International Politics and Economy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Boris Johnson’s government has achieved a relatively “hard Brexit” at the last minute, reaching a deal on its departure from the European Union. This is a triumph for British Trumpism, and it is no wonder that Trump himself was a cheerleader for it. It is economically a bad deal for […]

Authoritarianism

From biblical times to Trump, false messiahs have doomed societies

The Conversation

By Kimberly Stratton | – The prophet Jeremiah records in excruciating detail the catastrophic events leading to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE. Jeremiah describes the devastating famine, escalating sense of fear and ominous foreboding that permeated the city despite optimistic oracles issued in the royal court by prophets, who promised divine […]

Denialism

Pence, who backed Muslim visa Ban, gets Vaccine invented by Muslim Immigrants

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Defeated vice president Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday. Here is why he is a hypocrite. Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban “unconstitutional,” he folded when Trump insisted on […]

Donald Trump

America already had Fascism in Jim Crow; is the Trumpie Dream a Totalitarian Amerika?

Leif E. Vaage

Toronto (Special to Informed Comment) – It is widely recognized that the Nazis learned from the example of the United States of America about politics in a racist key. It is important to recall that before the Nazis came to power, there was already the long-standing example of Jim Crow in the Deep South. The […]

Democratic Party

The Left must Seize the Initiative: Biden’s Centrist Instincts could be Disastrous

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Donald Trump embarked on an unorthodox course in economic policy that combined tax cuts for the rich with a protectionist trade policy that was ostensibly aimed at saving the U.S. industrial base and preventing the export of American jobs. The question is not whether […]

Democracy

Blue Arizona: Pandemic, Trump and racism drove Decisive voter turnout in some American-Indian tribal communities

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Anthony J. Wallace ( Cronkite News) – PHOENIX – Enthusiasm across Arizona was higher this election than in the 2016 presidential contest, and final results show the contrast was even more stark in Indian Country, where voters said they were especially motivated because of the COVID-19 pandemic and issues of race. A census analysis […]

Far Right

NZ’s Ardern: Mosque Massacre was Enabled by ignoring White Supremacist Terror Threat and by YouTube Radicalization

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 looked into the background of the white nationalist Australian young man who flew to Dunedin in 2017, stayed there in a sparsely furnished little apartment for eighteen months, and then went on a killing […]

Afghanistan

Anti-War Officer Corps: An American Crisis of Conscience in the Forever Wars

Tomdispatch

By William J. Astore and Danny Sjursen | If you have a moment, how about joining two retired officers, Bill Astore and me, Danny Sjursen, as we think about this country’s catastrophic forever wars that, regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress, never seem quite to end? Recently, in a podcast chat about […]

Bill of Rights

Trump Presses Georgia to overturn Election, but he should Remember what happened when Algeria, Iran, Kyrgyzstan and the other Georgia did That

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Kristen Holmes and Victoria Stracqualursi at CNN report that Trump called up Georgia governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special session of the Republican-dominated state legislature and have them elect an alternative slate of electors for the Electoral College, so as to overturn the results of the […]