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      QAnon: A Conspiracy for Our Time

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      Those of us who, in the late 1980s and 1990s, frequently traveled in the United States might recall being approached by young men, dressed for business in suits and ties, at major airports. They distributed tracts and asked for contributions. No, they were not Mormons but followers of Lyndon LaRouche, one of the most eccentric figures on the American radical right. A perennial candidate for the American presidency, LaRouche was the head of a political cult that subscribed to the notion that current events were orchestrated and manipulated by dark forces, most notably by the queen of England (charged with presiding over the international drug trade) and the “Zionist British aristocratic oligarchy.” Among other things, he was a great proponent of fusion power, a legacy that continues to inspire his admirers.

      Lyndon LaRouche might be dismissed as a nutjob. He was, and at the same time he was far from it. LaRouche was not only the only presidential candidate to campaign for the presidency “with a platform that included his own version of quantum theory.” He was also the only candidate to evoke Plato. In the words of a leading expert on conspiracy theories, LaRouche was convinced that “history is a war between the Platonists (the good guys) and the evil Aristotelians. Anyone who has taken Philosophy 101 can follow the drift: Platonists believe in standards, an absolute truth that can be divined by philosopher kings like Mr. LaRouche. To the Aristotelians everything is relative.”  

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      While Platonists seek to use technology and classical music to the benefit of humanity, Aristotelians are out to thwart them. “With their bag of brainwashing techniques” — such as sex, rock music and environmentalism — “they hope to trick civilization into destroying itself, bringing on a ‘’new dark ages’’ in which the world’s riches will be firmly in the hands of the oligarchy.”

      Brilliant or Unhinged?

      A few years ago, such ruminations might have been dismissed as the delusional musings of a brilliant yet unhinged mind, gone off the deep end. Today, it appears that LaRouche was way ahead of his time. LaRouche, who passed away in 2019 at the ripe age of 96, presumably would have a field day were he still alive today, delighting in the fact that in the first years of the Trump presidency, the “Platonists” have finally come into their own, having made significant gains in the struggle for gaining the upper hand in the quest for cultural hegemony.

      The terms originated with the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci as a heuristic construct to explain why Italian workers acted against their objective interests. For Gramsci, cultural hegemony is strongest when subordinate classes “come to believe that the economic and social conditions of their society are natural and inevitable, rather than created by people with a vested interest in particular social, economic, and political orders.”  

      The struggle over cultural hegemony is a war of position, a slow process of creating and diffusing alternative narratives capable of subverting the hegemonic ones. Success in the struggle over cultural memory means being able to define concepts and fill them with meaning, seductive enough to appeal to a significant portion of the population. This is what has happened in the United States over the past several decades, reflected in what has come to be known as the culture war. In 2016, Donald Trump promoted himself as an “aggressive culture warrior” ready to take on the establishment.

      Central to this strategy was coming to the defense of the white Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) communities, who increasingly saw themselves as strangers in their own land, their values and beliefs ridiculed and disparaged, their voice marginalized and ignored, more often than not drowned out by minorities, such as gays, lesbians and transgender people, whom they consider immoral.

      Central to any religion is the notion that there is an absolute truth, which can only be grasped by faith. You either believe that human beings were created some 10,000 years ago — as a third of the American population seem to believe — or you don’t. You either believe that today’s natural catastrophes are part of a grand divine scheme, heralding the beginning of “the end times” ushering in the return of Christ, or you don’t. You either believe that you are among the few lucky ones who will be spared, via rapture, from having to live through the times of great tribulations, or you don’t. Surveys suggest that a growing number of Americans don’t. As a result, true believers feel even more beleaguered, victimized by a society increasingly not only slowly but inexorably “de-Christianizing” but more and more hostile to their beliefs and way of life.

      In 2016, Barna, a leading Christian pollster, revealed that a large majority of Americans viewed Christianity as “extremist.” For instance, more than 80% of respondents considered it extreme if a service provider refused to serve a customer (as has happened to gay customers ordering a wedding cake for their wedding) because “the customer’s lifestyle conflicts with their beliefs.”

      These results are only one indication that America’s Platonists, to stay with the LaRouchian frame, are on the verge of losing some of the major gains they made in the initial phase of the Trump presidency. In fact, in recent months, a number of Trump’s “culture war allies” have defected; his advisers have warned that with COVID-19 and the uproar over police brutality, the world is fundamentally different from 2016. This does not mean, however, that the conflict identified by LaRouche has abated. It has only moved to a different plane — the realm of conspiracy theory, the most famous one these days being QAnon.

      Just Ask Q

      A recent poll revealed that around 55% of Republicans believe that QAnon is mostly or partly true. Against that, more than 70% of Democrats agreed with the statement that QAnon is not true at all. For those not familiar with QAnon, it is a conspiracy theory that holds that Donald Trump is fighting a globally operating secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, consisting of liberal politicians, “deep-state” government officials and their fellow travelers in finance, the media, higher education and the entertainment industry — i.e., the liberal elite. QAnon might sound absurd and abstruse, yet it has, over the past several months, found a rapidly growing number of adherents and supporters, not only in the United States, but also on the other side of the Atlantic, from Italy to Switzerland, from France to the far corners of central Europe.

      In recent demonstrations against the measures put forward by Angela Merkel’s government in Germany designed to slow down the spread of COVID-19, most notably the obligation to wear a mask, a number of demonstrators identified themselves as QAnon adherents, wearing T-shirts displaying the slogan “Save the Children.”

      Save the children is the relatively more benign side of QAnon — as far as conspiracy theories go. It explains, for instance, why in the United States women have been particularly attracted to it. As Annie Kelly recently wrote in The New York Times, it is motherly love that draws women to the “theory,” with “concerned mothers taking a stand for child sex abuse victims.” Saving children, however, only one facet of Q, and arguably of lesser importance. The reality is that QAnon serves to a large extent as an empty signifier, a term devoid of meaning in and of itself, and as such in a position to accommodate each and every conspiracy theory, folding them “into its own master narrative.”  

