America as a Developing Country
Early data for the Senate runoffs is encouraging.
As an update to my last post about next Tuesday’s crucial Senate elections in Georgia, some new data point in positive Democratic directions for those January 5 runoffs.
The latest fivethirtyeight.com polling averages show modest upticks and leads for both Democrats. Raphael Warnock is up nearly two points over Kelly Loeffler. Jon Ossoff has erased a slight deficit to now edge David Perdue by one point.
[Continue Reading]Both Senate races are winnable. What we can do.
Despite the stakes, most news outlets and Americans are paying relatively little heed to the most important non-presidential U.S. elections in our lifetimes: the two Georgia Senate runoff races, which will be decided on January 5.
[Continue Reading]Trump is toast. But his final presidential scam is a doozy.
The Donald Trump Electoral Unreality Show, which features him still trying to steal the presidency from Joe Biden, will come to an end come January 6. That’s the day that Congress will meet to count and accept the electoral college results submitted by the states. Those results will show Biden winning by 306-232 – and by a margin of over seven million votes, though of course the popular vote officially means nothing in America’s particularly peculiar version of democracy.
Could Congress reject the results? In theory, yes. In reality, no. For that rejection to take place, both houses would have to separately vote to do so. With the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, that simply won’t happen.
[Continue Reading]We've been warned.
I first witnessed a coup attempt in the Philippines on the morning of August 28, 1987, a couple of months after I arrived in Manila to work for the democracy-promoting, San Francisco-based Asia Foundation. On that day, a well-armed group of military dissidents nearly toppled the duly elected government of President Corazon Aquino. As tanks and armed personnel carriers rumbled by our office, my colleagues and I had no idea whose side they were on.
Just weeks earlier, a Filipino co-worker had proudly told me about joining the massive “People Power” demonstration that helped depose the country’s dictator in February of 1986. Now he and his fellow Filipinos began to look broken. How had so much turned so bad so fast for their democracy?
[Continue Reading]The pandemic and about 45,000 votes saved U.S. democracy.
The 1997-98 Asian financial crisis caused economic havoc across much of the globe, with Indonesia one of the hardest hit nations. But it triggered a chain of events that discredited the country’s corrupt, repressive ruler, Suharto, and led to his 1998 resignation after over 31 years as president. His downfall signifies a lesson America learned this month: how even a disastrous development can rescue a nation from dictatorship.
Suharto oversaw significant economic reforms and growth while in power. In other regards, his record was repugnant.
[Continue Reading]