “compared to the way we have overcome enemies and obstacles in our past.”

      It would be easy to dismiss the likes of Robertson, Falwell Jr. and Limbaugh as somewhat picturesque if unhinged cranks were it not for the fact that their impact on ordinary people has been, and continues to be, far more pernicious than COVID-19 could ever achieve. There are good reasons to suspect that the Trump administration’s position on COVID-19, global warming and climate change, and white-on-black racism derives from a common root: the belief that the end is near. I am not referring to the end of COVID-19, or the end of the American empire, but of the end of humanity — the end of the world as we know it.

      Fulfillment of Prophecy

      In my former life, I had the opportunity to spend a year as an exchange student with a “fundamentalist” Christian family in Texas. They were some of the most generous people I have ever had the opportunity to encounter. They lived their faith, and it showed. The also introduced me, a Bavarian Catholic who had spent the past eight years of his life in a Catholic boarding school, to a world largely informed by the scripture’s teachings.

      For the first time, I was confronted not only with some of the major Old Testament prophets such as Daniel, but also with the Book of Revelations and its exegesis. Here, the most important book at the time, at least among true believers, was Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which sold millions of copies. The book was very much informed by the Cold War. In Lindsey’s exegesis of the Revelations, Gog and Magog, the “forces” from the north threatening Israel, is the Soviet Union attacking Israel with Mi-24 helicopters (John’s giant locusts). After Gog and Magog’s annihilation, there will be a war “between the Western powers and the Chinese, which will culminate in the end of the world in a thermonuclear blast.” So much for Hal Lindsey.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Nevertheless, the book was turned into a film, with Orson Welles, of all people, serving as the narrator. Both book and movie are based on John’s Apocalypse, which tells of the tribulations visited upon humanity heralding in the end of the world, the last judgment. True believers, of course, most of them Americans, were spared the pain. They were snatched from the earth in a process of divine kidnapping that swept them up into heaven from where they could gloat — the rapture. Evangelical writers, always eager to make a buck from the gullibility of true believers, turned the narrative into a series of books, “Left Behind,” which scared the daylights out of lukewarm believers and turned the authors into millionaires. This might sound funny, ludicrous, kooky, off the deep end were it not for the fact that it appears to inform major figures in Trump’s inner circle.

      One of the central dogmas among those who believe in the truth as revealed by John in the Apocalypse is that the end of history — and the return of Christ — is contingent on the Jews rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. For a long time, this was inconceivable, given the fact that the site of the temple is occupied by two of Islam’s holiest shrines, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

      Until Trump, American presidents have shied away from sanctioning Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem. Diehard evangelicals have lobbied for decades that the American government do whatever possible to hasten the process. Presumably, this would allow the Jews to rebuild the temple. This, presumably, would entail destroying the Muslim shrines, which, in all probability, would trigger an all-out confrontation with the Muslim world.

      But in the self-contained world of American “dispensationalism,” Trump’s 2017 decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem was therefore widely seen as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Trump himself acknowledged that the move was largely “for evangelicals” rather than Jews who appeared to be rather unenthusiastic about it. But then why would they, given the fate that according to evangelicals awaits many of them during the time of tribulations? Hint: a large number will be “purged out and removed” — a euphemism, I guess, for saying they will go straight to hell.

      Apocalyptic Tales

      With Donald Trump, staunch believers in this kind of apocalyptic tales have assumed influential positions in the administration, above all Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, a Christian sect that holds that “almost all evangelical Christians will soon join with Satan to oppose Jesus Christ.” It stands to reason that their views on history and reality have had some influence on policy. Take, for instance, the environment. According to “rapture theologists,” the earth was given to humanity for its use. Therefore, environmentalism is nothing but “blasphemy.”

      According to one of the most influential “theological” voices in the White House, humans will not destroy the planet because God will “continually renew the face of the earth until He forms a new heaven and a new earth in the end times.” In any case, given the imminent approach of the end of the world, the destruction of the natural environment is hardly of vital concern.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In a similar vein, Trump’s lackluster response to the coronavirus pandemic might have something to do with the fact that among evangelicals, COVID-19 has been seen as a boon. As a leading contributor to the Trump campaign has put it, “The kingdom of God advances through a series of glorious victories, cleverly disguised as disasters.” In response to the pandemic, “millions of Americans” were turning to Jesus Christ, in the process augmenting the pool of likely Trump voters.

      In less than two months, the American electorate is going to vote for the country’s leader. Evangelicals will be a major force; so will be other Christians, including Latino Catholics. As it stands now, there is a chance that Trump will get reelected as a result. Evangelicals will be voting for Trump, but not because they believe that he is model Christian. Quite the opposite. They will vote for him because they believe that he is “God’s tool.” In the aftermath of the 2016 election, polls revealed substantial numbers of white Protestants believing that Trump was “anointed by God.” They also revealed that only a very small minority thought he was elected because God approved of his policies.