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      A prominent example are anti-vaccination activists, the anti-vaxxers, one of the groups participating in the anti-mask demonstrations that have been held in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Their argument is not only that vaccinations pose dangers, but that vaccinations are part of an insidious, evil plot hatched at the headquarters of the global satanic elite. Its supreme villain is Bill Gates, the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of Q’s imagination.

      A German video posted on YouTube and produced by a relatively unknown former radio show host quickly went viral. The author’s claim: COVID-19 is part of a conspiracy conceived by Bill and Melinda Gates, aimed at drastically reducing humanity via mass vaccinations laced with sterilization molecules. So far, the video has been seen by more than 3 million viewers, and its author has been the subject of discussion in Germany’s leading media.

      In Italy, a former deputy of the Five Star Movement managed to expound the “theory” in parliament. In justification of her opposition to proposed anti-COVID-19 emergency measures, she charged Bill Gates with having, for ages, devised plans to reduce the world population and establish a “dictatorial hold on global politics” designed to gain “control over agriculture, technology and energy.” For years now, the deputy charged, Bill Gates had argued that vaccinations and reproductive health would reduce the world population by 10% to 15% and, more importantly, “only genocide could save the world.”

      Particular Resonance

      QAnon started out as an obscure internet-based conspiracy theory. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it has morphed into a cult, an ersatz religion, a great narrative that gives sense and meaning to an increasingly disconcerting, if not frightening reality. In LaRouchian terms, it is the ultimate Platonists’ dream. QAnon is true because common sense says it is true. It is true because a substantial number of ordinary people believe it is true. It is true because some celebrities of newly acquired internet fame, who got their degree from the “University of Google,” say so. It is true because it can be found on social media.

      In a world where truth claims are subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny, QAnon would easily be debunked as utter nonsense. In today’s chaotic world, however, any attempt to unmask Q not only appears to strengthen the resolve of the theory’s adherents but also attracts new converts. In the process, it has turned into a movement “united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values,” as Adrienne LaFrance has put it in The Atlantic.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The example of the Moldovan Orthodox Church provides an illustration of the far reach of the movement. In May, the church released a statement charging that the “global anti-Christian system wants to introduce microchips into people’s bodies with whose help they can control them, through 5G technology.” Vaccination, developed and promoted by Bill Gates the church stated, “introduces nanoparticles into the body that react to the waves transmitted by 5G technology and allow the system to control humans remotely.”

      Given widespread public skepticism toward scientific knowledge, if not outright rejection of it, it seems QAnon is the perfect narrative for all those who live in an alternative reality where Donald Trump is the white knight In shining armor indefatigably laboring to thwart the diabolical plots of satanic avatars and their deep-state allies — Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Tom Hanks and Jane Fonda. The list is long, and anybody can add to it.

      Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that QAnon has had a particular resonance among white evangelicals, who generally “exhibit the strongest correlation, among any faith group, between religiosity and either climate science denial or a general anti-science bias.” At the same time, white evangelicals are the voting bloc most committed to Donald Trump, a constituency he cannot afford to lose. This might explain why Trump has refused to reject QAnon out of hand, instead expressing his appreciation of the fact that its adherents “like me very much” and “love our country.”

      Evangelicals are LaRouche’s ideal Platonists. When belief clashes with scientific knowledge — as it does on evolution — they invariably side with faith as the ultimate source of truth. Unfortunately, these days, in the face of a devastating pandemic, a seemingly never-ending series of environmental catastrophes and mounting global tensions, evangelicals are hardly alone in seeking refuge in an all-encompassing “theory” that provides answers, comfort in the knowledge not to be alone and, most frighteningly, a rationale for violent action. These are chilling prospects, given the upcoming US presidential election. Whatever happens, tensions are bound to rise, with potentially devastating consequences.

      *[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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      What Trump Will Leave Behind If He Loses

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      Whether Donald Trump will serve four more years as president of the United States will be decided on November 3. America’s partners should nonetheless already be thinking about what Trump will leave behind — namely the consequences of his policies — if he loses the election and agrees to hand over power to his challenger, Joe Biden.

      Every US president sets priorities for domestic developments as well as for the country’s positions in foreign and security policy. Given the international weight of the United States — still by far the most powerful nation in the world in terms of absolute power, even when compared to China — American presidents will always shape the international order, too.

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      Incoming presidents of any party have traditionally accepted many of the legacies of their predecessors, while simultaneously setting new accents. This is not surprising; it is a characteristic of a functioning state. The foreign policy, security, economic and ecological challenges that a new president faces the first day in office are not, after all, fundamentally different from those challenges that were on the table the day before.

      Only Trump has consciously departed from this pragmatic and statesmanlike tradition. Fighting against the legacy left behind by his predecessor, Barack Obama, has been a central part of his agenda. Consequently, Trump rescinded financial market rules and environmental laws of the Obama administration, withdrew the US from the nuclear agreement with Iran, and also pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Accord and other international agreements.

      Should Trump be replaced by Biden, the new president will certainly reverse some of the most blatant measures of his predecessor — if only to regain trust and strengthen the international reputation of the United States again. This applies, in particular, to the Iran nuclear agreement and the climate accord. Biden will not be able to turn the wheel of history back to the end of the Obama era, however. He will have to deal with — and his presidency will partly be shaped by — a Trump legacy that cannot simply be undone by resigning some important international agreements.

      Four Elements Stand Out From This Legacy

      First, there is the political polarization in the US, which is as intense as it was during the Vietnam War. A new president may attempt to reunite the country politically and to mitigate the growing social inequalities through social and tax policies. However, neither the political nor social divisions in America will simply disappear with a change of political direction.

      Second, the tense relationship with China will test the Biden administration from the beginning. Trump certainly did not cause the rise of China. Even Obama had tried to redirect the focus of American policy toward Asia — he saw China’s rise as a game-changer but, overall, still regarded Beijing as a partner. In the meantime, China’s policy has become more challenging.

