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US elections 2000
One person hoping Donald Trump wins: Boris Johnson
Jonathan Freedland
If Joe Biden becomes the next US president, that will be good news for Labour in the UK, and spell trouble for the government More
Anyone who knows how Wall Street works will not be surprised to learn that when the novel coronavirus epidemic began to turn into a full-fledged pandemic in the first two months of 2020, people in the know saw a major opportunity to play Monopoly. Any major shift affecting society and people’s behavior will lead to the possibility for the clever to cash in.
In a New York Times article with the title “As Virus Spread, Reports of Trump Administration’s Private Briefings Fueled Sell-Off,” Kate Kelly and Mark Mazzetti report on how the arrival of a pandemic was received as good news for those in the know. Because of the way it was handled, it made some wealthy people close to the Trump administration if not happier, then at least wealthier.
Kelly and Mazzetti tell the story of a president and his savvy economic team led by Larry Kudlow who, while publicly downplaying the probable consequences of an epidemic, privately encouraged their cronies to prepare for the worst. In Wall Street terms, of course, “the worst” translates as “potentially the best.”
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During times of instability, intelligent traders who get wind of a factor that has a high probability of affecting the price of some types of stocks at a time when the general public still sees things as either normal or unpredictable will know what to do and when to act. If they are already holding those stocks, they will sell them and eventually buy them back later at a lower price when things begin getting back to normal. If not — and this is far more convenient — they will short them. As everyone should be aware, people close to the halls of power, and often members of the government themselves, tend to think like traders.
The Times article takes us back to the scene on February 24, when “President Trump declared on Twitter that the coronavirus was ‘very much under control’ in the United States.” Earlier on the same day, in a private meeting, the president’s economic team had with board members of the conservative Hoover Institution, Tomas J. Philipson, a senior economic adviser to the president, informed them that the government “could not yet estimate the effects of the virus on the American economy.” Anyone with ears to hear understood what that meant: The economy was in for a rocky ride.
According to The Times, from that moment on, things began accelerating: “The next day, board members — many of them Republican donors — got another taste of government uncertainty from Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council.”
Here is today’s 3D definition:
Donors:
Wealthy people, known for giving generously to political campaigns, who have developed the skill required in modern democracies of using a small portion of their immense wealth to get various kinds of favors from politicians, the most significant of which is access to inside information that will serve to make them wealthier and thereby better prepare them for future political campaigns, where their continued generosity will be required to ensure the stability of democracy.
Contextual Note
Larry Kudlow then became the key player. He had already claimed on CNBC that the virus was not only contained but reassuringly added that “it’s pretty close to airtight.” Shortly afterward on the same day, speaking to the donors, Kudlow nuanced the message, telling them that the virus was “contained in the U.S., to date, but now we just don’t know.” Savvy investors immediately understand the expression “to date” to mean: “Things are likely to change radically in the near future, so it may be time to act.” Kudlow was undoubtedly sincere when he added “now we just don’t know,” but the word “now” suggests that they already had assessed a strong probability.
Kelly and Mazzetti sum up the entire story in a single sentence: “The president’s aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Mr. Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent.” They describe the tight timeline in which events began accelerating. It started as soon as “elite traders had access to information from the administration that helped them gain financial advantage during a chaotic three days when global markets were teetering.” The authors cite one investor who, after reading the memo of the meeting and having understood the scope of the threat a pandemic represents, gave the order: “Short everything.”
Historical Note
What would capitalism be without its recurrent crises that create the kinds of seismic shifts that enable the cleverest and wealthiest to increase their wealth, consolidate their power and drive the weaker actors in the Darwinian struggle for survival out of the marketplace? That is how the elite drafts new members and protects its own.
Stock market crashes are usually followed by a recession or depression. That is when commentators in the media begin lamenting the suffering imposed on the economy as if they were reporting on a natural catastrophe unaffected by human agency. They often cite statistics that will incite the public to commiserate with the wealthy who might officially “lose” billions of dollars in a single day. They spend less time commiserating with the anonymous hordes who, several months later, will have lost their jobs and had their mortgages foreclosed, finding themselves homeless and, in the best cases, simply hopeful that no one comes to repossess their car since it might serve either as shelter from the cold or the means of making a living if they manage to become an Uber driver.