      Given what the Gospels have to say about Christ’s positions, it is fairly unlikely that God would approve of Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” or his more or less tacit support of racists and conspiracy theorists. This leaves only one alternative: God chose Trump to punish America for its blatant hybris, hypocrisy and self-righteousness. The Gospel tells us that God “so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Today, it seems that God hates America so much that he brought Donald Trump down upon it so that it understands the full extent of his wrath. Forget about God blessing America. He has better things to do.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The US Must Support Sudan’s Path to Democracy

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      In the aftermath of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain formalizing diplomatic relations with Israel on August 13 and September 11, respectively, many experts predict that Sudan will be the next Arab state to follow suit. The main reason for this pertains to the fact that the Trump administration has been putting pressure on Khartoum to abandon the Arab Peace Initiative (API) and open up full-fledged ties with Tel Aviv. Undoubtedly the White House would desperately like to see Sudan take this step prior to America’s presidential election in November.

      In a characteristically transnational manner, President Donald Trump and those around him, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adviser Jared Kushner, are reportedly making a quid pro quo deal with Khartoum. The US State Department will remove Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list in exchange for Khartoum normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Nonetheless, this is a cynical and misguided way for the Trump administration to approach Sudan as it disregards the significant ways in which Sudan has changed its policies, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately, it would serve US national interests to immediately remove Sudan from this list regardless of Khartoum’s stances on Israel and the API.

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      Since Sudan’s former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir fell from power in the spring of 2019, the country’s democratic experiment has faced myriad challenges. From COVID-19 to human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese military and major economic problems, Sudan has been dealing with many difficult issues amid the post-Bashir period. Today, there is no denying that the popular and non-violent revolution which ended Sudan’s three-decades-long dictatorship is fragile. International support for Khartoum is necessary for Sudan’s democratic struggle to succeed.

      Yet this is not forthcoming, due to a lack of focus in US foreign policy that has resulted in insufficient attention being paid to the specific policy drivers that must be implemented if Washington can hope to engage constructively with Sudan’s democratic process. It would behoove officials in Washington to adopt policies that result in the US helping, rather than hindering, Sudan’s difficult transition to democracy and civilian rule.

      Struggle for Democracy

      After Bashir’s ouster in a palace coup in April 2019, Sudan’s revolutionaries, millions of whom spent months on the streets pressuring the dictator to step down, continued protesting in favor of civilian leadership. In contrast to the many Egyptians who supported the military-backed coup in Egypt that toppled their country’s president, Mohammed Morsi, in July 2013, Sudan’s wider public knew not to blindly trust the country’s military to defend a democratic revolution. By June 3, 2019, hardline elements tied to the Bashir regime, including militants from the notorious Janjaweed militia, massacred Sudanese protesters in the capital, resulting in roughly 120 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

      Yet about two months after that atrocity, Sudan’s military and civilian revolutionaries agreed to a political compromise that came up with a government that is led by civilians but also maintains significant military representation.

      Since August 2019, a sovereign council consisting of six civilian and five military officials has been governing Sudan. Additionally, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok heads a technocratic cabinet comprised of civilians. Sudan plans to run free and democratic elections in 2022, with the interim period of time supposed to give Sudanese civil society an opportunity to regrow after being harshly oppressed under Bashir’s rule. During the present period, there has been a restoration of the freedoms of assembly, press and speech. But the democratic transition was agreed upon in the pre-COVID-19 era and at a time when impacts of the pandemic on public health, the economy and society could not possibly have been foreseen.

      For Sudan’s government, the gravest risk is that it will lose its legitimacy among more Sudanese citizens if the country’s economic situation remains bleak. Youth unemployment stands around 40% and could widen societal divisions if left unaddressed or if tackled in ways that exacerbate and widen existing fault-lines and inequalities. Long lines for petrol as well as staple foods are common in Sudan, where the country’s annual inflation rate reached 167% in September. The global coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have only exacerbated the country’s economic problems and made it more urgent that actions be taken as soon as possible to support the political transition underway in Sudan rather than wait until 2022, by which time the impact of economic and social dislocation generated by the current crisis might be too late to effect a positive democratic outcome.

      Harm of US Sanctions

      “The single biggest obstacle to Sudan’s economic recovery is the continued U.S. economic sanctions, which … not only impacts trade with and investment from the United States, but from other countries and multilateral entities as well,” explained renowned American Middle East scholar, Dr. Stephen Zunes. Other experts such as the Atlantic Council’s Cameron Hudson agree that Sudan’s long-term economic progress depends on Washington removing its sanctions on Khartoum. Imposed by the US in 1993 when Washington labeled Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism, these sanctions were aimed at punishing Bashir’s government for its links to Osama bin Laden and other global terrorists, plus the regime’s sponsorship of armed Palestinian and Arab groups like Hamas, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Hezbollah, Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

      Yet today, Sudan’s post-Bashir government is not sponsoring any Salafi-jihadi terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS). In fact, even Bashir’s government was not doing so during its final years in power. In its 2015 country report on terrorism, the US State Department stated that Washington and Khartoum “worked cooperatively in countering the threat posed by al-Qa’ida and ISIL.”

      Thus, Washington’s current policy vis-à-vis Sudan suffers from being stuck in a previous era in which leaders, institutions and both regional and global circumstances were fundamentally different and in no way reflect the considerable changes in Sudanese politics over the past year and more. Hudson described the continued designation of Sudan as a state sponsor terrorism as representing to many “an anachronism and a symbol of Washington’s own lethargy in updating its policy toward Khartoum.” In sum, problems which the US had with Bashir’s regime decades ago should not be “effectively punishing [the Sudanese] further for having overthrown [the Bashir] dictatorship,” as Zunes argues.