      Embed from Getty Images

      There is a wide-ranging bipartisan consensus in the US for taking a tough stance toward Beijing. President Trump, however, has weakened America’s position in the rivalry with China by duping friends and allies, leading the US out of international institutions and agreements, and thus creating empty spaces that China could, and did, fill.

      Strategic rivalry between the US and China is likely to remain a guiding paradigm of international relations, even under a Biden administration — a conflict that structures world politics with power-policy, security, economic, technological and ideological dimensions. How this rivalry will be shaped and evolve will largely depend on future US policy.

      Third, a new president will have to deal with the loss of international trust. Much here depends on the personality of the individual in the White House. As president, Biden would likely enjoy an advance of international trust. This could even help him to push for certain demands that not only Trump has articulated — not least that America’s NATO partners increase their defense spending. Any successor to Trump, however, no matter how much they may be trusted as a person, will be confronted with a new form of skepticism, if not fear, among international partners that any agreement they may negotiate today could be called into question after another change in the White House.

      For this reason alone, new negotiations with Iran or future arms control talks with Russia and/or China will become more difficult. Negotiating partners will want to offer less if they cannot be sure that future presidents will also abide by an agreement. American negotiators, however, are more likely to demand more in order to make such agreements more acceptable across the political spectrum in Congress, and thereby prevent a new president from simply turning them over.

      Finally, multilateral institutions and international organizations have been weakened, not only as a result of Trump’s policies but also his active contributions. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, we live in a world with fewer binding rules than four years ago. Important arms control agreements have been terminated, the World Trade Organization has been weakened, and the legitimacy and financial resources of the United Nations have been under attack.

      A new president can certainly try to change course and recommit the United States to shaping and supporting multilateral institutions, but other actors on the world stage have become more self-confident and assertive during the last four years. These actors, China above all, are unlikely to be interested in the emergence of binding new international rules that could restrict their freedom of action.

      And Europe? It is simply not enough to hope that Trump will be voted out of office and then relax if it happens. The European Union and its member states must seriously think about how they could help a new US president to regain international trust for the country. Europe can hardly expect that the United States under Biden will set out to safeguard international order on its own. Nor should it expect a Biden administration to simply adopt Europe’s multilateral agenda.

      Instead, Europe needs to strengthen its own capabilities, and it should take the initiative and press for a joint strategic analysis and agreement with the US on future issues — climate, digitization and the relationship with China, among other areas. Moreover, Europe will also have to explain how it envisages fair burden-sharing in order to create a more symmetric transatlantic relationship.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      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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      How Anti-Semitism Has Lost Any Connection With Reality

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      A Business Insider article by Oma Seddiq highlights the latest example of US President Donald Trump’s obsessive insistence on treating American Jews as citizens of Israel. Jewish voices have once again rebuked the president, though apparently to no avail. Seddiq’s article bears the title “’Textbook anti-Semitism’: American Jews condemn Trump for repeatedly telling them that Israel is ‘your country.’”

      No dictionary, not even a devil’s dictionary, can feel comfortable defining a term that describes a tradition with such horrific historical associations. But today’s post-Holocaust world of political marketing has so distorted all discourse relating to Israel that it is now impossible to disentangle three distinct concepts: ethnic identity, religion and national politics. Consequently, the meaning of anti-Semitic — now simply an all-purpose insult — changes according to the person using it.

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      Typically, the reason for proffering the insult has nothing to do with ethnicity or theology. It’s always about politics. The insult has become so potent in political arguments that its meaning is reduced to whatever the polemical objective of the speaker happens to be.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Anti-Semitism:

      A label that points to an undefined trait or attitude possessed by anyone with opposing political views who appears to make general assumptions about anything related either to the Jewish people or the state of Israel.

      Contextual Note

      During a call with American Jewish leaders last week, Donald Trump has uttered this sentiment: “We really appreciate you, we love your country also and thank you very much.” This is problematic for several reasons. Beyond the fact that Trump sees all American Jews as citizens of another country, the “we” and the “you” he mentions are both dangerously ambiguous. “We” can be restrictive, indicating Trump himself, or inclusive, as in “we the people,” embracing the entire nation. In whose name is he speaking? Moreover, by referring to American Jews collectively as “you,” he both sets them apart and imposes a solidarity of political identity that is manifestly false.

      The Jewish strategist Sophie Ellman-Golan complained: “It’s really important that we separate out American Jews and Israel — we are not one in the same. It’s anti-Semitic to suggest that we are.” There may be an anti-Semitic strain to Trump’s worldview, but not here. On other occasions, Trump has shown sympathy for virulently anti-Semitic activists. Everyone remembers those “very fine people” in Charlottesville.

      Instead, Trump, who never tires of praising Israel, strives to appear radically pro-Semitic. The absurdity of his remarks demonstrates little more than the well-established fact that the president is incapable of understanding anything about any category of people, whether the factor of identity is permanent or temporary. Because some protesters in the streets are violent, Trump judges that all protesters are violent. And because the violence is directed against the contestable practices of existing institutions Trump identifies with, he accuses all protesters of sedition — a legal term that means rebellion against the state.

      Similarly, because Israel is officially a Jewish state, Trump believes all American Jews consider themselves citizens of Israel. What applies to one applies to the entire group. And because Trump invariably aligns his foreign policy with Israel’s, he sees no problem with what his critics call the trope of “dual loyalty.” Instead, he encourages it because it puts them in opposition to Trump’s opposition in the US, especially those who criticize his unconditional alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

      The real problem with the way anti-Semitism is bandied about in the media today is that the term has become a toxic brand that can be used against anyone, including those who are called “self-hating Jews.” This often simply means those who dare to critique Israel. In the US, even the Jewish Bernie Sanders has been suspected of anti-Semitism because he has distanced himself from Israel.

      When Jeremy Corbyn dared to deviate from British geopolitical orthodoxy, defenders of the idea of an inviolable alliance with Israel — even inside his party — branded him an anti-Semite. Much of the respectable media followed suit. They did so not after taking into account the complex intersection of religious belief, ethnic belonging and political loyalty, but only because it appeared to be the easiest way to demolish the left wing of the Labour Party.