When Lehman Brothers collapsed, not only did the thousands of people who worked for the bank find themselves rudderless, the tsunami that collapse unleashed across the globe affected the lives of millions of people in multiple ways. It led to an estimated 3.8 million foreclosures during the Great Recession. The implications of the drama the world is living through today as the pandemic and its consequences keep unfolding will be far greater. Not only has the pandemic directly killed over a million people, but its continuing effect — not just on the economy but on what was considered the “normal way of life” in a consumer society — has created severe social disarray, aggravating the consequences of the 2008 crisis from which society had never truly recovered. And what about the effect on the lives of the wealthy people who created the 2008 crisis? What has their suffering been like?
In September 2018, The Guardian brought its readers up to date on the plight of Lehman Brothers chief executive, Dick Fuld, known familiarly as the “Gorilla of Wall Street.” He now runs Matrix Private Capital and advises “high-net-worth” clients. His net worth, which “once exceeded $1 billion,” is now estimated at a paltry $250 million. Philosophizing on his career seven years after the fall of Lehman, he famously said: “Whatever it is, enjoy the ride. No regrets.”
The cronies and traders who benefitted from the diligent effort of Trump’s economic team to guide them in their investment strategies in the face of an impending pandemic have also been enjoying the ride and appear to have no regrets. Their traders have served them well. The stock market has prospered at the same time as small businesses are disappearing by the thousands and millions of people have become dependent on government handouts that have been slow in coming and not been adapted to the nature and the scale of the crisis.
Today’s Wall Street donors, sensing an imminent Joe Biden victory, have been exercising their generosity in the Democrat’s direction in recent months. Many of them are probably the same who benefitted from the memo from that private meeting in the White House in February. How ungrateful of those disloyal bastards!
*[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
In November 2000, the battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore for the US presidency was deadlocked over the status of a few thousand votes in Florida. Gore had won the popular vote, but the margin of victory in the Electoral College depended on Florida. In that state, Bush held a very slim lead of only 537 ballots. The Democrats wanted a recount of the votes in Florida. The Republicans didn’t. The case went to the Supreme Court. In December 2000, in a 5-4 decision, the court stopped the recount in Florida and awarded the election to Bush.
The Rise and Fall of US Democracy
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At the same time, halfway around the world, a young East Timorese activist was sitting in a US-sponsored democracy seminar. He was bored and frustrated. As the activist recounted to me several years later, the American presenter was lecturing his audience on the virtues of the US model of democracy.
Finally, the East Timorese activist couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up in the question-and-answer period and said, bluntly, “Pardon me, but why should we take what you are saying seriously considering what’s going on in Florida?” The American presenter didn’t have a good answer.
Flaws in US Democracy
The 2000 election exposed a number of flaws in American democracy: the disproportionate influence of the mysterious Electoral College, the highly politicized nature of the Supreme Court, the impact of money and lawyers and patronage systems. American democracy boiled down not to the choices of the voters but to the fact that Bush’s brother, Jeb, was the governor of Florida and conservatives held a slim majority on the Supreme Court. The democratic principle of one person/one vote was overridden by the reality of one brother/one Supreme Court justice.
President Bush went on to become one of the greatest cheerleaders of democracy promotion abroad. The Bush administration claimed that its war on terrorism was bringing democracy to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to the whole Middle East. In the end, this campaign of democracy promotion brought a good deal of war to those countries, but not a lot of democracy.
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Today, 20 years later, the United States faces another election that promises to showcase yet again all the flaws of American democracy. But this time it’s not just the inherent unfairness of the Electoral College system, which awarded Donald Trump the presidency in 2016 even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. This time, as I’ve written, Trump is doing everything he can to subvert democratic institutions to remain in office — by lying, stealing votes, inciting violence and simply refusing to vacate the White House.
Unlike Bush, President Trump has shown no interest whatsoever in promoting democracy around the world. He has made friends with dictators like Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He has ignored gross human rights violations like the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. He has gutted the State Department’s capacity to support democratic reforms and institutions globally.