      Last year, Prime Minister Hamdok spoke before the UN General Assembly and addressed Washington’s outdated policies in relation to Sudan: “The Sudanese people have never sponsored, nor were supportive of terrorism. On the contrary, those were the acts of the former regime which has been continuously resisted by the Sudanese people until its final ouster. These sanctions have played havoc on our people, causing them untold misery of all types and forms.” There is a risk that the longer these sanctions remain in place, the more the US becomes vulnerable to narratives that portray bureaucratic inertia in responding to changing circumstances as something more sinister, ascribing to Washington malign policy motivations that damage America’s standing and public diplomacy interests.

      A major concern is that Sudan’s economic situation and COVID-19 crisis could jeopardize the country’s transition to democracy. If the period of time between now and the planned 2022 elections is defined by economic crises and resultant social and political unrest, other actors including the military or conservative Islamists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood may find themselves best positioned to take power. The Sudanese public, so energized by the revolutionary success of 2019, may quickly become disillusioned if it perceives its struggle to have been in vain or to have been betrayed. The experience of disillusioned activists in Tunisia and Egypt has shown how some may be drawn toward radicalization if they feel there is no realistic alternative to an authoritarian status quo.

      Policy Recommendations

      In order to best secure the hopes for a future Sudan led by inclusive, secular, moderate and democratic civilians, the US government should end all its sanctions on Khartoum and establish fully normalized diplomatic relations with Sudan. Thus, given the urgency of helping Sudan preserve its hard-fought-for democratic gains since 2019 and US interests in seeing a smooth transition occur in the country, below are four key policy recommendations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      First, Washington should remove Sudan’s designation on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Sudan’s inclusion on the SST list not only bars the US from economically assisting Sudan but mandates that Washington prevent the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions from giving Sudan loans or other forms of assistance. As coronavirus spreads across Sudan, the authorities have had a more difficult time coping with the pandemic because the World Bank came under US pressure in April 2020 to exclude Sudan from a list of developing countries that received help from a $1.9-million emergency fund. Furthermore, the designation requires US citizens to obtain the Treasury Department’s approval prior to engaging in any financial transaction with these Sudanese government. So long as Sudan is on the SST list, it will be difficult to imagine the impoverished country receiving sufficient levels of investment and trade in order to develop and prosper in the future.

      Second, the US should lift all other remaining sanctions on Khartoum and encourage multinational institutions to help Sudan, especially amid the global COVID-19 crisis. Because Omar al-Bashir ascended to power in an Islamist-driven military coup in 1989, and the military that took power in the 2019 palace coup did not come to power as a result of a democratic election, there remain prohibitions under Section 7008 of the State Department Foreign Operations funding. In practice, this prevents the US from providing much assistance to any country where the “military has overthrown, or played a decisive role in overthrowing, the government.”

      Yet the US should not wait to pull these prohibitions until after the 2022 elections, which is what Washington currently plans to do. Darfur-related sanctions are also still enforced, which as Hudson argues “will continue to have a dampening effect on outside investment until durable peace and credible accountability mechanisms have been implemented.” These sanctions deter banks and other financial institutions around the world from taking the risks that currently come with Sudan-related opportunities. Thus, lifting these sanctions could help boost Sudan’s foreign investment climate.

      Third, Washington should reverse its decision, made in February 2020, to end migrant visas from Sudan. This move basically brings all immigration from Sudan to a complete halt, and it will continue to do so even in the post-COVID-19 period if not addressed. As experts such as the Chatham House’s Matthew T. Page have explained, Trump’s domestic political agenda of taking hard stances on immigration issues amid his reelection campaign was largely behind this policy decision, which targeted Sudan and three other African countries. In the process, however, the US loses influence in these developing nations that see the American door slamming on them as only further reason to invest in even deeper ties with China and Russia.

      Finally, the US should stand with Sudan’s government in solidarity against COVID-19. While the US should first end sanctions on Sudan, which would help combat the spread of coronavirus in the country and among its neighbors, Washington should also give Khartoum aid to help the Sudanese authorities deal with the pandemic within their own borders. As other states worldwide have practiced “coronavirus diplomacy” to boost their humanitarian credentials, this demonstration of American soft power could secure some goodwill from the Sudanese public following decades of negative relations between Washington and Khartoum.

      Key Interests

      Ultimately, there is no good reason for the US to be working to undermine Sudan’s democratic experiment, even if that is not the intent but rather the unfortunate byproduct of a bureaucracy that is slow to respond, giving the impression of stasis. Perceptions often play a key role in shaping emerging realities, and for the Sudanese, who feel that their actions in ousting a dictator are deserving of American support, there may not be an open-ended window before expectation turns to disillusionment.

      Moreover, there are key American interests that can be advanced through a US-Sudan rapprochement that follows an unwinding of Washington’s sanctions on Khartoum. In terms of competition among global powers, Washington has long-term foreign policy interests in establishing a positive relationship with post-Bashir Sudan. Washington’s sanctions on Sudan, as well as outright American hostility against the country — most exemplified by the Clinton administration’s decision to bomb a factory in Khartoum in 1998 — have only pushed the country closer to China, Russia, and at previous junctures Iran too.