      Historical Note

      Anti-Semitism is an undeniably shameful feature of Western history. Its roots date back to the rupture that marked the birth of Christianity — a religion that emerged from Judaism after the Romans crucified Jesus. From the time of St. Paul’s writings that established the major themes of the new theology, Christianity had to justify its break with the Judaic tradition even while acknowledging a very real historical continuity. Initially, Christians saw themselves as religious separatists with no reason to cultivate hatred for the Jews, especially after the Romans dispersed the Jews from their homeland in the Middle East and effectively dismantled all Jewish political infrastructure.

      The virulent anti-Semitism that culminated with Germany’s Third Reich developed rapidly in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, accelerating with the First Crusade, launched in 1095. The feudal system required the population, from yeomen to serfs, to accept their allegiance to the local nobility. Kings and princes ruled over expanses of territory federating multiple domains belonging to nobles. Those feudal kingdoms later evolved into nation-states.

      Jews had no place in a Christian feudal system founded on an agricultural economy. Christians regarded the Jews as a people that had self-excluded themselves from the Christian community. Jews had little choice but to group in cities where they were confined to ghettos, from which they could nevertheless provide some vital services to Christians, including moneylending.

      In the 11th century, England’s Norman King William the Conqueror provided a model for “managing” the Jews, mainly for the purpose of the royal military economy. Jews had the right to lend money at interest, whereas for Christians it was a sin. With no ordinary feudal ties, all Jews were deemed direct subjects of the king. This royal privilege eventually led to moments when a king, having profited from the financial facility offered by the Jews, could use an invented pretext to punish the Jewish community, confiscate their property and cancel their debts. It was a form of political opportunism that used anti-Semitic sentiment as a pretext for plunder.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Given the somber history that would follow — exclusion and exile, blood libels, forced conversion, ghettoization, pogroms in the 19th and 20th centuries — all of it leading up to Hitler’s audacious “final solution,” the term “anti-Semitism” should always be taken seriously. It has played an active role in the evolution of modern nations in the Western world. But today, for purely political and sometimes basely electoral reasons, people have taken to using it as a facile insult to brand their opponents with an intention that everyone reflexively recognizes as shameful.

      Because the label has changed from a historically accurate description of horrendously calculated and brutally executed actions to what has become today a vague suspicion of a lack of suitable deference to Israel, the term anti-Semitism has literally lost any connection with reality. Calling Trump an anti-Semite illustrates the absurdity of the trend. The Donald’s delight in making unjustified pronouncements about American Jews doesn’t stem from anti-Semitism. It’s just that he’s a narcissist, utterly insensitive to the reality of others.

      In contrast, this past week offered an example of what has now become standard dog-whistle anti-Semitism coming from the American right. In a discussion on Fox News of violence in American cities, Newt Gingrich singled out the Democratic donor, George Soros, as the unique cause of the breakdown of law and order. Soros has long been a preferred target of anti-Semites because he finances liberal causes. Gingrich knows that and so does Fox News. Embarrassed and wishing to avoid the accusation of complicity, the Fox News hosts shut Gingrich down for such an obvious anti-Semitic trope.

      Anti-Semitism exists among the population, probably far more on the right than the left. Modern governments can no longer have recourse to it as official policy, but ordinary citizens and individual politicians can resonate to its xenophobic appeal. The term itself has thus become an abused and abusive rhetorical weapon used by all kinds of polemicists. And, for the moment, the media appears far too timid to attempt deconstructing that rhetoric.

      *[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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      What the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Means for America’s Political Future

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      The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18 has shaken the judiciary at a moment that could test the foundations of American legislature. Justice Ginsburg was a leftist — or “liberal,” in American parlance — mainstay in her 27 years on the court and four decades on the federal bench.

      The ferocity of nomination battles has intensified in recent years. After Justice Antony Scalia’s death in 2016, President Barack Obama nominated moderate DC Circuit chief judge, Merrick Garland, to the Supreme Court on March 16, more than seven months before the next presidential election. Senate Republicans used their majority to block the nomination, denying a vote and letting the nomination expire on January 3, 2017, shortly before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell then argued that “The American people should have a say in the court’s direction. It is a president’s constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court justice, and it is the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on the president and withhold its consent.” 

      A primary argument McConnell and his colleagues made was for awaiting the election to renew the presidential mandate because Americans deserved a say this close to election day. Democrats responded that the Constitution and traditional practice grant that power and that America already voted in 2012 for a mandate of four, not three and a half years — to no avail. 

      This recent political precedent will meet its first test over the next two months. Democrats remain the minority party in the upper house, leaving the path clear for Republicans, who unanimously supported President Trump’s nominations of Neil Gorsuch, with 51 Republicans and three Democrats voting to confirm, and Brett Kavanaugh, with 49 Republicans and one Democrat confirming. Whomever President Trump nominates will likely enjoy similar partisan support. The conservative majority of five on the court could now grow to a commanding six out of nine and will influence American society for decades to come. 

      The vote count leaves the words of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, tweeting just hours after the announcement of Justice Ginsburg’s passing, moot: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” Schumer’s decision to invoke the Garland precedent is far from obvious. Both party leaders have switched their rhetoric as their positions are reversed. Democrats blame Republicans, and Republicans cry hypocrisy. 

      This runs against observations by political scientists showing that fighting fire with fire weakens democracy. Gone are the days when a president with a governing majority would nominate a justice from the other party, as Harry Truman did in 1945. Trust and bipartisanship have reached a low not seen in decades. 

      Presidential nominees have required a simple majority since 2013, when Democrats for the first time changed chamber rules to allow federal lower court nominations to pass with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority, over the protests of Republicans. In April 2018, Republicans, now in the majority, expanded the rule to include Supreme Court nominees, making 51 votes sufficient to overcome Democrats still furious over the Garland affair. As both parties raise the stakes, the high court grows more politicized — and voters and the politicians they elect grow more polarized — the future of the political branches of government hangs in the balance. 

