One of the hallmarks of a democratic political system is that voters change their minds. In North Korea, 100 percent of voters support the ruling party coalition in election after election. In South Korea since 1998, voters backed 10 years of progressive candidates followed by 10 years of conservative candidates. Then, after a dramatic turnaround… Continue reading Will Impeachment Affect Trump’s Reelection Chances?
It’s a cliché in Westerns. The bad guys ride into town only to be met by a sheriff who stands tall. “I am the law,” the sheriff says, “and you boys better move on.” This line appears in King Vidor’s 1930 film, Billy the Kid. But the speaker, sheriff William Donovan, is one of the… Continue reading Don’t Just Focus on Trump’s Crimes at Home
The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago. It was one of the few unambiguously joyous moments in modern history. This popular, nonviolent explosion of dissent effectively toppled East Germany’s despotic regime. And it signaled, if only symbolically, the end of the Cold War that had divided Europe for nearly half a century. Thirty years later,… Continue reading Did the Fall of the Berlin Wall Produce Trump?
In fantasy sports, participants draft their own dream teams out of the rosters of existing players. That’s what Donald Trump has done with Ukraine. He and his advisors have created a fantasy team involving a number of key players, including the Ukrainian president, the former U.S. ambassador, and the former vice president’s son. Then they’ve… Continue reading Trump’s Fantasy Ukraine
Even before the recent raid that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the erstwhile head of the Islamic State, Donald Trump had spoken of how he had single-handedly defeated the caliphate. “Now, when I came, the caliphate was all over the place,” the president said apropos of nothing during a news conference with… Continue reading The Islamic State and Trump’s Delusion
It is a hallmark of right-wing populists to make a preposterous policy and then be forced — by opposition, by circumstance, by the laws of physics — to retreat. Three very recent examples involve Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The backpedaling might look very similar in all… Continue reading The Art of the Back-Pedal
The far right is on a roll. Just a few years ago, liberals and conservatives would have considered its recent political victories a nightmare scenario. Right-wing extremists have won elections in the United States, Brazil, Hungary, India, and Poland. They pushed through the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. In the most recent European Parliament… Continue reading The Far Right’s War on Culture
Donald Trump is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress. He has committed a range of potentially impeachable offenses. But the Democrats have decided to focus the impeachment investigation on one aspect of the president’s foreign policy. Trump tried to persuade a foreign government, Ukraine, to dig up evidence of corruption… Continue reading Impeachment’s Effect on Trump’s Foreign Policy
Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless U.S. wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes his predecessors for their martial mistakes. But like the old saw about the weather, Trump talks a whole lot about endless wars but doesn’t do anything about them. Just this month, he… Continue reading Trump’s Endless Wars
Trump’s public appeal to China last week to help with uncovering dirt on the Biden family was both a brazen flouting of the law and (it pains me to say) an astute political tactic. “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened… Continue reading Trump’s Undeclared State of Emergency
Led by young people, climate strikers blocked traffic on two mornings at the end of last month in Washington, DC. On the first day, protestors chained themselves to a boat three blocks from the White House, and 32 activists were arrested. On the second day, activists targeted the EPA and Trump International Hotel. It was… Continue reading The New Age of Protest
A month after he won the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump gave a speech in North Carolina where he declared that “we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.” It’s still commonplace for foreign policy analysts of the left, right, and center to distinguish Trump from his predecessors by pointing… Continue reading For Trump, Regime Change Begins at Home
The United States is losing its status as a Pacific power. It can no longer control developments in East Asia. It still maintains a large military footprint in the region. But that military presence no longer translates into an ability to achieve the outcomes that Washington wants. For better or worse, the post-World War II… Continue reading The Collapse of the East Asian Order
John Bolton tried his best. The national security adviser entered the Trump administration as a predictable warmonger with an unslakable thirst for power. He streamlined the national security apparatus to maximize his access to the president. At least at first, he played the role of loyal adjutant to Trump. As in his days as an… Continue reading Threat of Bolton Has Receded But Not Threat of War
Something didn’t quite add up. This past weekend, protestors were rallying outside the American embassy in Hong Kong. They were waving American flags. They were singing The Star-Spangled Banner. One 24-year-old protester wore a red Make America Great Again hat. Some signs at the protest read “President Trump, please liberate Hong Kong.” “The Chinese government is breaking their… Continue reading Hong Kong and the Future of China
Doesn’t idiocy ever take a vacation? As August wound down, the populist troika of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Jair Bolsonaro proved once again that the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil would be better off with no leaders rather than the dubious characters that currently pretend to govern these countries. In all three… Continue reading Burning Down the House
A group of Italians started the Slow Food movement back in the 1980s. Stay away from fast-food restaurants, they urged: eat local, focus on traditional recipes, relax, and enjoy your meal. The Slow Food movement began as a protest against McDonald’s, which opened a new franchise near the Spanish Steps in Rome. But it grew… Continue reading Slowbalization: Boon or Bane?
