Evangelical voters made up a significant portion of Donald Trump’s base in the 2016 presidential election. Their political agenda may not be peace or prosperity, but instead bringing us closer to the end of time.
26 May 2018
Scene On Radio SeeingWhite: Danger
For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John Biewen tells the story of a confrontation with an African American teenager. Then he and recurring guest Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss that longstanding image – and its neglected flipside: white-on-black violence.
The New Yorker: Trump’s Imploding World Order
Trump still wants a summit with Kim Jong Un, the White House insisted on Thursday. As Trump headed to his helicopter on Friday morning, he told reporters that discussions between Washington and Pyongyang had resumed. He even held out hope for the June 12th date in Singapore. But his words were the latest unsettling prospect in a tumultuous time of all-or-nothing diplomacy that intrinsically increases the dangers of conflict. In the sixteen months of Trump’s Presidency, the United State has witnessed a stunning undoing of long-standing norms—of the U.S.-led world order, core alliances, trade pacts, principles of nonproliferation, patterns of globalization, world institutions, and, most of all, U.S. influence. A lot of it began in 2003, with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it has accelerated with breathtaking speed since Trump took office. [...]
The litany is long: a rising China; Russia’s interference in several democratic elections and its forcible challenge of sovereign borders; North Korea’s unprecedented nuclear arsenal; Syria’s catastrophic civil war; Iran’s destabilizing interventions and the collapse of the nuclear deal; new turmoil along the Israeli-Palestinian border; the unravelling of global trade pacts; the dismemberment of the European Union; Venezuela’s breakdown; and America’s longest war, in Afghanistan. [...]
Trump has disrupted the global order far more than the domestic order, Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, told me. “Domestically, the President has not had a huge impact on policy. Everything has been resisted by the ‘swamp,’ the bureaucracy, and Congress,” he said. “Internationally, the world was already moving away from the U.S.-led order when Trump took office. But he is pushing a rock that was already rolling down the hill much faster.” In a commencement speech at the Naval Academy on Friday, Trump touted the success of an agenda that rejects past policies and promotes stand-alone U.S. supremacy in the world. “We are not going to apologize for America—we are going to stand up for America. No more apologies,” Trump said. “They are respecting us again. Yes, America is back.” He told cadets at the Annapolis stadium, “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Nothing like winning. You got to win.” [...]
Trump has even challenged the notion of a united Europe, suggesting that other nations may want to follow suit after Britain’s decision to exit the European Union. Since the nineteen-fifties, merging Europe into a common whole has been a central U.S. principle to foster peace on a continent rife with conflict for centuries. The cracks in America’s core alliances are weakening the West—and its ability to forge peace through joint policies. In turn, challengers, notably China, are gaining ground.
The Atlantic: Ireland's Very Secular Vote on Abortion
Abortion is a particularly contentious issue in Ireland, where an overwhelming majority of the population identifies as Catholic. The Church was a main driver in the push to implement the constitutional ban on abortion when the Eighth Amendment first passed 35 years ago. But faith isn’t the primary reason people are still unresolved on the issue.
In fact, it hasn’t played much of a role at all. When I asked activists on the “Yes” and “No” campaigns what impact religion has had on the referendum, both sides said the debate was secular. For those advocating for “Yes,” the referendum is about allowing abortion care for women who need it. For those advocating for “No,” it’s about preserving Ireland’s protections for unborn children. “Very few people are approaching this from a religious perspective,” de Londras told me. “Lots of people are approaching this from a moral or ethical perspective.” [...]
This is likely due in large part to the declining moral authority of the Church in Ireland—a decline spurred by a series of scandals, including the revelations of child sexual abuse by priests in the 1990s. Since then, the Catholic population in Ireland has dropped from 91 percent in 1991 to 78 percent in 2016. The Church’s decline in authority has also been marked by a series of changes to the country’s social norms, from the legalization of contraception and divorce in the 1980s and 1990s, to the referendum legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015.