      Regardless of who replaces Justice Ginsburg, SCOTUS seats will again inevitably open up the floor to opposing parties. Vociferous opposition to Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 suggests there may be appetite for a bitter battle, however quixotic. Whoever wins the November presidential contest will enter an embittered political environment where the comity and willingness to compromise that characterized Washington a generation ago has all but disappeared, replaced by weakened institutions and disunity in the halls of power. 

      While more active state and local governments, administrative agencies and even courts address questions unanswered by Congress and the White House, nothing can replace efficacy in DC. When paralysis reigns, policies and the people they serve suffer. 

      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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      Taking American Carnage to the Next Level

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      It is a recent tradition among occupants of the White House, as they head out of office, to play a few practical jokes on their successors. The Clinton administration jesters, for instance, removed all the Ws from White House keyboards before handing over the keys to George W. Bush’s transition team. The Obama administration left behind books authored by Barack Obama for Trump’s incoming press team.

      Donald Trump has no sense of humor. His “gift” to the next administration is dead serious. With his recent foreign policy moves, the president is trying to change the facts on the ground so that whoever follows in his footsteps will have a more difficult time restoring the previous status quo. Forget about pranks. This is a big middle-finger salute to the foreign policy establishment and the world at large.

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      Of course, Trump is not preparing to leave office, regardless of the results of the November election. But in his policies in the Middle East and East Asia, the president is attempting to change the very rules of the game just in case he’s not around next year to personally make more mischief. The man is not going to win a Nobel Prize for his efforts — despite the recent nominations coming from a pair of right-wing Scandinavians — but he’ll do whatever he can to achieve the next best thing: putting the Trump brand on geopolitics.

      It cost about $5,000 to replace all those W-less typewriters. The bill for all the damage Trump is doing to international affairs in his attempt to make his Israel, Iran and China policies irreversible will be much, much higher.

      Israel Up, Palestine Down

      For several years, the Trump administration promised a grand plan that would resolve the Israel-Palestine stand-off. According to this “deal of the century,” Palestinians would accept some economic development funds, mostly from Gulf states, in exchange for giving up their aspirations for an authentic state.

      The hoops Palestinians would have to jump through to get even such a shrunken and impotent state — effectively giving up Jerusalem, relinquishing the right to join international organizations without Israel’s permission — are such obvious deal-breakers that Jared Kushner and company must have known from the start that their grand plan was not politically viable.

      But finding a workable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was not the purpose of the plan. It was all an elaborate shell game. While the administration dangled its proposal in front of world leaders and international media, it was working with Israel to create “new realities.” Trump withdrew the United States from the UN Human Rights Council for its “chronic bias against Israel.” The administration closed the PLO’s office in Washington, DC, and eliminated US funding for the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees. And in perhaps the most consequent move, Trump broke a global convention by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Until recently, only one country, Guatemala, had followed suit.

      But then came a flurry of diplomatic activity this fall as both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain extended diplomatic recognition to Israel. The Trump administration also pushed Serbia and Kosovo, as part of a new economic deal, to include clauses about Israel: Serbia will move its embassy to Jerusalem and Kosovo will establish one there after establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

      Astonishingly, the Trump administration has promoted this diplomatic activity as restraining Israel. In May, Netanyahu announced that he was moving forward with absorbing sections of the West Bank that already featured large Israeli settlements. He subsequently stepped back from that announcement to conclude the new diplomatic deals with the Gulf states. But it was only reculer pour mieux sauter, as the French say — stepping back to better leap forward. Netanyahu had no intention of taking annexation off the table.

      “There is no change to my plan to extend sovereignty, our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, in full coordination with the United States,” Netanyahu said in mid-August. Some further to the right of Netanyahu — alas, they do exist — want to annex the entire West Bank. But that’s de jure. As writer Peter Beinart points out, Israel has been annexing the West Bank settlement by settlement for some time.

      Where does this leave Palestinians? Up a creek without a state. The Trump administration has used its much-vaunted “deal of the century” to make any future deal well-nigh impossible. In collaboration with Netanyahu, Trump has strangled the two-state solution in favor of a single Israeli state with a permanent Palestinian underclass. The cost to Palestinians: incalculable.

      Permanent War With Iran

      Strengthening Israel was a major part of Trump’s maneuverings in the Middle East. A second goal was to boost arms sales to Gulf countries, which will only accelerate the arms race in the region. The third ambition has been to weaken Iran. Toward that end, Israel, Bahrain and the UAE now form — along with Saudi Arabia — a more unified anti-Iran bloc.

      But the Trump crowd has never been content to contain Iran. It wants nothing less than regime change. From the get-go, the Trump administration nixed the Iran nuclear deal, tightened sanctions against Tehran and put pressure on all other countries not to engage Iran economically. In January, it assassinated a leading Iranian figure, Major General Qassem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. And this summer it tried, unsuccessfully, to trigger “snap-back” sanctions against Iran that would kill the nuclear deal once and for all.

      Even as the Trump administration was celebrating the diplomatic deal between the UAE and Israel, it was going after several UAE firms for brokering deals with Iran. Trump recently castigated the Iranian government for going through with the execution of wrestler Navid Afkari for allegedly killing a security guard during a 2018 demonstration.

      And US intelligence agencies have just leaked a rather outlandish suggestion that Iran has been thinking about assassinating the US ambassador to South Africa. According to Politico, “News of the plot comes as Iran continues to seek ways to retaliate for President Donald Trump’s decision to kill a powerful Iranian general earlier this year, the officials said. If carried out, it could dramatically ratchet up already serious tensions between the U.S. and Iran and create enormous pressure on Trump to strike back — possibly in the middle of a tense election season.”

      Hmm, sounds mighty suspicious. Sure, Iran might be itching for revenge. But why risk war with a president who might just be voted out of office in a couple of months and replaced with someone who favors returning to some level of cooperation? And why would the unnamed US government officials leak the information right now? Is it a way to discourage Iran from making such a move? Or perhaps it’s to provoke one side or the other to take the fight to the next level — and take off the table any future effort to repair the breach between the two countries?