The Impact
So, Trump’s attempt to subvert democracy at home is entirely consistent with his disdain for democracy abroad. The question is: What impact will the mess surrounding the US elections have on the future of global democracy?
First of all, the effort to push the US model of democracy has not necessarily produced a lot of democracy around the world. Where democracy has taken root, it has been largely through the efforts of local movements, not foreign advisers. For instance, the US government supported authoritarian leaders in South Korea for decades, and it was only the efforts of the Korean people that brought democracy to the country. The same holds true for South Africa, Chile, Ukraine and many other countries.
Where democracy promotion has failed, such as in Libya, the results have been catastrophic. Anarchy and civil war have flourished, not free-and-fair elections. Countries like Russia and China, meanwhile, have painted US democracy promotion as interference into sovereign affairs and suppressed indigenous civil-society organizing accordingly.
So, perhaps the US retreat from democracy promotion won’t have much impact globally. It might even have the opposite effect. With the United States no longer pushing from the outside, pro-democracy activists on the inside will no longer be easily accused of being pro-American spies and thus might have greater room for maneuver.
The disillusionment of democracy activists concerning the US might also be beneficial. The current preoccupations of the United States — over the peaceful transfer of power and the political manipulation of supposedly non-partisan institutions — send a strong message that democracies are not perfect, democracy is a process not a final state of affairs and the United States is not morally or procedurally superior to other countries. Democracy activists, in other words, can’t expect the US to wave a magic wand to end tyranny. They have to topple dictators and build democracy largely on their own.
Lessons for US Activists
These are all lessons for activists in America as well. If Joe Biden wins next month and then manages to take office in January, the US will be focused for some time on repairing its own democracy rather than messing with the political systems of other countries. Trump has done much to undermine the faith that American citizens have in democratic mechanisms like the security of elections, the oversight of Congress and the independence of the judiciary. A Biden administration will have a lot of work to do just to restore these democratic guardrails, not to mention winning back a minimum of international respect for the US after four years of plummeting approval for both the president and his country.
In the wake of Trump’s democracy demotion, the most important task for a Biden administration would be democracy promotion at home. If the next administration can repair American democracy, it would suggest that perhaps the authoritarian wave that has swept over much of the world — Russia, China, India, Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines — has hit a high-water mark and might even be receding.
The polls suggest that American voters are ready to send Trump packing. Let’s hope that people around the world, having watched the impact of Trump’s demotion of democracy on the United States, will reject the politicians in their own countries who advance Trump-like agendas as well.
*[This article was originally published by Hankyoreh and FPIF.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
As reports suggest that No 10 Downing Street has been preparing for Trump’s exit from the White House, Jonathan Freedland and Rafael Behr look at how the election might affect America’s relationship with the rest of the world
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At the weekend, we saw reports that No 10 Downing Street has concluded that Donald Trump is going to lose the US presidential election (paywall) and that it’s time to cosy up to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. The story had Jonathan Freedland thinking: “How will the US election affect America’s relationship with the rest of the world?” How will leaders who have enjoyed Trump’s approach to international diplomacy adapt if Joe Biden takes office? And for American allies who have failed to warm to the president, could another four years of Trump take ties that have already been frayed and snap them altogether? Here to help him try to answer all that is Guardian columnist Rafael Behr. Buy tickets for the Guardian Live Event, where Jonathan Freedland and others will be discussing the upcoming election. Let us know what you think of the podcast. Send your feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More
On the night of July 11, Naxalites blew up 12 buildings in the forest department’s field office-cum-quarters in the Berkela forest area of Pashchimi Singhbhum district in Jharkhand, India. Naxalites are Maoists who have fought a bloody insurgency against the Indian state in some rural and forest areas for over six decades. In 2006, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister at the time, called this insurgency “the single biggest internal-security challenge” the country has ever faced.
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In recent years, the Naxalite insurgency has ebbed. So, this attack sent shock waves across administration in general and the forest department in particular. Fortunately, no one died in the attack. The Naxals asked staff to vacate the premises and warned of consequences if police were informed before destruction. Even as the police swung into action to apprehend the attackers, forest officials huddled together for introspection.
