Stephan: It isn't just the politicians, it is the people, who are against democracy, and that is the critical point to bear in mind. This is exactly the same process that went on in Germany when Hitler came to power.
Members of the Proud Boys yell in front of a hotel in Washington, D.C. Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty
This year was quite active for the far right in the United States, especially after its relative downturn in 2019 as a violent street movement compared to the recent past. Although the far right may not have committed as many high-profile massacres as previous years, 2020 saw more murders and car attacks at demonstrations than any year in recent memory.
While the openly fascist wing of the “alt-right” continued to implode over the past year, some on the far right picked up steam: the Boogaloo movement — a new grouping of younger activists with militia-style politics, but the look and feel of the alt-right; Gropyers — white nationalists and their allies who are trying to influence the Trumpist movement from inside; and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who believe Trump is always about to arrest a cabal of liberal, deep state, satanic pedophiles. Moreover, aggressive street demonstrations led by the Proud Boys reached a fever pitch, inspired by comments from Donald Trump, and […]
Stephan: This article raises what I see as an important question about the continuation of democracy in the United States. If you notice the Republicans are not claiming the elections they won were fraudulent, only the elections won by Democrats. So are elections legitimate only in Republicans win?
Of the many stories to tell about American politics since the end of the Cold War, one of growing significance is how the Republican Party came to believe in its singular legitimacy as a political actor. Whether it’s a hangover from the heady days of the Reagan revolution (when conservatives could claim ideological hegemony) or something downstream of America’s reactionary traditions, it’s a belief that now dominates conservative politics and has placed much of the Republican Party in opposition to republican government itself.
It’s a story of escalation, from the relentless obstruction of the Gingrich era to the effort to impeach Bill Clinton to the attempt to nullify the presidency of Barack Obama and on to the struggle, however doomed, to keep Joe Biden from ever sitting in the White House as president. It also goes beyond national politics. In 2016, after a Democrat, Roy Cooper, defeated the Republican incumbent Pat McCrory for the governorship of North Carolina, the state’s Republican legislature promptly stripped the office of power and authority. Wisconsin Republicans did the same in 2018 […]
Stephan: The American Gulag is a national humiliation. We have 4.23% of the world's population, and 25% of the world's prisoners. Either Americans are the most criminal people in the world, or there is something desperately wrong with our system of justice. It has to be one or the other. Now the Covid-19 pandemic has really brought into focus the failure of the gulag structure, and its effects on both prisoners and guards.
Battered by a wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, local jails and state prison systems around the United States have resorted to a drastic strategy to keep the virus at bay: Shutting down completely and transferring their inmates elsewhere.
From California to Missouri to Pennsylvania, state and local officials say that so many guards have fallen ill with the virus and are unable to work that abruptly closing some correctional facilities is the only way to maintain community security and prisoner safety.
Experts say the fallout is easy to predict: The jails and prisons that stay open will probably become even more crowded, unsanitary and disease-ridden, and the transfers are likely to help the virus proliferate both inside and outside the walls.
“Movement of people is dangerous,” said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who has been tracking coronavirus cases in correctional settings. “We’ve got really good examples of overcrowding equals more infection and greater risk of outbreak. We’ve got lots of evidence that even transferring people from one facility to the next is very […]
Stephan: The United States has an incarcerated population of 2.3 million men, women, and children. That is more than the entire population of the following states:
New Mexico
Nebraska
West Virginia
Idaho
Hawaii
New Hampshire
Maine
Rhode Island
Montana
Delaware
South Dakota
North Dakota
Alaska
Vermont
Wyoming
Approximately 22% -- 500,000 -- of those prisoners have contracted Covid. And that's not counting the guards and prison staff. It is, or should be, a national humiliation
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that hospitals could face fines of up to $100,000 if they did not use their current supplies of vaccine by the end of the week. Britain imposed a strict new national lockdown.
The number of inmates and guards known to have been infected with the coronavirus at American correctional institutions exceeded 500,000 on Monday, according to a New York Times database.
As correctional institutions have been battered by coronavirus infections and deaths, the number of cases reported in has risen by nearly 84 percent in the last two months, according to a Times analysis of the data from some 2,600 prisons, jails and immigration detention centers.
There are now 88 facilities that have had at least 1,000 infections, according to the database.
Local jails and state prison systems have been so devastated by the virus that they have resorted to the drastic strategy of shutting down completely and transferring inmates elsewhere. Experts say the jails and prisons that stay open will probably become even more crowded, unsanitary and disease ridden, and the transfers are likely to help the virus proliferate both inside and outside the walls.
Stephan: Other countries have corruption, to be sure, but it hasn't been formalized and made legal, as it has in the U.S. as a result of Citizens United and several subsequent decisions. America is the only developed nation that has legalized the bribery of public officials although you have to know how to do it. Not any rube with money can come into Washington and pull it off; that's why there are lobbyists.
And all the lobbyists, as this report describes, are gearing up for the new Congress. Reversing Citizens' United, I hope, becomes a priority in the Biden administration.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other House Republicans may see theirinfluence grow in the new Congress as the Democrats’ majority shrinks, according to lobbyists with ties to them. Credit: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call
Before the elections, lobbyists with ties to House Republicans, such as Annie Palisi, had to wonder how much influence they would have in the 117th Congress. They are not worrying anymore.
While Democrats predicted their party would gain seats in the chamber, in reality they lost at least 12 incumbents — and did not pick off a single House Republican. And that means Palisi, a former House GOP leadership aide-turned-lobbyist with the bipartisan firm Invariant, and others with similar backgrounds are poised to see their fortunes rise.
Democrats’ super slim majority this year in the chamber will offer House Republicans uncommon sway for the minority party, providing opportunities to help broker legislative deals, or sink them. And that means the lobbyists with close ties to GOP House leaders, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and the top Republicans on congressional committees, […]