      Cutting Ties With China

      At a press conference earlier this month, Trump laid out his vision of US relations with China. Gone were the confident predictions of beautiful new trade deals with Beijing. After all, Trump had canceled trade negotiations last month, largely because the Phase 1 agreement hasn’t produced the kind of results the president had predicted (in terms of Chinese purchases of US goods). Nor did Trump talk about what a good idea it was for China to build “reeducation camps” for Uighurs in Xinjiang (he reserves such frank conversation for tête-à-têtes with Xi Jinping, according to John Bolton).

      Rather, Trump talked about severing the economic relationship between the two countries. “Under my administration, we will make America into the manufacturing superpower of the world, and we’ll end our reliance on China once and for all,” he said. “Whether it’s decoupling or putting in massive tariffs like I’ve been doing already, we’re going to end our reliance on China because we can’t rely on China.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      As with virtually all things, Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about. China has been largely unaffected by all of Trump’s threats and posturing. As economist Nicholas Lardy explains, “for all the fireworks over tariffs and investment restrictions, China’s integration into global financial markets continues apace. Indeed, that integration appears on most metrics to have accelerated over the past year. And U.S.-based financial institutions are actively participating in this process, making financial decoupling between the United States and China increasingly unlikely.”

      In fact, decoupling is just another way of saying “self-inflicted wound.” On the non-financial side of the ledger, the United States has already paid a steep price for its trade war with China, which is only a small part of what decoupling would ultimately cost. Before the pandemic hit, the United States was already losing 300,000 jobs and $40 billion in lost exports annually. That’s like a Category 3 hurricane. A full decoupling would tear through the US economy like a Category 6 storm.

      Geopolitical Carnage

      American presidents want to leave behind a geopolitical legacy. Bill Clinton was proud of both the Dayton agreement and the Oslo Accords. George W. Bush touted his response to the September 11 attacks. Barack Obama could point to the Iran nuclear deal and the détente with Cuba. Donald Trump, like the aforementioned twisters, has left destruction in his path. He tore up agreements, initiated trade wars, pulled out of international organizations and escalated America’s air wars.

      But perhaps his most pernicious legacy is his scorched-earth policy. Like armies in retreat that destroy the fields and the livestock to rob their advancing adversaries of food sources, Trump is doing whatever he can to make it impossible for his successor to resolve some of the world’s most intractable problems.

      His diplomatic “achievements” in the Middle East are designed to disempower and further disenfranchise Palestinians. His aggressive policy toward China is designed to disrupt an economic relationship that sustains millions of US farmers and manufacturers. His bellicose approach to Iran is designed not only to destroy the current nuclear accord but make future ones impossible as well.

      If he wins a second term, Trump will bring his scorched-earth doctrine to every corner of the globe. What he is doing to Iran, China and the Palestinians, he will do to the whole planet. The nearly 200,000 pandemic deaths and the wildfires destroying the West Coast are just the beginning. Donald Trump can’t wait to take his brand of American carnage to the next level.

      *[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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      The Tug of War in Washington Around the War in Afghanistan

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      The struggle has been going on for four years and is once again approaching a possible turning point. On one side you have a majority of Democrat and Republican legislators united with the intelligence community in the team called “proponents of a massive US military presence across the globe.” On the other side, an unpredictable US president who, since his 2016 election campaign, has consistently confirmed his intention to pull back the troops still engaged in the greater Middle East by the two presidents who preceded him.

      The tug of war continues between these two opposing forces as the place of the United States as “leader of the free world” appears up for grabs. (“Free” in the preceding sentence can be defined as “subject exclusively to corporate control” as corporations are deemed the only legitimate wielders of power.)

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      It has been a full 19 years since President George W. Bush launched his first campaign of perennial military occupation that the media labeled the “war in Afghanistan,” as if it was just another struggle between two opposing national armies. Bush still called it a war, but by ennobling it with the moniker the “global war on terror,” he made sure that, at least concerning public expectations, it was a war whose narrative didn’t require rational battle plans, declarations of victory, surrenders or truces. Nor did it require any of those singular moments that have defined past wars, producing all those “important dates” on the calendar that future generations of schoolchildren can memorize and then regurgitate as their responses to multiple choice questions on the tests that will decide whether or not they have mastered the logic of history.

      For anyone familiar with the mechanisms that require a constantly expanding military budget, US President Donald Trump’s insistence on reducing the footprint of the American military in the greater Middle East is heresy. Do Americans really think their continued presence is vital in Afghanistan? They said the same thing about Vietnam in 1973 when they abandoned Saigon to the Vietnamese communists. What disaster followed? The Vietnamese developed their country within a global economic context dominated by the United States and the two nations have since become best of friends, even though the communist party still officially runs Vietnam.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In 2001, Bush launched the war that was intended to drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Regime change didn’t take long to complete. Though officially banished from power, the Taliban have remained the most powerful political force in the country. Driven by his impatience, Trump imagined that the only solution might come from recognizing that state of affairs and reaching an agreement with the Taliban. After several false starts, negotiations began again on September 12. This propension for dialogue with the enemy does not sit well with those Americans who see their nation’s role in the world as the defenders of democracy, who because they believe in that ideal deserve absolute trust. For these strategic thinkers, history has shown that the Taliban are untrustworthy and simply do not merit the confidence of the always respectful and trustworthy United States. 

      Reviewing the reactions of the camp committed to maintaining the US presence, Sean D. Naylor, Yahoo’s national security correspondent, cites retired Admiral William McRaven, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command. He tells us that McRaven opposes the negotiations because he is “skeptical that the Taliban would follow through on its commitments.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Commitment:

      In diplomacy, a formal promise to respect a number of agreed-upon rules and behaviors until one of the parties can demonstrate, thanks to its obviously superior force and capacity to intimidate, that the respect of those rules and behaviors is no longer required

      Contextual Note

      McRaven was blunt in his appreciation, using a tired cliché to express his conviction that no official agreement should be taken seriously. “I’m not personally convinced that any deal with the Taliban will be worth the paper that it’s written on.” Joining McRaven in his opposition to negotiations, Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, asserted that his “assessment is that the Taliban would take over the country again in a matter of months.”