Some within the Irish Church remained strikingly silent on the referendum debate—and encouraged other clergy leaders to do the same. In a statement this month, the Association of Catholic Priests reiterated the Church’s teaching that human life is sacred at all of its stages, but went on to argue that the pulpit should not be used to campaign on the referendum during Mass. “[A]s leadership of an association made up of men who are unmarried and without children of our own, we are not best placed to be in any way dogmatic on this issue,” the statement noted, adding: “A vote cast in accordance with each person’s conscience, whatever the result, deserves the respect of all.”
The Atlantic: Is the U.S. Bringing Europe and Russia Closer Together?
But that was then—this is now. President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran deal is formally known, has put Europe between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it could resign itself to watching its signature diplomatic achievement crumble. On the other, it could attempt to salvage the deal, even if it means exposing its businesses to U.S. sanctions. So far, European leaders appear to have opted for the latter, committing themselves to maintaining the agreement, even if it means doing so without Washington. “As long as the Iranians respect their commitments, the EU will of course stick to the agreement of which it was an architect,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said last week, adding that the bloc will “do what we can to protect our European businesses” from U.S. sanctions penalizing companies that do business with Iran. This includes introducing regulations that would prevent European companies from complying with the sanctions (but as my colleague Krishnadev Calamur points out, it’s not entirely clear how effective they will be). [...]
Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran deal adds another crack in the relationship between Washington and its European allies—after those caused by the U.S.’s withdrawal last year from the Paris climate accord and Trump’s more recent threat to impose steep aluminum and steel tariffs on the European Union (waivers for which expire next week). These diplomatic fissures have prompted some to question the durability of the trans-Atlantic relationship. On Iran, at least, there’s a risk of Europe drifting further from the U.S. and closer to Russia. [...]
Despite their differences, they do have another important thing in common: A willingness to stand up to—or, depending on your perspective, stick it to—the United States. “Russia will exploit as much as possible this narrative that the United States is not respecting its international engagements,” Boulègue said. “It will be presented as a victory and this will allow Russia to have an upper hand in any future negotiations with regards to Iran, and that is directly linked to Syria because Iran is indeed a key player in any sort of peace settlement in Syria. … Russia will definitely capitalize on that.”
Social Europe: Germany’s Great European Heist
At NATO meeting after NATO meeting, Germany would commit to spending 2% of its GDP on defense. It never delivered. Spending slumped toward 1% of GDP, with the majority going to salaries and pensions. The latest NATO data show German spending on defense equipment and on research and development running at only 0.17% of GDP in 2017, compared to 0.42% in France and 0.47% in the UK.
Germany’s dearth of military investment has created a daunting gap between its defense capacity and that of the rest of Europe. Only a fraction of Germany’s weapons and military vehicles are operational. On Europe’s eastern border, only nine of the 44 tanks promised for the Bundeswehr unit that is supposed to anchor NATO’s 5,000-strong rapid-reaction force in the Baltics next year are fit for use. The unit also lacks other equipment essential for the mission, such as tents, winter clothing, night vision equipment, and body armor. [...]
These issues are at the heart of developing a European sovereign, backed by democratic institutions and decision-making processes that enable the common use of force. But Europe cannot start from some imaginary tabula rasa. It must start from the place to which history has brought it. The quid pro quo that France should demand for cooperation on security policy is that Germany recognizes the same reality with regard to economic policy.
Social Europe: The Italian Election And US Underpinning Of Populism
Five Star, the biggest party in Parliament, sees itself as an anti-corruption movement and advocates many economic reforms championed by the Left in Italy. These include a reform of pensions and a guaranteed minimum income and a rejection of austerity. The Lega, formerly the secessionist Northern League, now concentrates on a more narrowly racist and Eurosceptic agenda. More experienced than their allies, the Lega served in government during the Berlusconi years and at the time advocated many traditional conservative economic policies. The two parties have little in common beyond their dislike of the EU and their claims to populism, but they have somehow managed to cobble together a governing program including restoration of pensions, tax cuts, and a basic income for Italy’s poor. [...]