      Although Sudan is not a high-ranking issue of interest to the diplomatic establishment in Washington nor to the US public, the American and Sudanese people alike could stand to gain in many ways if their governments reconcile and work toward a more cooperative relationship following a rapprochement. As a farmland-rich country situated along the Red Sea at the intersection of the Arab and African worlds, Sudan represents an important part of the conflict-prone Horn of Africa. In this volatile part of Africa, many powers — China, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, etc. — are scrambling to consolidate their clout, and the US certainly has its own interests in the immediate and broader neighborhood.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While the focus on countering terrorism and violent extremism has, to an extent, taken center stage in the US, measures taken now that support the political transition to democracy and strengthen Sudan’s economy can have a significant impact in bolstering Sudanese resilience to potential shocks such as COVID-19 that, if mishandled, could undermine much of the progress made on the security and stability fronts.

      Yet beyond such strategic interests shaped by Sudan’s geopolitical position in the wider African, Arab and Islamic regions, the US would in an ideational sense be living up to its professed values if Washington adopted new policies that are aimed at supporting the Sudanese people in their struggle for democracy following 30 years of brutal dictatorial rule. Ultimately, the US is sending the wrong message when it emphasizes the importance of human rights but turns its back on Sudan’s non-violent, democratic revolutionaries while engaging openly with highly authoritarian states around Sudan such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

      From a soft power and public diplomacy perspective, too, greater support for Sudan would be a significant tool for the US to project as the world retreats into a great power rivalry synonymous with the Cold War in the 20th century, not least because the African continent has emerged as one of the frontlines for such perceived geopolitical competition with China.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The US Presidential Election and the Armies of the Night

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      In a compelling article published on Fair Observer earlier this week, Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), speculates on the theme of “what Trump will leave behind” if he loses the November election. The author offers an enlightening perspective on the choices available to people and governments in the rest of the world regarding an American presidential election that promises not so much clarification as a new phase of aggravated confusion.

      Perthes is not optimistic about the outcome of the election, whoever is declared the winner. He focuses on the choices other nations must make at a moment marked both by the twin phenomena of a long-term trend of American decline and the fireworks Americans expect to witness when the results begin trickling in on the evening of November 3. Across the political spectrum, Americans are preparing for some serious post-election trauma.

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      Perthes is guilty of slightly understating the reality of politics in the United States today when he writes that “there is the political polarization in the US, which is as intense as it was during the Vietnam War.” But he is perfectly accurate when he adds that “neither the political nor social divisions in America will simply disappear with a change of political direction.” Perthes’ analysis is correct but he errs, as Europeans tend to do, by being too polite when he compares today’s polarization with that of the Vietnam War era. It is exponentially greater.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Political polarization:

      The intended consequence of a cleverly managed electoral system designed to meet the requirements of a consumer culture that reduces the notion of political choice to exactly two products that are only distinguishable by their packaging.  

      Contextual Note

      The war in Vietnam pitted the hardline anti-communist defenders of the idea that the US was the “world’s policeman” against those who were committed to a more relaxed way of realizing the American dream. It was a largely generational divide rather than an ideological one. For American youth, raised in the new post-World War II consumer culture, every individual entering adulthood had to make a crucial decision while moving on from the years in which the study of schoolbooks vied for their attention with fun. They now had to begin focusing on constructing their identity as responsible consumers.

      The draft and the prospect of two years fighting in the jungles of Vietnam represented a serious obstacle in their quest to define a respectable consumer lifestyle for themselves. This forced many of them to consider the more radical consumer choice of simply dropping out. If they could manage to avoid the draft, that might translate as either living on a commune in the wilderness or, for some, in an urban neighborhood colonized by the promoters of flower power.

      In other words, the polarization at work at the time became a contest pitting a majority of adults — traditional Republicans and establishment Democrats — who supported what President Dwight Eisenhower had called the dominant military-industrial complex against a highly visible contingent of intellectuals, hippies and peaceniks seeking to redefine what being a consumer and enjoying American prosperity meant. The most conservative hawks preferred reducing the polarizing choice war to the simple idea of “It’s America — Love It or Leave It.” The rebellious youth who experienced the “summer of love” preferred to both love it and symbolically leave it, following LSD promoter Timothy Leary’s advice: “Tune in, turn on, drop out.”

      Today’s polarization is far more complex and far more dangerous. It cuts across a variety of categories, political, economic and cultural. Ultimately, it opposes contrasting styles of collective identity. It plays out in a variety of combinations in connection with the extreme individualism at the core of US culture shared by the entire population. “Love it or leave it” defined a consumer choice. If the rebellious youth at the time failed to show the appropriate amount of love for the system, the solution was to send the police, the FBI or the National Guard to step in, as they did at Kent State University in 1970. As a child of the 1960s, Donald Trump remembers that logic and is now seeking to duplicate it.

      The difference today is symbolized in the person of 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse. The new message is “love it … or face the wrath of other armed citizens.” Thanks to two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the police have morphed into a military force armed with equipment designed for counterinsurgency in the Middle East. But their ability to win wars in other countries or on domestic city streets has been thrown into doubt. “We the people,” brandishing their guns and flaunting their Second Amendment rights, are ready to take over where armed authority has failed. Donald Trump and Fox News have encouraged them to rise in mass to the challenge.