Forests, Minerals and Indigenous People
I have served in the jungles of Jharkhand as a forestry professional. The attack has made me reflect deeply. Naxalite attacks in Jharkhand are not new. For years, Naxals have intimidated state functionaries through various means, including attacks and assassinations. To understand the persisting nature of the Naxalite insurgency, we have to examine Jharkhand closely.
Jharkhand is a state that lies to the south of Bihar and the west of Bengal, two fertile Gangetic states of India. To its southeast and southwest, it borders two other poor but resource-rich states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Jharkhand literally means “bushland.” It is endowed with rich natural resources, including both forests and minerals such as coal, iron, copper, mica and uranium.
Jharkhand is predominantly inhabited by diverse indigenous communities. The Indian Constitution gives these communities a “scheduled tribes” status. As per the 2011 census, they comprise 8.2% of India’s population. In contrast, scheduled tribes form a much higher 26.3% of the population in Jharkhand. Historically, Jharkhand was a part of Bihar and the people of Jharkhand felt neglected and marginalized. Therefore, they agitated for a separate state both to safeguard their identity and to achieve control over their rich resources of “jal, jungle aur jameen,” Hindi for water, forests and land.
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On November 15, 2000, Jharkhand was formed. I remember the date fondly. A grand function was held in Ranchi’s Raj Bhawan, the governor’s house. I was still what is called a “probationer” in government parlance. As an officer of the Indian Forest Service (IFS), I was doing my training at the Shri Krishna Institute Public Administration just across the road from the Raj Bhawan. Many officers were visiting from Patna and staying at the institute’s guest house. They were also milling around the resplendent surroundings of the Raj Bhawan.
The staff of the guest house who belonged to the scheduled tribes were in a jubilant mood. I asked one of them, a gentleman named Khalkho, as to what the formation of Jharkhand meant for him. His instant response, “abua dishum, abua raj,” which translates as “our state, our rule,” still rings in my ears. Khalkho also went on to inform me that henceforth it would be his children, not dikus, the local term for outsiders, who would get preference in jobs.
Despite two decades of abua raj in abua dishum, all is clearly not well in Jharkhand. Berkela is barely 15 kilometers from Chaibasa, the district headquarters of Pashchimi Singhbhum. Scheduled tribes form 67.3% of the population in the district, and the region is rich both in mineral and forest resources. Forest cover forms about 47% of the area, making the district rich in biodiversity. The famous Saranda forest, known for excellent Sal trees and its natural regeneration, is also located here. Much of the Jharkhand’s mineral wealth, especially iron ore, is found under these forests.
These rich resources have not improved the living standards of scheduled tribes of the area. Instead, the forests have become home to the Naxals who take refuge there. Various development agencies have shied away from this area. Only the forest department dares to venture there to fulfill its duty to protect and conserve Pashchimi Singhbum’s forests for posterity. The Naxal attack will certainly sap the department’s morale.
To combat Naxalism, the forest department has to connect with local communities. Addressing their livelihood issues is essential for winning the trust of marginalized people in a resource-rich land. Only winning goodwill in Pashchimi Singhbhum and elsewhere would help combat the Naxal menace.
Yet there is a problem. First, the mandate of the forest department is mainly the protection, conservation and development of forests, not providing livelihood or improving living standards for local communities. Second, the department lacks adequate resources to reach out to communities even if it was given the mandate to do so. The budget allocations for forest departments across India have been low and Jharkhand is no exception.
Involve Indigenous Communities to Save Forests
Few realize that forests and indigenous communities have a symbiotic relationship whether in the Amazon or in Pashchimi Singhbhum. They worship nature and tend to revere trees. They have used forest resources sustainably for centuries if not millennia. Therefore, it is important for any forest department to work with these communities. To be fair to the forest department in Jharkhand, it is already making an effort to do so. However, it faces a vicious timber mafia that is hell-bent on chopping down trees to meet rising urban demand. Mining — legal and illegal — is another threat to forests and local communities. Too often, the forest department finds itself outgunned and is unable to protect these communities or the forests they live in.