After the Second World War the US made an effort to set up a trading system that lowered tariff and non-tariff barriers, initially facilitating the dominance of American industry as Europe and Asia began to rebuild. They were extremely successful in setting up an open world economy, championing free market economic policies and doing as much as possible to undermine statist approaches in Europe and elsewhere. In the early postwar period the CIA did what it could to finance European conservatives, to set up pro- market trade unions and undermine Western European communists. European trade unionists facilitated these efforts by fighting among themselves, as did left wing parties [...]
The economic sectors that could not easily be outsourced were services. Developed economies came to be dominated by this sector. These were not only the infamous low-wage industries such as fast food or hotels, but also high-end sectors like financial services, scientific research, and not-so-highly paid education. This led to bifurcated labor markets in developed economies as manufacturing was hollowed out, eroding middle class jobs. The gap between rich and poor became exaggerated, especially in countries where income taxes were less progressive, or where much of the taxation was indirect (sales and VAT taxes), as in Italy.
Quartzy: Plastic straws are the new plastic bags
Long a default offering in restaurants and takeout joints, plastic straws have of late become antennae for the ire of environmentalists, like plastic bags before them. And rightfully so. The Ocean Conservancy’s 2017 International Coastal Cleanup Report (pdf), which contains data from cleanup efforts in 112 countries, found plastic straws to be consistently in the top 10 discarded items, contributing to some 18 million pounds (8 million kg) of ocean trash collected. If the data alone doesn’t inspire you to give up straws, an excruciating story and video of a sea turtle with a four-inch (10 cm) straw stuck in its nostril might. [...]
Like the plastic bag, the straw is swiftly becoming a symbol for the toxic and persistent scourge of single-use plastic, and an everyday item that can be eliminated to reduce its use. Organizations such as the Surfrider Foundation, the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and the Ocean Conservancy are all campaigning to get concerned citizens—and the restaurants that serve them—to skip plastic straws entirely.
Some companies and municipalities are taking note. On Monday (May 21), Alaska Airlines announced it would replace plastic stir straws and citrus picks with “sustainable, marine-friendly alternatives” on all its flights and in lounges. (Fun fact: This change came after the urging of a 16-year-old Girl Scout named Shelby O’Neil.) A day later, New York City councilman Rafael L. Espinal Jr. introduced a bill to outlaw plastic straws in the city’s restaurants.
Vox: A radical proposal to fight poverty in the developing world: tax the rich more than the poor
But new data on taxation and spending in the world’s poorest countries suggests that progressive tax-and-transfer systems are far less common than you would think. In general, taxes are less progressive in those countries, financial transfers are much smaller, and the bulk of social spending is soaked up by broken health and education systems. The net effect is often that tax-and-transfer policies leave poor people worse off, not better. [...]
That happens in two ways: The income of the well-off is reduced by higher taxes (this accounts for about a quarter of the reduction in inequality) while the poor get payments like Social Security as well as family, housing, disability and unemployment benefits. The latter accounts for three-quarters of the reduction in inequality. The US is an outlier in seeing less redistribution than most rich countries, but even there, the net impact of taxes and transfers is to reduce inequality. [...]
The Gini coefficient measures the level of inequality in a group: A measure of 0 implies complete equality (everyone gets the same income) and 100 is perfect inequality (one person gets all of the income). Before government taxes and transfers, the Gini for the 29 developing countries in Lustig’s study is 47. (It stands at 45 in the United States). Fiscal redistribution reduces the Gini coefficient by more than 7 points in the US and European Union. [...]
In the rich world, the poorest citizens tend to be net financial recipients from the government — they get more in transfers than they pay in taxes. But that’s not true in some developing countries. First, tax regimes in those countries aren’t very progressive, partly because the revenue authorities tend to rely on indirect taxes like the value-added tax (VAT) — which fall on all consumers — rather than direct taxes on high personal or corporate incomes. (A VAT is similar to an American sales tax but applies to all firms, not just retail businesses.)
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