      Historical Note

      Fifty years ago, the symbolism of political polarization focused on the great American tradition that led to the nation’s founding: a popular revolution. The new symbolic reference has lost all its revolutionary fervor. If a symbolic reference is needed, it can only be civil war. The conflict that emerged in the 1960s pitted rebellious youth against an oppressive authority. In the Trump era, the legitimacy of any institutional authority has been undermined to the point that armed citizens appear to be ready to take things in their own hands.

      Things were much simpler back in the 1960s. Nobody was happy with Lyndon Johnson’s war. For conservative Republicans and establishment Democrats loyal to Johnson (and later Nixon), the war should have been prosecuted more aggressively since the aim was to prove once and for all that American might is right. For the nation’s youth, who were being asked to participate in the fighting, pursuing war was unjustified morally and politically. They felt it as a betrayal of the promise made to the consumer society.

      The protests against the war led to an asymmetrical struggle between the American prosperity machine that refused to admit its dependence on a neocolonial foreign policy and a vast segment of the population that believed the American dream was about enjoying that prosperity rather than dying to defend it. There was no real contest other than psychological warfare and the occasional skirmish.

      Even the idea of “love it or leave it” reflected the culture of the consumer society. The hawks were simply offering youngsters an alternative. They refused to understand that, because of the draft, the choice young men had was not a simple binary one. Loving it meant dying for a cause that had no meaning they could understand. Reacting like the consumers they had been conditioned to be, some came up with the idea of escaping to Canada as an attractive third choice. Canada represented the same culture, but without the war.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Richard Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. All subsequent wars have been fought by a professional military. Young men can now concentrate on other things, such as how they might pay off their student loans over the next 20 or 30 years of their lives. Today’s polarization is also generational, but it is no longer about overseas wars. The difference today is that the youth, for the first time, has become aware of the oligarchic nature of both political parties and the fact that it serves to protect those who suffer the least from the ills of society.

      But there is another difference, far more significant. Those ready to defend the system against the multiracial protesters with their personal arsenal are equally defiant of the controlling oligarchy. Only they fear and hate any group that they do not culturally identify with. They fear that reforms intended to redress ills that may even affect their lives translate as the imposition of new rules or restrictions on their way of life. Many are ready to go to battle to prevent change to a system that has encouraged what they see as “alien” tendencies. They value their possessions and feel that that ownership itself is being threatened.

      One thing they own in increasing numbers is a gun and rounds of ammunition. They are currently preparing for battle. This is not merely polarization. It is the prelude to civil war, but one of a new kind, with no organized opposing armies.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is America Edging Toward a “Racial Holy War”?

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      Since the Vietnam War era in the United States, radical-right groups have articulated an apocalyptic vision under which white people would be restored to their “rightful place” of dominance on the North American continent. Over the years, various groups and personalities have expressed this vision in slightly different ways, though have involved the toppling of the government followed by extensive bloodletting. The term “RAHOWA” — racial holy war — originated with Ben Klassen and his World Church of the Creator, and was then taken up by Matt Hale and his successors.

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      Another key figure from this generation of white nationalists, Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), argued that “white revolution is the only way” to achieve the restoration of Aryan dominance. Inspired by William Pierce’s 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries,” Robert Mathews and his Silent Brotherhood sought to ignite RAHOWA in the early 1980s by launching a terrorist campaign in the American Northwest before the FBI and other law enforcement agencies brought his adventures to an abrupt end. Louis Beam, a former Klan leader and long-time advocate of white racial revolution, thought that “leaderless resistance” might lead the way toward RAHOWA. 

      New Era

      The tactics these 20th-century advocates of RAHOWA planned to employ required a vivid imagination to be taken seriously. The late Richard Girnt Butler, then head of the Aryan Nations, remarked that Mathews “had made his move too soon” — as if a few more months would have made a difference in the outcome. In fact, at the time, neither small groups of would-be Nazis such as the Silent Brotherhood nor the “lone wolves” had the slightest chance of igniting a racial holy war. They tended to be self-defeating and more than slightly ridiculous.

      The atmosphere in which successor generations of radical-right groups such as the Atomwaffen Division, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights or the Boogaloo Boys operate has changed significantly from the post-Vietnam era, in ways that seem more favorable to revolutionary objectives. The internet has been a boon to and an essential tool of these newer contestants.

      Today’s radical rightists can, inter alia, recruit members, share conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions with large online audiences, send messages or memes to various targets (such as Jewish journalists during the 2016 presidential campaign) organize in-person gatherings (like the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017), and display pictures of like-minded militants in action.

      Further, the United States is far more polarized than it was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Thanks in part to Fox News, right-wing talk radio celebrities, Breitbart News and the various other online outlets (including The Daily Stormer) for the expression of inter-group hostility, trust in government institutions is at an all-time low. The same generalization applies to interpersonal trust, at least since polling on these questions began in the 1950s. Americans not only mistrust government institutions but mistrust one another as well.

      Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 based largely on his ability to channel this mistrust as well as support for white nationalist violence. As David Neiwert put it in his 2017 book, “Alt America,” “Trump seemed to encourage the violence directed both at protestors at his rallies and at minorities generally, by expressly suggesting  the use of assaults and threats against them in his fiery rally speeches.” Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, before and after the election, has helped to legitimize the radical right’s racist and anti-Semitic threats, fomenting violence to a wider-than-usual audience.

      In office, Trump has done what he could to loosen the guardrails of constitutional government, by seeking to “capture the referees.” In other words, he has sought to strengthen the executive’s control over government functions at the expense of congressional authority and various federal regulatory bodies, including the Federal Election Commission. He has encouraged his audiences to violate norms of civil conduct. Trump has also sought to “capture the referees” by appointing to the federal judiciary right-wing ideologues with limited courtroom experience. The justice department under Attorney General William Barr has become an instrument in the pursuit of Trump’s personal vendettas.

      Inflection Point

      Against this background, and with Trump seeking reelection, the United States faces a serious crisis involving the COVID-19 pandemic, high levels of unemployment and a massive wave of protests ignited by police killings of defenseless African Americans, most notably the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some observers think the country has reached an inflection point at which the democratic order is under serious threat.

      The present situation is one that groups on the extreme right could only have imagined a few decades ago. Among the new radical-right aggregations, the Boogaloo Boys, distinguished by wearing Hawaiian shirts over combat paraphernalia, hope to exploit the current racial unrest and promote an atmosphere conducive to civil war. Acting as agents provocateurs, Boogaloo Boys members have participated in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. They carry out violent attacks on the authorities and encourage other protesters to do the same. In this way, they hope to provoke an excessively violent reaction by the police and other authorities. The Boogaloo Boys and their “compatriots” hope to set off an escalatory spiral of violence leading to a white backlash and something approaching race-based civil war.

      This Boogaloo approach will probably not achieve its ultimate objective. Nonetheless, their tactics seem more plausible, given the current situation, than those attempted by their late 20th-century radical-right predecessors. This new path to right-wing revolution bears considerable resemblance to the so-called strategy of tensions pursued by Italian neo-fascists and rogue police officers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during Italy’s Gli Anni di Piombo — Years of Lead. In the Italian case, exposure by journalists and the commitment of Italy’s elected officials to defend the country’s democracy prevented a right-wing seizure of power. Let us hope the same holds true for the United States.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Justice Ginsburg Secures Progressives for Biden

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      Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died and the political seas have changed. She was a beacon of American conscience in a nation that has no conscience to spare. For those of us in America who see a nation in steep decline, this loss further deepens the gap between hope and reality. Most importantly, Justice Ginsburg’s death puts the last of the nation’s three core constitutional institutions at deep peril. The Congress is already a dysfunctional failed deliberative body, and the executive has been overwhelmed by corruption and incompetence.

      This doesn’t leave much to fall back on. Progressives will allow for a moment of silence to celebrate Ginsburg’s life. And then, it will be time for her death to propel our determination that Trump be deposed and his acolytes dethroned. We will need to get even angrier than we have been and more committed to the singular objective of winning the presidency.

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      Many progressives surely wish that these were different times. Then, we could focus on social and racial justice, on a national plan to confront the coronavirus pandemic, on universal access to meaningful health care, on economic equity, on affordable housing, on quality public education and on reimagining good governance. But we cannot do that now.  Now, we have to do everything that we can to get Joe Biden elected president.

      On the plus side, there continues to be a somewhat encouraging sense in America that maybe, just maybe, all the lies, all the ignorance and incompetence, all the corruption and all the chaos are finally catching up with the demonstrably worst American president in modern times. And that is saying a lot given that George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon would be the competition. So with that said, and only Biden to choose from, staying focused on the singular goal will be easier.

      The Inspirational Candidate?

      To reach that goal, it would be nice to be able to say that Biden is an inspirational candidate who can will the nation to a better place, can open the eyes of the willfully blind, and define an agenda of transformational change. But he is not that candidate. Rather he is a candidate who can win the presidency, surround himself with honest and committed advisers, and begin the long and difficult trek toward undoing the Trump damage.

      For me and many others, being the only serious candidate not named Trump is enough to ensure my vote and to ensure that I will do what I can to get him elected. For others, however, it may be important that Biden be for something, not just against Trump.

      As Biden tries to define his agenda and demonstrate his policy priorities, he will have to do so carefully. The effort may win over some wavering or undecided voters, particularly if he focuses on health care issues and articulating an understanding of the intractable racial morass that is today’s America. Appealing to a tired nation with calm and a resolve to simply make things better could help as well.

      Embed from Getty Images

      However, there is peril for Biden in detailing much of anything beyond broad general policy themes. This peril lies primarily on his left. For the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, too much “visionary” detail of a future beyond November 3 can provide more insight than may be healthy for Biden’s campaign. For now, since it remains critical that “all the roads of our discontent must merge at this time to meet the singular threat” of a Trump reelection, progressives can and likely will stay focused on this prize alone.

      Yet, as Biden begins to define the policy goals of his future administration, the details as they are emerging crushingly disappoint. The goals are so connected to yesterday that it is hard to envision a better tomorrow. It will be easier, for sure, to live without the daily lies and the pernicious undermining of the nation’s institutions, but it will be no easier for those in need to live with a return to “normal.”