Goal 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations aims to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.” To achieve this, the government of Jharkhand has to focus on people-oriented natural resources governance. Simply put, they have to involve local communities in the conservation of forests and make the forest department work closely with them.
My experience of working in various forests in Jharkhand tells me that sometimes, overzealous measures by dogmatic forest officials do more harm than good. They often take draconian action against indigenous communities for petty offenses that probably should not have been illegal in the first place. After all, these communities have to live. The forests are their only sustenance. So, draconian implementation of some laws leads to the forest department losing the trust and faith of the indigenous communities.
Of course, there are many forest officials who are empathetic, courageous and exceptional. They interact with local communities on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, these officials maintain high moral standards even when their very lives are in danger.
The Naxals are not like Russian or Chinese communists of the last century. They do not really have any ideology. Instead, they have become a vocation for unemployed, disgruntled and misguided youths. Many Naxals are recruited by intimidation and are then subjected to indoctrination. Quite a few of them start enjoying the power that comes from wielding a gun. These youths invariably come from marginalized indigenous communities and find Naxal propaganda seductive.
To counter the Naxals, both the state and central governments must gain the confidence of the indigenous communities living in the forests. To do so, the government must protect their forest-based livelihood. It must also generate sustained employment through forest-based skill development programs that teach indigenous communities to put their incredibly rare know-how to good use.
Such policies would increase the living standard of local people. They would also turn the indigenous communities into the eyes and ears of the government, thwarting Naxal violence. These policies would also involve the delegation of some powers and financial authority to local forest officials and indigenous communities. It would be fair to say that it is time for a real abua raj in abua dishum.
*(Atul Singh, the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of Fair Observer, provided inputs for this article.)
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
Although there are still those who deny it, the countdown for the planet under the threat of global warming began some time ago. If we were to seek an official starting point, it would probably be in the late 18th century, at the beginning of the industrial age. We now receive confirmation of melting at the poles and warming in the depths of the ocean on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
The constantly accumulating evidence has overwhelmingly convinced the scientific community not only that the trend is real, but that the consequences will be particularly dramatic for human societies. Humans happen to be the only living species on Earth obsessed by the idea of controlling their environmental habitat for the sake of their own comfort and profit. The rest of the biosphere tries simply to get by with the hand it is dealt.
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But now the dual goals of comfort and profit appear to be dangerously at odds. Responding to the demand for comfort of those who can afford it provokes increasing levels of discomfort for those societies and individuals that cannot. That simple fact has become one of the contributing factors to the increasingly evident revolt against growing income and wealth inequality.
A report by the insurance company Swiss Re cited by The Guardian informs us that we are quickly approaching a point of no return. “One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats,” The Guardian reports. If 20% of the nations of the world succumb, it won’t be long before 30%, 40%, 50% and more are affected as well. It appears that Australia, Israel and South Africa are particularly exposed. The report also cites India, Spain and Belgium.
In other words, this time it won’t be only the forgotten and neglected developing nations (Donald Trump’s “shithole countries”) that are the first to pay the cost. If people used to luxury and accustomed to thinking of themselves as sheltered from disaster are the ones who may suffer first, alarm bells will quickly start ringing.
The Guardian cites some worrying figures: “More than half of global GDP — $42tn (£32tn) — depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing.”
Here is today’s 3D definition:
Tipping point:
For capitalists, an abstract target to both aim for and avoid, since on the positive side it represents the maximum reward expected from any endeavor designed to exploit and eventually exhaust a market or a body of resources, while, on the negative side, it threatens to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The balancing act consists of finding the point of equilibrium between maximum exploitation and braking before reaching the tipping point.
Contextual Note
In the year 2000, which marks the beginning of the age of internet marketing and social media, tipping points became something to aim for rather than avoid. Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” was released in that year. It reads like a recipe book encouraging the kind of viral development successful marketers manage to achieve for a new product or a new practice.
