If the voters don't eventually punish the Republicans who are calling for a de facto coup, then we have to conclude that a substantial number of Americans no longer believe in our democracy either.
Also, the work of Karen Stenner, which is cited in my book, Twilight of Democracy, suggests that in any population there is a large percentage of people who are uncomfortable with democracy; she suggests that we ought to find ways to reach out to them
Introducing Steven Yates, just named head of Radio Free Asia, the most important public diplomacy tool that the US has in China. He seems none too keen on our next president
Time for Christmas shopping 2020! So many good books were published this year, despite everything. Everyone should read Putin's People by @CatherineBelton, on the deep roots of Russia's current ruling class. I reviewed it for @TheAtlantic here: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
I also loved The Fifth Sun, by Camilla Townsend, which won the Cundill Prize. You think you know who the Aztecs are... but you don't. You think you know about the Conquest of Mexico...but you don't. mcgill.ca/newsroom/chann…
Really unexpected pleasure for me was Roderick Beaton's Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, the history of the contemporary *idea* of Greece. There are lots of parallels to the modern history of other countries, you will be surprised amazon.co.uk/Greece-Biograp…
On a different subject: we just watched Russia With Love, and as the credits rolled, I realized that the great Lotte Lenya played one of the bad guys. Weimar seems multiple eras away from James Bond/the 1960s, and yet one lifetime encompassed both.
Here she is singing Mack the Knife, the song Kurt Weill wrote for her
And here is Louis Armstrong singing Mack the Knife, with a shout-out to Lotte Lenya
Nobody wants to use the language needed to describe this kind of behavior, which belongs to the vocabulary of mental illness washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
Also, there is something deeply wrong with many of the people who are attracted to the soon-to-be-ex-president. Look at Powell. washingtonpost.com/investigations….
Under cover of the pandemic, while the outside world as distracted, the Venezuelan government is carrying out an evil act: It is seeking to destroy a pair of charities. One of them, Alimenta La Solidaridad, feeds more than 25,000 children every day...
The other, Caracas Mi Convive, fights against violence. I wrote about them both earlier this year: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Both were founded by Roberto Patino, who tells me that his parents' home has been raided by one of the many Venezuelan police forces. The bank accounts of the organizations have been frozen.