      To provide early solace, Biden and his administration will surely strive to return some measure of good governance to federal institutions, a key metric if there is ever to be the transformational change that America’s outdated and tired “democracy” so critically needs. However, it will all seem so incremental, especially to those in need now who have waited so long and to those who have spent a lifetime advocating for those in need.

      Final Tribute for RBG

      This is where Justice Ginsburg as that beacon of conscience can enter the fray anew. She never gave up on her extraordinary drive to simply right things that were wrong. She is gone, but her zeal has to live on in enough of us to get this election right and then move on to the hard challenges that lie ahead. As I have moved from sadness to resolve, I have looked at a lot of what Ginsburg had to tell us. There is something about the following quotation that seems worthy of the moment: “Yet what greater defeat could we suffer than to come to resemble the forces we oppose in their disrespect for human dignity?”

      Maybe it is respect for human dignity that so separates Biden from Trump, Democrats from Republicans, and progressives from conservatives. Look at the quotation again, and then reflect on the sickened and dying in our communities in the midst of a crippling pandemic. And then take as a clarion call that Trump, the Republicans and the conservatives in those same communities are fighting to deny access to healthcare to millions yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That is depraved. That is inhumane.

      If Joe Biden does not win the presidency, those with a palpable disrespect for human dignity will surely further stain America. If Biden is victorious, there will be a renewed urgency for progressives to step to the fore to stress that any new administration must commit to a respect for human dignity as the core principle required to elevate America to be so much better than it is. If Justice Ginsburg knew this, maybe the rest of us can learn it, some for the first time.

      We must make that commitment for ourselves, for our nation and as a final tribute to the extraordinary Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      America’s War on Abortion

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      Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) releasing a statement earlier this year articulating that, “services related to reproductive health are considered to be part of essential services during the COVID-19 outbreak,” legislators in some US states have been making relentless efforts to declare abortion services as non-essential during the pandemic. Lawmakers in Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Iowa are having to contest extensive lawsuits in connection with the issue.

      On March 23, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked all licensed health care professionals and facilities, including abortion providers, to comply with the executive order issued by Governor Greg Abbott that stated that all surgeries and procedures that are not medically necessary to correct a serious condition or preserve life will be postponed. Thus, all procedural abortions in the state of Texas were banned amid the COVID-19 outbreak to conserve medical resources. After a union of abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, sued the state of Texas over this temporary yet extremely restrictive measure, the bans were partially lifted, with abortions resuming again at the end of April.

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      According to Marie Stopes International, the suspension of services could lead to anywhere between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions during the pandemic across the 37 countries where the charity operates. A large part of these will occur in the United States, owing to a lack of safe abortion facilities. Thus, the uproar caused by the US restrictions has breathed new life into the standoff between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, an argument the relevance of which has not diminished with time.

      May 15, 2019,was a decisive and divisive date for women in the United States, particularly in the state of Alabama, which saw the passing of the Alabama Human Life Protection Act. Under this law, women who undergo an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy can be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for homicide. The act bears only two exceptions: if the fetus has a lethal anomaly or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s life. Since the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973, this is the first time abortion is being criminalized in the US. The passing of the act has triggered a domino effect, opening the availability of abortion up for debate in several states. In Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana and Missouri, blanket bans on abortion have been passed.

      Of the 27 Republicans in the Alabama Senate, 25 of those who voted the act through were white men. As Nahanni Fontaine, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, Canada, tweeted, “These 25 men, who will never be pregnant, just legislated more rights to rapists than to women, girls & victims of rape/incest.”

      Hundreds of pro-choice demonstrators marched to the Alabama Capitol to protest the bill, with slogans like “My Body, My Choice!” and “Vote Them Out!” Then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg vocalized their opposition to the passage of the act. Celebrities like Jameela Jamil, Ashley Judd, Amber Tamblyn and Busy Philipps talked about their own abortion stories as an act of protest. Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Sophie Turner and Emma Watson have also spoken out against the bans. Even Tomi Lahren, a conservative commentator, has voiced her opinion against the ban, calling it “too restrictive.” The postulate that “Men shouldn’t be making laws about women’s bodies” flooded the internet.

      Pro-Life?

      On the other side of the argument, pro-life supporters think that the 6-week-old embryo is a living being and that aborting it is murder — even in the cases of incest and rape. Often, religion is used to justify such ideology. The main argument that pro-lifers bring to the table is that because at six weeks of gestation the fetus inside its mother’s womb has a heartbeat, it must be recognized as a human being.

      In 2015, 89% of all abortions in the United States happened during the first trimester, prior to week 13 of gestation. During this period of time, the fertilized zygote is generally attached to the wall of the mother’s uterus through the placenta. At this stage, the embryo is incapable of surviving independently from its mother. Hence, the embryo — which becomes a fetus at seven weeks gestation — cannot be considered an entity in itself.

      Pro-life advocates go on to say that adoption is an alternative to abortion and also highlight the fact that abortions may result in medical complications later in life. However, more than 60% of children in foster care spend two to five years, and 20% spend five or more years, in the system before being adopted. Some never do. This can lead to issues like a greater vulnerability to depression, obesity and anxiety. Furthermore, new research shows that only about 6% of children passing out of foster care have actually finished college and less than half are employed at the age of 23.