Gladwell praised and encouraged business models aimed at creating “social epidemics.” Though it may seem absurd and even macabre today, as the world battles an incomprehensible and unpredictable pandemic, Gladwell’s book offers advice on how to go viral. He even formulates laws and rules that describe the process: the “Law of the Few,” the “Stickiness Factor” and the “Power of Context.”
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The trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic may have put a serious dent in the prestige our culture allotted to tipping points two decades ago. In the era of Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good,” epidemic change represented seemed like a complementary and rather more respectable ideal.
The year 2000 marked the summit of the dot.com craze that quickly turned into the dot.com crash. Venture capitalists were hurting, but that was only temporary. Social media hadn’t yet taken off, but Gladwell clearly sensed its imminent arrival and understood its deeper logic. Global warming, with its threat of disastrous tipping points, had become an issue but it was already being dismissed by climate change deniers, who preferred to focus on a rapidly rising stock market.
The rise and more recent fall of the image of tipping points raises a fascinating question about contemporary culture. If we admit that, in the year 2000, the idea of the tipping point promoted by Gladwell had mainly positive connotations and that, today, the prospect of a tipping point sets off alarm bells evoking the fear of imminent disaster, can we identify the tipping point that pushed us from the positive appreciation to the negative one?
There seem to be two candidates for the tipping point about tipping points: the economic crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. If the dot.com crash of 2000 felt more like a thrilling roller-coaster ride than a traumatizing event, the 2008 crisis was an earthquake that leveled some institutions and seriously attacked the credibility of some of the previous decade’s ideals.
The Gladwell version of a tipping point was associated with the inebriation that accompanies sudden commercial success and the rapid achievement of a monopoly position. That had become the goal of every economic actor’s ambition for the 30 years between 1980 and 2010. The current perception of a tipping point, as cited in The Guardian’s article, is one of a risk to be anticipated and avoided. The sense of having a mission of conquest eventually gave way to a simple hope for stability and survival.
Historical Note
A tipping point indicates a critical threshold beyond which the return to a previous state of equilibrium becomes impossible. Before Europe’s scientific and Industrial Revolution, people regarded tipping points as fatalities, the result of uncontrollable forces or trends. Since the industrial age, developed countries have evolved a culture of control that supposes human societies will have the ingenuity and the technology capable of fending off catastrophes and avoiding catastrophic tipping points.
But that belief has recently been shaken by various uncontrollable events. And instead of ensuring mastery, the post-industrial culture of control has developed a perverse tendency to magnify its fear of tipping points. That is what’s behind the “science” of risk management and its method of contingency planning. Intended to increase our security, in the wrong hands it can become an irrational obsession. Instead of discovering solutions, it magnifies problems.
In 2004, The Guardian broke a story about a secret Pentagon report warning “that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.” The Pentagon’s pessimism — or would it be more accurate to call it paranoiac optimism? — seems laughable today. It tells us more about the psychological climate inside America’s war machine and the budgeting rituals of the military-industrial complex than it does about the reality of the threats the world is facing.
Today’s more realistic report by Swiss Re reveals that the trends the Pentagon identified are real and increasingly threatening, even if they don’t follow the logic of a Hollywood catastrophe movie that seemed to inspire the authors of the 2004 report. The threat is real, but the timeline was off by several decades.
In 2004, the Pentagon recommended to a refractory Bush administration that climate change “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern.” What better way to secure funding from Congress than to amplify their dread of unmanageable catastrophe? Alas, the Pentagon’s fearmongering had no effect on the Bush administration’s policy, though it probably did enable them to slightly pad their budget.
Swiss Re announced that its objective is “to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses.” This is bound to be more realistic than the Pentagon’s speculation, but the motive similarly focuses on getting other people to pay for what they are told to fear. That principle seems to be baked into the mentality of control cultures. As Malcolm Gladwell demonstrated, understanding tipping points is all about getting richer.
*[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
Donald Trump is a cult leader with a following of millions. In the minds of cult followers, their leader, by definition, can do no wrong — all his actions are automatically right. The leader has a prophetic vison and a direct line to the divine. They are not bound by the rules and laws that lesser people have to follow. Jim Jones, David Koresh and Donald Trump all fit this description — in the opinion of their followers.
