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America as a Developing Country

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March 11, 2021

What a Relief: Norms, Normalcy, Caring and Competence Make a Comeback Under Biden

While Joe’s predecessor suffers in comparison with even some autocrats.

Who Cares?

While the quality of governance varies greatly across the globe, it’s normal for national leaders to care, or at least pretend to care, about putting in place policies that benefit their people. Even some authoritarian regimes advance their citizens’ well-being in some ways – though that does not excuse their rapaciousness, repression or human rights abuses.

In that autocratic vein, Vietnam, China, Uganda and Rwanda come to mind, given their achievements in economic growth, public health and other fields. Thus, though mainly motivated by self-interest, even certain otherwise execrable leaders try to do some good.

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March 3, 2021

Let’s Go Crazy: QAnon, March 4 and Trump’s Return to the Throne

Speaking of shamans…

A Cabal

If you work overseas a lot, particularly among poorly educated populations, you sometimes learn of questionable and even dangerously uninformed beliefs in some countries. One memorable one, at the height of the AIDS crisis, involved the notion that men shouldn’t wear condoms because shamans could then retrieve their sperm and do all sorts of nefarious things with it.

Not that we’re immune to such stuff. Take QAnon, the metastasizing, hydra-headed, born-in-the-USA conspiracy theory initiated in October 2017 by “Q Clearance Patriot,” an anonymous and subsequently prolific internet message board poster. Q has ridiculously claimed to be a highly placed government official privy to classified information.  

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February 24, 2021

The Four Covid Questions, Israel and Good Vaccination News

Along with lots of caveats.

This won’t hurt a bit. (Photo by Dick Knapp)

In a week when America’s Covid fatalities topped 500,000 – an official figure that might actually understate the real toll and that in any event represents more than all of our overseas wars’ combat deaths combined – it seems incongruous but useful to summarize some good vaccination news.

So here goes.

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February 18, 2021

To Beat Trump’s Big “Stolen Election” Lie, Promote the Big Truth

Hitler, the Confederacy and today’s authoritarians show the price we could pay for not pushing back in a big way.

One Month Later

It’s been almost a month since Twitterless Donald Trump flounced down to Florida. Some hoped that, having lost his presidential and social media platforms, his Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen would flame out.

No such luck. In voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial, 43 out of 50 Republican senators yet again caved to his control. In the House, Arizona, Texas and Michigan, his loyalists keep pushing his party line or pushing out figures who don’t fall in line.

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February 14, 2021

Trial and Error

A Brief Democratic Kerfuffle. A Possible Republican Debacle.

A Jury of Our Peers

A Kerfuffle

That was fast. Five days after Donald Trump’s impeachment trial started, it ended on Saturday, as planned.

On Friday night, however, evidence from Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler and other sources kicked off a last-minute kerfuffle over extending the trial. In the wake of Beutler’s earlier statements at a town hall, they confirmed to news outlets that, amidst the Capitol riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had an expletive-laced shouting match over the phone with Trump. McCarthy urged presidential action to stop the attack; the president dismissively focused only on his political fortunes.

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About A Promised Land

A Promised Land explores the enduring grind of U.S. politics, fresh takes on policy debates and the long-term promise of viewing America as a developing country. Its perspective partly flows from Stephen Golub’s many years of international development work with leading aid agencies, foundations, policy institutes and advocacy groups.

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