      When it comes to the safety of abortions, a study by the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health shows that major complications in abortion procedures are rare, occurring in less than a quarter of 1% of procedures, which is safer than having a wisdom tooth removed. Abortions performed in a clinical environment are safe. However, that is precisely what these acts are denying women.

      In the case of incest or rape, pro-life advocates are vocal about punishing the perpetrator. However, Republican Congressman Steve King has defended the blanket bans by saying, “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest?” He went on to ask: “Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.” The fact that the birth of a child is a physical burden carried out by women, not men, is glaringly absent from this line of thought.

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      What legislators seem to be impervious to is that rapists continue to walk free while women are made to carry their children. Nearly 3 million, or 2.4% of American women, experience rape-related pregnancy in their lifetime. However, for every 1,000 sexual assaults that take place in America, 995 perpetrators walk free. According to a CNN investigation, 25 law enforcement agencies in 14 states were found to be destroying rape kits in cases that could still go to trial.

      The American justice system is currently incapable of delivering justice to women. No minor — like the 11-year-old rape victim from Ohio — must be forced to carry her rapist’s child to term. Moreover, in cases of incest-related rape, the child born out of the union can suffer various mental and physical deficiencies. Children born to close relatives often suffer from being more prone to recessive genetic diseases, reduced fertility, heart defects, cleft palates, fluctuating asymmetry and loss of immune system function.

      Conservatives insist that women must be responsible enough to use contraception and not use abortion as an alternative. A Gallup poll shows that at least 78% of all American adults who are opposed to abortion are also pro-birth control. However, between 2011 and 2013, 43% of adolescent females and 57% of adolescent males in the US did not receive information about birth control before they had sex for the first time.

      There is a lack of sex education at the primary and high school levels, and women are expected to be aware of contraceptives in a system that doesn’t teach preventive measures in the first place. Moreover, in 2014, 51% of abortion patients were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, and this goes to prove that contraception does not always stop conception, especially in cases where people are ill-informed about its use.

      A Nightmare for Women

      The deeper one looks into the issue, the clearer it becomes that pro-life advocates are not really saving lives. They are more simply anti-women. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act states that if a woman does undergo an abortion, the doctor carrying out the procedure could go to jail for up to 99 years — a class-A felony charge.

      The ban will disproportionately affect racial minorities. For example, some 36% of abortions are performed on African American women, who make up just 13% of the population. In Georgia, while African Americans constitute 32.2% of the population, they account for 62.4% of all abortions. Policymakers are conscious of this.

      The bill also fails to address the crucial question of who will provide the basic necessities that a child needs to survive. In the US, the average cost of raising a child up to the age of 18, excluding college education, is $233,610. However, 49% of all abortion patients in the United States of America live below the poverty line, with an annual income of less than $11,770. Childbirth costs for many uninsured Americans can easily extend to over $30,000.

      Furthermore, in 2017, a total of 194,377 children were born to women aged between 15 and 19 — a rate of 18.8 per 1,000 women in this age group, a record low. The states of Mississippi and Louisiana, where attempts have been made to criminalize abortion, rank among the first six states with the highest teenage pregnancy rates. The expenses of having an unplanned child become insurmountable for many of these women.

      But making abortions illegal will not stop them from taking place. In 2017, over 6,000 abortions were provided in Alabama. This is despite the fact that the number of abortion clinics had been reduced to just five and that some people had to drive hundreds of miles to get to one. In the state of Georgia, 27,453 abortions were carried out in  2017, 8,706 in Louisiana, 20,893 in Ohio, 3,903 in Missouri and 2,594 in Mississippi. It is unrealistic to suggest that all these women will decide to keep the baby just because of the change in the law.

      Baby Lives Matter

      The only change Alabama’s new law will bring about is in the methods women will use to secure an abortion. In countries where abortion is already criminalized, non-clinical and illegal abortions still cause about 8 to 11% of all maternal deaths. America may soon be no different. Women may be forced to seek help online, where they receive suggestions such as injecting themselves with unknown drugs, falling down the stairs and other horrific solutions.

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      As the Alabama abortion laws remain blocked by a federal judge, Americans are shadowed by uncertainty with respect to their right to abortion. With the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this week, the right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade comes under threat of a possible conservative majority on the court.

      Following  President Donald Trump’s termination of America’s relationship with the WHO, the US is under no obligation to adhere to the prospects of abortion being an essential service. Despite retaliation from several reproductive rights groups and national medical associations including the American Medical Association, the Trump campaign is selling baby onesies with the slogan “Baby Lives Matter.”

      These bans, though legally restricted to the US, affect women all over the world as they affect any progress toward gender equality and create general disagreement on the issue. According to Marie Stopes International, unless efforts are made to acknowledge the essential nature of reproductive health, 9.5 million women across the world could lose access to contraception, causing up to 3 million unwanted pregnancies and, in turn, between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions and 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths. Considering the current state of affairs around abortion in the US, it is safe to say that a large portion of these figures will be attributed to America.

      Amid deepening economic, social and health care crises spurred on by the global pandemic, the debate over reproductive rights will affect women the world over. When it comes to abortion, laws around it must be written by women, for women. America must listen to its women, who must retain their right to choose, especially during these trying times.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More