Trump’s following is vastly greater than Jones or Koresh, partly because he is a US president but also because social media and the artificial intelligence (AI) that backs it has vastly magnified his powers, possibly beyond the point that even he realizes. For Trump’s disciples, social media filters out any contrary news about their chosen one and feeds them undiluted negativity about his opponents. Trump’s devoted followers exist in a bubble where Democrats are flesh-eating pedophiles or Marxist revolutionaries, and where Trump has been chosen by God to save America.
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For the evangelicals, Trump has been sent to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation and usher in the end times. No amount of fact-checking or reality will penetrate. For his followers, Trump is always right, incapable of doing wrong and uniquely gifted to lead them to the promised land. Those who do not understand this are either souls waiting to be saved or, more likely, those that have chosen Satan and the path to hell. Any potential pro-Trump opinion or even nascent tendency is picked up by social media algorithms and magnified and echoed back to the individual over and over, sucking them into a rabbit hole of Trumpian fantasy.
Trump may be a fraud and a con man, but he has seized the leadership of this cult. His leadership, which in earlier years would have been mocked as an embarrassment, is instead viewed as messianic by his cult. This superhuman power enables him to command his followers to disbelieve anything in the “fake news media,” defy law and ignore social norms. He has already threatened disorder if he loses the election. America is a tinderbox of racial tension, social discord, dramatic inequality, a deadly pandemic and economic collapse. Like Jones and Koresh, Trump has the capability to precipitate disaster, but on a far greater scale.
The force multiplier behind this cult is the AI run by Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and all the other social media giants. The super-computers which run the AI algorithms discern our likes, emotions, prejudices, tastes, political views and sexuality. The databases they collect are huge, and the AI profile of each of us detailed and perceptive. These computers are always on, always connected, and the algorithms employed are far more powerful than we realize. They overwhelm the human ability to filter the stream of self-reinforcing messages and subtle exploitation of our subconscious, wherever you fall on the political spectrum. The continuous social media feed that surrounds each of us in a bubble of “reality” is in fact highly subjective, tailored individually and continually reinforces our own beliefs and prejudices. Cult members exist in an individually crafted matrix. The singularity may have already arrived.
The singularity is the point in the future when AI overtakes human intelligence and becomes self-replicating. This was thought to signal the rise of the machines and an existential threat to human existence — think of Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator.” Stephen Hawking warned that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
The AI revolution has enabled both the Trump cult and its opponents to flourish to the point where society has fragmented into warring factions who believe the others are out to destroy them. Instead of the machines fighting us, the machines have devised a way to make us fight each other, and the November election is shaping up to be a key battle.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
Recent rumblings portend a grim new episode for Syria’s Idlib province. Stretching along the northwestern border with Turkey, Idlib became the last redoubt of forces that oppose President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, namely Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the National Liberation Front, when Moscow and Ankara announced the creation of a de-escalation zone in the area two years ago. The 2018 agreement halted a Syrian government offensive that would have brought devastation to Idlib. An uneasy calm hangs over the province, but the delicate diplomatic balance that brought respite now looks close to collapse. Notably, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Syria in September prompting speculation that Moscow and Damascus are set to make a northward push against rebel forces.
Around the same time, reports emerged of Syrian regime forces shelling opposition frontlines, while Turkey has brought military hardware across the border to bolster anti-Assad forces in the Idlib countryside. Local observers relate that both Russian and Turkish reconnaissance drones have been active over the city of Idlib and the surrounding areas. Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, now appear to be hitting HTS positions with more intensity.
Entangled International Interests
Idlib may prove to be the final chapter of the Syrian Civil War. But here, Turkey and Russia are the main players. Turkey has long propped up anti-Assad factions and has maintained a military presence in Syria’s north for several years. Meanwhile, it was the assertive intervention of Russia in 2015 that turned the war in Assad’s favor. Russian airpower has been a key factor in Syrian government forces’ advance toward Idlib and the regime’s ability to reclaim rebel-held territory.
Is Assad Gearing Up for a Final Push in Syria?