The United States witnessed three mass shootings in one week recently in California, Texas, and Ohio. There have been more than 250 mass shootings so far in 2019, more than one a day. This year in America, more than 33,000 shooting incidents have killed more than 8,700 people. America is the richest country in the world, but… Continue reading Is America Crazy?
North Korea belongs to a dwindling category of countries known as “totalitarian.” Compared to their authoritarian cousins, totalitarian regimes aspire to control all aspects of society. As Italian fascist Benito Mussolini once put it: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” In such countries, there is no autonomous business sector… Continue reading North Korea’s Momentous Transition
Afghanistan has long been touted as the “graveyard of empires.” The British and the Soviets certainly discovered that lesson to their great regret. Perhaps future historians will judge the failure of the United States to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan over a two-decade period as a critical factor in the loss of American hegemony as… Continue reading Afghanistan: Out of the Graveyard and into the Pyre?
The worst thing you could be in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s was a “rootless cosmopolitan.” The epithet sometimes came with a death sentence. The Soviet Communist Party, under the strong guiding hand of Joseph Stalin, had long turned its back on the internationalism of its founders and their commitment to world revolution.… Continue reading The GOP’s Sinister New Nationalism
Next Stop: North Korea Written and Performed by John Feffer Directed by Angela Kay Pirko DC Arts Center, March 1 – 24, 2019 Order Tickets HERE. How far would you travel to help other people? How many compromises would you make? In this new one-man show, acclaimed playwright and performer John… Continue reading Next Stop: North Korea
At its best, the Earth was once likened to a spaceship that sails through the heavens with a crew working together for the common good. Thanks to climate change, this metaphor no longer works. Our planet is now more like a lifeboat that’s sprung a major leak. People onboard are beginning to panic and the clock is… Continue reading How to Decide the Fate of the Planet
All eyes are focused these days on Boris Johnson, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. But that’s not the most important news this month out of Britain. The Labor Party has finally come around to opposing the country’s exit from the European Union, though it’s possibly a case of “too little, too late.” The party… Continue reading Boris Johnson and the New Battle of Britain
During the height of Stalin’s purges, the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich kept a packed suitcase near the door of his apartment. The Black Marias, the vehicle of choice for the secret police, would traditionally arrive in the middle of the night to ferry “undesirables” to interrogation cells. Shostakovich wanted to be ready at any… Continue reading Trump’s Send-Them-Back Doctrine
When Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un shook hands on June 30 at the line dividing the two Koreas, the pictures that appeared on front pages all over the world depicted two very different leaders. Trump is a tall, 73-year-old white man who leads the world’s most powerful democracy. Kim is a short, plump, 35-year-old… Continue reading Pyongyang on the Potomac
The Democratic Party faces a very difficult decision. Some members want to begin impeach proceedings against President Donald Trump. They believe that the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller provides enough evidence that the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors. And they think that the president has demonstrated in many ways that he is unfit… Continue reading To Impeach or Not to Impeach
It was not very long ago that Donald Trump was calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” and threatening to rain “fire and fury” down on North Korea. In response, Kim called Trump a “dotard” and promised an equally fiery attack on the United States. But now, two summits, the exchange of… Continue reading Trump’s Bluster Diplomacy
The ongoing conflict with Iran showcases all the reasons why Donald Trump remains a hit with his base. First of all, the guy tells a ripping yarn. While critics of U.S. policy drone on about complex agreements with opaque acronyms, Trump boils down the problem to a TV episode with a ticking clock. The bad… Continue reading On Iran, It’s Trump Vs. Trump
Imagine, on the day before the 2020 presidential election, that someone posts a video of the Democratic candidate talking before a group of donors. The candidate admits to being ashamed to be an American, confesses that the United States is a malevolent force in the world, and promises to open borders, subordinate the country to… Continue reading Will AI Swing the 2020 Elections?