      For those unfamiliar with CIA jargon, “assessment” is synonymous with “my self-interested opinion.” Pursuing with the same vocabulary, Morell added that despite the terms of the envisaged peace deal that explicitly forbid it, “my assessment is that they would provide safe haven to al-Qaida.”

      This seals the case that in the intelligence community, the word “assessment” literally means “opinion” and not much more. Like a banker analyzing the curves of a real estate market in 2007 who believed it would keep growing forever, or like a schoolboy ready for a history test, Morell remembers the reasons Bush cited to attack the Afghan government in 2001: they had given “safe haven to al-Qaida.” If they did it once, they’ll do it again. Morell may be right, but he should also know that it was the US that gave the initial impetus to the creation and development of al-Qaida when they mobilized Osama bin Laden against the Soviets who had taken control of Afghanistan in 1979.

      The language feast continues when McRaven suggests that keeping troops in Afghanistan may be “a high price to pay” before adding this thought: “But what we have learned in the military is how to do this in a way that hopefully will not lose a lot of great soldiers.” The generals hope; the soldiers die. It’s just a question of when to pat yourself on the back when the numbers announced by the media remain sufficiently low.

      Historical note

      William McRaven and Michael Morrell have every reason to be suspicious of the value of commitments by any political entity. International understanding and world peace depend on trust and the respect of agreements reached by the political leaders of all nations. To wield clout in this complex world of international relations, financial power and military might may be sufficient to impose a nation’s policies in specific contexts, but the capacity to conduct business with every other nation in the world depends on the ability to maintain a reputation for keeping one’s commitments.

      The US has proved its capacity to wield financial power and military might, though not always to convincing effect. In his book, “In the Shadows of the American Century,” historian Alfred McCoy wrote, “Future historians are likely to identify George W. Bush’s rash invasion of Iraq, in 2003, as the start of America’s downfall.” It was the misuse of American power under Bush that began a precipitous decline in the reputation of the US as a political model and as a legitimate defender of the rule of law.

      That meant that to redress the balance, it became more important than ever for the US to show its determination to respect commitments. But as Annalisa Merelli, writing for Quartz, documented with a long list of examples, “the US is an unreliable international partner—and it has long been one, even before the current administration pulled out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris agreement on climate change, and threatened to end NAFTA. History is dotted with treaties that the US has signed but not ratified, signed and then unsigned, and even refused to sign after pushing everyone else to sign.”

      Americans find this hard to understand because the media rarely, if ever, track the international reputation of the US in its proclaimed role as “leader of the free world.” They prefer to see the constant betrayals of trust as inevitable and regrettable but, at the same time, forgettable results of the differences between the two sacred political parties — Democrats and Republicans. Each has a different view of the world and, once in power, quite naturally seeks to impose that view, if only to keep their campaign promises to voters (and donors). International agreements always take a backseat to electoral tactics. 

      Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee for the US election in November, has expressed his admiration of McRaven’s “moral courage” and his pride in being associated with him. McRaven, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and has openly criticized Donald Trump, has a clear vision of the future that gives a good indication of what Biden’s foreign policy may look like. He affirmed that the US will “probably need to be in Afghanistan for a very long time.” Nineteen years has clearly not been long enough.

      *[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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      Donald Trump: A President Against His People

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      In less than two months from now, Americans would have elected their next president. One can only hope that they have elected their 46th president, not reelected their 45th for another four-year term. Electing Donald Trump was nothing short of shooting oneself in the foot with a .45-caliber pistol. Reelecting him will amount to taking that pistol to the head and pulling the trigger.

      In four years, this man has caused countless harm to everyone possible, save rich white Americans and even richer American corporations. He has worked hard to reclaim whiteness in America, having done everything possible to ensure that to be American is synonymous with being white. He has characterized Mexicans as rapists and Central American refugees as criminals. Blinded by his xenophobic views, he promised his supporters a beautiful wall on the southern border that would be paid for by Mexico. Employing his executive powers to keep Muslims away from American soil, his exclusionary immigration policies have been openly Islamophobic from the first days of his presidency.

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      As president, Trump had the opportunity to make a positive impact on innumerable aspects of the lives of its citizens. Unfortunately, anything he turned his attention to — whether it’s education, health care, taxation, immigration, trade agreements or the environment — he managed to make worse. It requires an extraordinary amount of ineptitude and incompetence to accomplish what Trump has in his four years. He has done enough damage to the country — and the world at large — to vie for the unenviable top spot as the worst president in the history of the United States of America.

      Enduring the final year of his presidency, I had thought that it is impossible to be surprised or outraged any longer by whatever the man says or does. I was proven wrong. Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has made his previous transgressions seem like a walk in the park. On September 9, he acknowledged that he had intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The White House response was a pathetic effort to mitigate the fallout from the information contained in the upcoming book by The Washington Post’s veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

      The COVID-19 death toll in the US is just shy of 200,000, from over 6.5 million cases — the highest in the world. That Trump never cared for the welfare and well-being of his fellow countrypeople was amply clear from his policies and actions over these past four years. That he could turn a blind eye to the calamitous effects of the pandemic and lie to the nation about it likens him to a modern-day emperor, mocking the suffering of his subjects, not much different from Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.

      Trump’s bungling response to the pandemic makes him culpable for this exorbitant death toll, which could have been averted had he acted swiftly and decisively, with a plan of action based on scientific findings. Instead of encouraging responsible social behavior from the country, he mocked science with his refusal to wear a mask, by consuming hydroxychloroquine as a shield against the coronavirus and misleading the American public by not only not impressing upon it the gravity of the pandemic but, as we now know, willfully underplaying the dangers of COVID-19. Trump’s callous and reprehensible behavior during the pandemic not only taints his legacy with the unnecessary loss of life, but it also cements his position as the worst president of the country with an insurmountable lead over Andrew Jackson and quite possibly anyone else in the future.