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In our research into the impacts of proxy actors in Middle Eastern conflicts, we interviewed a range of Syrian activists. All of them noted a tangle of relationships and alliances between a plethora of Syrian organizations and international sponsors. In particular, they highlighted the roles of Turkey and Russia, both in the conflict and in the humanitarian crisis Syria faces. One opposition figure expressed his gratitude to Turkey for accommodating Syrian refugees. Yet at the same time, he felt that Turkey’s military involvement had made a complex conflict environment more difficult to resolve. Another activist who had participated in ceasefire negotiations in 2015 noted the dominant role that Russia played in securing agreements.
In general, Syrian figures we spoke with expressed concern at the intentions foreign powers may harbor for Syria. The prevalent feeling among our interviewees was that the challenges that Syria faces are ultimately for Syrians to solve and that foreign interventions made solutions even harder to find. Major powers jockeying for an advantage over regional rivals have clear geopolitical goals, the pursuit of which generally overrides the interests of local people.
Local Impacts
Even after the Russia-Turkey accord reached in 2018, Idlib has not been spared hostilities. As elsewhere in the Syrian conflict, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. A UN report recorded “rampant human rights violations” in Idlib and western Aleppo in late 2019 and early 2020 as Assad’s forces pushed to retake the province despite the de-escalation agreement. Up to a million civilians were uprooted, the largest single displacement of people during the entire war. UN investigators detailed numerous instances where pro-regime forces bombarded schools, markets and hospitals. Investigators also accused HTS of indiscriminately targeting civilian areas.
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In February, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in a Syrian airstrike spurring Turkey to undertake a spate of retaliatory attacks. In the wake of this flare-up, Ankara and Moscow reached another deal to curtail hostilities. This latest agreement demonstrates once more that the fates of Syria and its hapless people are largely in the hands of external powers. It seems that the conflict is only in abeyance while powerful actors maneuver for advantage across the chessboard that Syria has become.
In Idlib, the interests of the key players are clear. Ankara wants to maintain a foothold in Syria. Long calling for the removal of Assad and championing anti-regime forces, it plays the role of protector to Idlib’s militias and civilians fleeing the regime’s advance. Should Idlib fall, a new wave of refugees would surge toward Turkey, something that Ankara can ill afford. Russia, meanwhile, retains access to its only Mediterranean naval base thanks to its relationship with Assad, and thus Moscow wants to ensure the Syrian president’s longevity.
Linking Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, Idlib is a central piece of the strategic jigsaw for Assad. Retaking the province, which has been an opposition stronghold since 2015, would be highly symbolic, drastically weakening rebel groups and being another step toward the regime’s final victory.
Machinations in Moscow and Ankara
Domestic concerns in Turkey and Russia also come into play in what happens on the ground in Syria. Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both used international adventures to further their own agenda. Erdogan’s approval surged after authorizing forays into Syria against Kurdish-led forces in Afrin in early 2018 and in the northeast in late 2019. More recently he has intervened in Libya in support of the Government of National Accord. For his part, Putin rose to prominence at the turn of the millennium fighting Chechen insurgents and underlined his tough-guy credentials by strutting into Georgia in 2008 in a conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Both leaders are currently under pressure, Erdogan as Turkey’s economy falters, and Putin facing criticism after the poisoning of Russia’s prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. Creating a distraction by upping the ante in Idlib would be a convenient way of rallying domestic support. Heightened tensions between Russia and Turkey, each of which backs different sides both in Libya and in the escalating conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, further complicate matters.
Significantly, other international interventions by Russia and Turkey have been against considerably weaker opponents. Do Eurasia’s two military heavyweights really want to directly face off in Idlib? Turkey and Russia maintain outwardly amicable relations, but they have different goals in Syria. Decisions made in Moscow and Ankara will determine whether the tenuous peace in Idlib endures. Should it fracture, it will be the long-suffering people of Syria, yet again, who will bear the greatest cost.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
[*Dr William Gourlay and Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh are based in the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University, Australia. This research was facilitated by Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant number: G-18-55949): “Assessing the impact of external actors in the Syrian and Afghan proxy wars.”] More
