| | | | Impeachment Lessons From Abroad | | The US impeachment saga "has placed Democrats—and more broadly, democrats—in a quandary," Larry Diamond writes in The American Interest. While Diamond mostly explores the ins and outs of America's drama, he hints that it's a test of how to constrain populist leaders. His conclusion, drawing from lessons elsewhere, is that small-"d" democrats fare better when they avoid polarizing issues and campaign on economics.
"Recent elections in Turkey and Greece show that when opposition forces craft broad appeals that focus on people's economic concerns and emphasize inclusion over polarization, they can defeat illiberal populism at the polls," Diamond writes. "When they double down on polarizing appeals to their base, they play to the strengths of the populist." | | Latin America's Protests Aren't About Ideology | | After Bolivia's disputed October election, Linda Farthing predicted in Americas Quarterly nearly two weeks before President Evo Morales's resignation that the country was in for conflict, regardless of whether Morales stayed or went. There was "little programmatic difference" between Morales and his opponent, former President Carlos Mesa, Farthing wrote—and neither appealed to the demands of present-day Bolivia, in which a younger generation "of working-class and indigenous origin is more urban and middle-class, better educated, and more connected to the rest of the world."
More broadly, Latin America's protest movements aren't about left or right political ideology, Jorge G. Castañeda writes for The New York Times. A commodities boom (now in the rearview) had helped the region's economies, but now, regardless of a government's ideological tilt, "[a]nything can spark a revolt: gasoline increases in Ecuador, electoral fraud in Bolivia, higher subway fares in Chile." The common denominators are inequality and middle-class demands for better government, not a unified call for a particular socialist or capitalist way of government, in Castañeda's view. | | Ukraine Needs More Than Missiles | | Ukraine may have needed to acquiesce to President Trump in order to receive military aid—possibly as a result of his conspiracy theories. But in a Foreign Affairs essay, Sophie Pinkham writes that the much-discussed Javelin anti-tank missiles weren't so critical. Thanks to US restrictions, Ukraine could only deploy the first batch (bought by President Volodymyr Zelensky's predecessor) in the country's west, far from the frontlines of Ukraine's war, to ensure they didn't fall into separatist hands. What's more, the missiles are not suited to the urban warfare Ukraine is fighting.
"[W]hat Zelensky needs is not symbolic lethal aid (let alone presidential offers he can't refuse), but thoughtful support for his dogged efforts to reach a peace agreement," Pinkham writes. Zelensky has offered to hold internationally observed elections in the east, after which separatist regions could gain autonomy—but only if Russia withdraws. That's a delicate prospect, Pinkham writes, and Zelensky needs diplomatic backing for it more than he needs missiles. | | Firsthand Accounts of WWII Aren't Like the Movies | | | It's Veterans Day in the US, and in a New York Times op-ed, Maurice Isserman pushes back on the war's hagiographic portrayals by Hollywood. Reproducing snippets of letters sent by US soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division while attacking German positions in Italy, Isserman includes lines sent to loved ones, like: "After a while I didn't wonder if I get hit—I'd wonder when. Every time a shell came I'd ask myself 'Is this the one?'" The letters, Isserman finds, give a less idealized picture of war. | | How Surveillance Twists a Society | | Amid Saturday's 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, retrospectives have poured in. Writing for Project Syndicate, George Soros calls 1989 a high-water mark for liberalism and accuses the US of dancing on the Soviet Union's grave instead of fostering democracy; asked if he harbors regrets about East Germany's fall, Mikhail Gorbachev tells Der Spiegel, "Why don't you just ask me whether I regret perestroika? No, I don't. It was impossible to go on living like before."
But an essay for The Atlantic by Charlotte Bailey highlights the enduring effects of a surveillance society like East Germany's. Survivors of Stasi (East German secret police) imprisonment, who frequent a group-therapy session today, "agreed that the destruction of trust was one of the most painful legacies of their experiences in the GDR," Bailey writes. "Many did not find out who had informed on them until decades later, when they requested their Stasi file … [o]ne woman spoke of how she was devastated when she discovered that the man she loved was informing on her." The Stasi used an estimated 200,000 unofficial informers, Bailey notes; to this day, some who endured it are reluctant to trust other people, build close friendships, or share political views openly—a valuable reminder, as authoritarian regimes use new technological tools to monitor dissent. | | | | | | |
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