      America is a nation that loves to bookmark in history the wars its presidents spearheaded during their tenure. Lyndon Johnson is remembered for launching his war on crime in 1965, Ronald Reagan for his war on drugs in 1982. Today, both those wars have resulted in more than 2.3 million incarcerated Americans, with a disproportionate amount of them being black and people of color. George W. Bush is identified with the war on terror that he commenced soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

      By contrast, what Trump has managed to do in his four years at America’s helm is wage a full-scale war on humanity. Sadly, Republican politicians have been abetting this war by kowtowing to the president. A vote for Donald Trump this November is an endorsement of his war on humanity and actively lending support to it.

      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 Mechanics of Discontent Visible in Berlin

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      The vacuum of leadership and the visible missteps throughout much of the Western world have turned developed nations into a fertile ground for what some people see as the resurgence of modern versions of fascism. Until the past few months, such a statement would have sounded provocative at best, delusional at worst. But the evidence confronts us every day and the most sober, level-headed among us cannot avoid the suspicion that, thanks to a raging and still mysterious pandemic, we are living on some kind of political brink that could end up with the overturning of the existing social order.

      Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief of The New York Times, reports on an event that, because it took place in Berlin, will fatally evoke ominous overtones for the average reader. The article bears the title, “Far Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate.”

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      At one point, Bennhold quotes an expert on far-right extremism, Matthias Quent, who offers his description of the motley crew participating in the event, which took place on August 29. “We have everything from Hare Krishna fans to Adolf Hitler fans on the streets. It’s a very disparate crowd but what unites people is an angry discontent with the establishment. It’s a mix of populist and egoist outrage,” he says.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Egoist outrage:

      The ultimate expression of political revolt in individualistic Western societies where the ego has become the absolute reference and authority that founds every individual’s moral judgment

      Contextual Note

      With its title highlighting the dramatic action of the storming of the Reichstag, The New York Times may deliberately be making a mountain out of a molehill. It could be seen as a typical journalistic gambit of scaremongering to hook the reader, followed by more reassuring, level-headed analysis. The story contrasts, for example, with DW’s article on the same event that avoids pushing the idea of a neo-Nazi threat. Instead, it concentrates on the political and legal choices available to the immense majority of Germany’s people and its authorities seeking counter the attempts of the neo-Nazi right who are attempting to use the current health crisis to disrupt German politics.

      Beyond the headline, once it gets into the body of the story, The Times article itself gives a reasonably objective account of the event and its possible consequences. The quote by Quent confirms that the discontent behind the demonstration had little to do with building a neo-Nazi political force. The “populist and egoist outrage,” he mentions, should be interpreted as an unfocused cry of despair of a mostly younger generation that reflects a vague sense of decline in the authority of institutions and an absence of a political vision for the future.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Quent offers a particularly reassuring take that contradicts the implicit evocation of a return of Nazi stormtroopers. “In Germany, like many other European countries, we see that far-right parties are losing ground, that there is growing trust in incumbent governments. In the short term the pandemic can’t be exploited by far-right parties.” That doesn’t mean the protesters believe that today’s political institutions are doing a great job and should be encouraged to continue on their merry way.

      But Quent calls the outrage “egoist,” implying that it may simply be a symptom of the reigning individualism in contemporary German culture. The article also tells us that “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is enjoying high levels of trust and popularity, and the great majority of Germans approve of its virus control measures.” If all of that is true, the sensationalism associated with imagining a neo-Nazi resurgence begins to disappear.

      Because this is The New York Times, we know that the article was written for Americans who are always eager to know which foreign threat they need to be afraid of. Bennhold accordingly gets Quent to admit that the fly is in the ointment and things could quite possibly flare up again. “If the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises,” she quotes him as saying, “that equation may change. Already, the AfD and more extreme far-right groups are trying to capitalize on the discontent as they begin positioning themselves for what may be a much uglier political scene some months from now.”

      Bennhold dutifully reminds us of this important point: “Even before the pandemic hit Germany, far-right extremism and far-right terrorism had been officially identified as the biggest danger to the country’s democracy.” She then offers several paragraphs of evidence that neo-Nazis have been infiltrating the police before concluding the article with a quote by Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “Far-right extremism has deep roots in our society. It is a serious danger.”

      In other words, The Times is up to the task of making sure that Germany lives up to the disturbing image Americans have of it.

      Historical Note

      Among the reminders of recent history included in the article, Katrin Bennhold offers an update for those who are still trying to digest the scary events from five years ago when the crisis caused by massive refugee immigration mostly from the Middle East seriously destabilized Germany and much of Europe. That paranoia, itself a direct consequence of the disastrous American wars in the Middle East, very directly contributed to the success of the Brexit vote in 2016 that was largely motivated by fear of extra-European immigration.

      Bennhold elaborates: “The migrant wave helped propel the AfD into Parliament in the last election, but the issue has lost much of its political potency, as the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success. And with its own lawmakers and voters deeply split over the country’s coronavirus measures, the party has seen its share of the vote dip below 10 percent in recent polls.”

      Most Americans, including most readers of The New York Times, were probably not aware of the fact Bennhold dryly reports today that all’s well that ends well or, more specifically, “the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success.” In 2018, Bennhold herself wasn’t very sure. In an article she co-authored with Max Fisher, they asked at the time, “Has the German migrant fight been resolved?” And the curt answer they gave was simply, “Maybe, but probably not.”

      This is the eternal problem with the news, even for a serious outlet like The New York Times. Crises sell in the sense of motivating the publication to write them up and spare no details in describing the extent of the damage as the crisis is unfolding. But when a crisis is resolved, totally or partially, unless it is the result of a sudden dramatic gesture, the news outlet will find other crises flaring up that are more urgent to cover. This is especially true when a policy devised to address a crisis is “deemed a success.” All journalists know that “deeming” is never newsworthy. Storming the Reichstag is.

      *[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