What @cmyeaton excellently describes as a "cycle of panic and neglect” is truly one of the major dynamics that have shaped global health politics since the 19th century. I have made that argument, from a historical perspective, several times since the start of the pandemic: 1/
Last week I wrote for the @washingtonpost about why Trump's attacks will only exacerbate the problems that have always hampered the WHO, and why the history of global health says we need to break out of the „cycle of panic and neglect” instead 2/
One example I mention in the piece for how the West’s relationship with global health has gone through phases of indifference occasionally interrupted by erratic spikes in attention is HIV/AIDS. 3/
As WHO got more heavily involved in HIV/AIDS towards the late 1980s, when the virus was about to devastate the Global South, Western states started losing interest, as they had largely contained the virus. 4/
Consequently, throughout the 1990s, the WHO struggled to acquire needed funding as the pandemic spread around the globe, and the vast majority of infections and deaths have occurred after people in the West simply stopped caring about the disease. 5/
Another example is Ebola: Whereas there was massive attention for the 2014/15 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, since 2018 Central Africa has been experiencing the second worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history — and it has barely caused a reaction. 6/
I also went on the #InfectiousHistorians podcast to talk about the history of global health and how Covid-19 fits into that story – and we touched on the overall dynamics of “panic and neglect,” or fear and indifference, several times. 7/
In a broader historical perspective Cholera is a striking example of what @cmyeaton calls the cycle of panic and neglect. In the 19th century Cholera actually dominated the European imagination of health threats after it had first reached the continent in the 1830s. 8/
The last major cholera outbreaks in the West occurred in the late 19th century – and ever since the disease has been relegated to an afterthought in the West’s imagination. In a global perspective, however, cholera is still a massive problem. 9/
After all, some of the most devastating cholera epidemics in history occurred very recently, in Haiti in 2010-14 and in Yemen after 2016. And yet, the reaction in the West to such suffering on a massive scale has been shockingly muted. 10/
I have tried to provide such a longer-term historical perspective, going back to the beginnings of what can be called a “modern” international health politics, in several extended threads – here: 11/
And here, with a focus on the 1940s, when the vision of “world health” briefly animated international cooperation and it seemed, for a moment, that it might be possible to establish a more sustained interest in matters of global health 12/
A few weeks back I contextualized Covid-19 historically in this lecture-turned-podcast on “The Age of Pandemics” – and the “cycle of neglect and panic” plays a crucial role in my telling of the history of global health since 1850. 13/
Finally, for those who read German, I’ll have a longer essay in the July issue of @redaktionmerkur making that very argument by looking at how the international community has dealt with the threat of infectious disease from cholera to Covid-19. /end
What does the U.S. look like in five or ten years?
I was asked to reflect on this question, alongside other scholars. In a stable democracy, the range of plausible outcomes is narrow. But for America, it now includes complete democratic breakdown.
There should not have been any doubt about the intention of the Trumpists. They desire to erect a form of plebiscitary autocracy, constantly invoking the true “will of the people” while aggressively narrowing the boundaries of who gets to belong and whose rights are recognized.
At every turn, the response to the rise of Trumpism has been hampered by a lack of political imagination – a lingering sense that “It cannot happen here” (or not anymore), fueled by a deep-seated mythology of exceptionalism, progress gospel, and willful historical ignorance.
I wrote about why even critical observers underestimated the speed and scope of the Trumpist assault, why they overestimated democratic resilience – about what America is now, and what comes next?
New piece (link below)
I take stock of where we are after two months of Trumpist rule, explore that space between (no longer) democracy and full-scale autocracy where America exists now, reflect on what competitive authoritarianism means in theory and practice, and recalibrate my expectations.
I revisit “The Path to Authoritarianism,” a crucial essay Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way published in Foreign Affairs in early February. It captured their expectations at the outset of the Trumpist regime – a powerful warning that has nevertheless been overtaken by events already.
People who claim Zelensky was at fault yesterday and should have been more “diplomatic” or “respectful” are either deliberately propagating the Trumpist attack line – or they fundamentally misunderstand what the Trumpist project is and who is now in power in the United States.
There is this pervasive idea that Trump doesn’t really mean it, has no real position, and can therefore be steered and manipulated by tactical and diplomatic finesse; or maybe he’s just a businessman looking for a great deal. But that’s all irrelevant here.
Trump himself has been very consistent about his preference for foreign autocrats, especially Putin, and his (at best) disinterest and siding with Ukraine and (actually) explicit antagonism towards not only Zelensky, but Europe’s democracies more generally.
MAGA, the German Far Right, and the Transnational Assault on Democracy
A reflection on the German far right, Musk’s interference in the German election, and why the MAGA-AfD alliance isn’t nearly as irresistible as they want us to believe.
Some thoughts (and link below):
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The results of the German election are in. On the one hand: About three quarters of the voting public stuck with democratic parties. On the other: The AfD got 20.8 percent of the vote - by far the strongest result the far right has achieved in Germany since 1945.
After it was founded in 2013, the AfD quickly evolved from what was initially mainstream-rightwing-to-reactionary territory into a far-right party that fully rejects liberal democracy and is undoubtedly the political home of Germany’s rightwing extremists.
I wrote a long profile of him: He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and a radical ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right
Vought is at war with pluralistic democracy (link below):
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Vought will be singularly focused on bending the entire government machine to Trump’s will. He believes that any check on the power of Donald Trump, who Vought literally describes as a “gift of God,” is illegitimate. There is no line he doesn’t feel justified to cross.
Key to understanding Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order - and with it the “natural” order itself - has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives err when they try to preserve what is no more.
Russell Vought will be a key figure in the regime, as competent as he is radical. He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, an ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right.
Key to Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order - and with it the “natural” order itself - has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives categorically err when they try to preserve what is no more.
Power now lies with a “permanent ruling class” of leftist elites who control all major institutions of life and especially the “woke and weaponized” agencies of the state. In order to defeat them, conservatives must become “radical constitutionalists” - and take radical action.