Make Sense of the world
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In a remarkable confluence of events, the right-wing national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel find themselves, at least for a brief historical moment, besieged by criticism and stark political dangers. In the US, President Donald Trump is facing a more serious...
Led by young people, climate strikers blocked traffic on two mornings at the end of last month in Washington, DC. On the first day, protesters chained themselves to a boat three blocks from the White House, and 32 activists were arrested. On the second day, activists targeted the Environmental...
Driven by the rise of the far right and white nationalist movements, Islamophobia is on a rising tide, with widespread discrimination and record-high attacks on Muslims across the Western world. Norway recently avoided a tragedy when three Muslim men prevented a 21- year-old gunman from carrying...
“Thug-like” verbal aggression and the unceremonious snapping of an EU flag — this, according to campaigners, was one of several reactions from a small, unrepresentative number of Brexiteers offered EU flags to fly ahead of the Proms, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, on September 14. It was...
The Brexit spectacle increasingly appears to have been conceived in the spirit of traditional British holiday pantomime. It has become the longest-running, comically-absurd cliffhanger in European political history, now starring a lone hyperreal hero, Boris Johnson, a man who has far more...
The shutting down of the British Parliament for approximately five weeks at a time when MPs would ordinarily wish to scrutinize the workings of government — especially given the particular vicissitudes of Brexit and all that it creates in terms of division, polarization and anger across society...
Doesn’t idiocy ever take a vacation? As August wound down, the populist troika of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro proved once again that the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil would be better off with no leaders rather than the dubious characters that currently pretend...
People around the world, including Americans, have argued that the world can get along without US leadership. Today, they may want to scan the global landscape. While acute crises and violent conflict may not seem imminent at the moment, the view isn’t a hopeful one. For Americans, naively...
We have in our midst two political leaders who possess remarkably similar characteristics. This is not just in their demeanor, but also in how they share a political perspective on the world, and what it means for global politics as populism remains on the rise and division and discord are sewn as...
As the recent furor surrounding British comedian Jo Brand’s comments on the BBC Radio 4 Heresy program attest, there is very little clarity about what does — and, importantly, what does not — constitute hate speech. In what was clearly a joke, Brand asked why anyone would bother throwing a...
All eyes are focused these days on Boris Johnson, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. But that’s not the most important news this month out of Britain. The Labor Party has finally come around to opposing the country’s exit from the European Union, though it’s possibly a case of...
