Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 222

Global Immigration, Then and Now

It was a balmy day last Sunday as I strode past the palm trees and the flowering “drunk stick” trees into Buenos Aires’ Hotel de los Inmigrantes—the Ellis Island of Argentina. Unlike Ellis, the Hotel is not actually an island; it’s a gated complex of buildings and quays sitting on the waterfront just opposite the modern ferry building. But both were major immigrant processing centers for their respective countries during what Americans would call the Great Wave, from 1880 through the 1920s or 30s, when tens of millions of impoverished, persecuted South and East Europeans streamed out of their homelands to build new lives in the New World. It’s easy to forget now, but at the start of the 20th century, Argentina was one of the ten richest countries in the world and on an upward trajectory. It was a very attractive destination for newcomers.

It’s common for (United States of) Americans to view immigration as a uniquely American story, and often the same goes for other immigrant nations: While references to the United States as an alternative destination could be found in the Hotel de los Inmigrantes, the exhibit was focused on Argentina’s story. This is natural. We are telling the story of our ancestors—literally in many cases, and metaphorically for us all—so it feels quite personal. But to understand immigration, both at the turn of the 20th century and now, you need to understand it as a global as well as national phenomenon. Then as now, tens of millions of people were on the move, driven not only by poverty and/or oppression but also by increases in global wealth, changes in technology, the societal disruption those changes wrought, and increased awareness of opportunity abroad, as well as welcoming laws.

And then as now, host countries faced similar problems and opportunities. It’s remarkable how much Ellis and the Hotel look alike on the inside, with images of processing lines, rows of bunk beds, and rooms where boards would meet to apply the best techniques of the day to screen—and assist—immigrants. Despite how rough (not to say pseudoscientific and bigoted) these techniques could be, both countries admitted the vast majority of those who came to their shores, because they sought to use immigration to populate their underdeveloped interiors (the U.S. frontier would not be officially “closed” until the 1890 census) and feed the industrial revolution’s ever-growing hunger for labor. Both also had ideological commitments to the welcoming of immigrants. And both countries managed the demographic transformation this wrought on their countries fairly well, by global standards.

But America and Argentina also had to deal with similar issues created by the Great Wave. Anarchist and communist violence was a greater problem than is now remembered: in Buenos Aires in 1919, anarchist attacks during the Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) left up to 700 dead, while in 1920, to take one example, Italian anarchists were suspected in the (still unsolved) bombing of Wall Street that killed 38. Then as now, violence committed by a small subset of immigrants was held against the whole; backlash at the turn of the 20th century was a considerably greater and bloodier phenomenon than we have fortunately had to deal with so far. There were differences, of course: Argentina was already a Catholic country when it started accepting large numbers of Italian and Spanish immigrants, so there was nothing like America’s crisis of (Christian) religious identity, for instance.

But the similarities loom, and the biggest of them, with the most instructive parallels for our present situation, is the global nature of the immigration phenomenon. This had a dark side: precisely because the movement was global, once one nation started to shut its borders to immigrants, the pressure on the other destination nations, in terms of inflow, grew proportionately greater—leading to more shut-downs in a vicious cycle. This is exactly what happened in the ’20s and ’30s, and is one of the underestimated dangers in the global order right now.

Just as we tend to view immigration history through a national, rather than global, lenses, so do we view today’s immigration controversies. Americans by and large think of our current immigration issues as being about about us and Mexico (even as that grows further and further from reality.) Europeans see theirs as specifically about Syria and Libya. The flight of the Rohingya from Burma, the boat people headed to Australia, and intra-African and intra-South American migrations are usually reported on as unique phenomena. And all of that is true to an extent—but it’s also part of a global moment like the great wave. If we realized we were living in one, our immigration policies and debates might make a bit more sense.

The Argentines are having an immigration fight of their own right now, as they clamp down on immigration from elsewhere in Latin America. Like here, there are accusations of bigotry (the Argentine constitution says the government “will encourage European immigration”). And also like here, some of those charges are accurate. But as in the United States, and Europe, and Australia, and so on, they are trying to deal with a large movement of people caused by a multitude of factors. The best policies are probably to be found in thinking about how to manage it in a sustainable way rather than thinking about black hats and white hats.

Chinese Polluters Still Fudging the Numbers

Beijing is trying to position itself as some global green leader, and in the wake of Donald Trump’s “energy independence” executive order earlier this week, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson claimed that “China’s plan, determination and policy to tackle climate change is resolute.” China’s “determination” may be immaterial, however, as a new exposé of fudged pollution numbers is illustrating how flimsy the CCP’s hold on local polluters really is. Reuters reports:

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said it checked more than 8,500 firms in six municipalities and provinces including Beijing and central Henan, and found that many were not implementing air pollution control measures strictly or were still violating environmental regulations. […]

China says it is winning its “war on pollution” after strengthening legislation, beefing up its monitoring capabilities and cracking down on hundreds of polluting firms, and says average air quality improved noticeably in 2016. However, official data published last week showed that air quality was markedly worse in the first two months of the year than the same period of 2016.

China’s own ministry of environmental protection isn’t the only one taking notice of this unreliable pollution data, though. Scientists based in Chengdu last year discovered that the megacity’s estimates for car emissions were off by as much as 59 percent. In fact, there’s a long history of China’s pollution numbers being exposed as unreliable.

Beijing has its own reasons for wanting to clear its skies and reduce emissions—reducing its reliance on coal will be climate friendly, but more importantly it will help improve the disastrous air pollution choking China’s biggest cities. But it’s become something of a tradition at this point for localities and provinces to massage the data they send to Beijing, and while in the past it might have been economic indicators that got the benefit of the finger on the scale, these days it’s environmental metrics.

Don’t be fooled—China’s not ready to take the global lead on green issues. On that front, the United States still reigns supreme, even with the new administration.

Pumphrett and the Tangled Web

My friend and former Choate classmate Pumphrett has always embraced ignorance. He argues that ignorance is empowering because it vastly expands one’s options. “Why, if you’re ignorant enough,” he has often said, “there’s virtually nothing you don’t think you can do.”

In keeping with this philosophy, Pumphrett has cultivated ignorance in himself and sought it out in others, and now—to hear him tell it—he’d finally found a group of people who cherished obliviousness as much as he. Pumphrett, as I should explain to those who have not followed my previous jottings, is now a senior member of the White House staff.

All this was brought to mind on a recent Tuesday as my old friend and I were being seated for lunch in the White House Mess, where Pumphrett, who has risen in the White House hierarchy (for reasons I shall presently explain), is now privileged to dine. I had been surprised to receive his invitation. Pumphrett had previously worked for Michael Flynn, who’s appointment as National Security Advisor had been both unexpected and blessedly brief. Flynn, a soldier by trade but a zealot by inclination, had been caught telling what for want of a more accurate term might be called “lies” about his contacts with the morbidly stout but irresistibly affable Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kisylak. As a consequence, Flynn had been condemned to spending more time with his family, and I had feared that Pumphrett would be flushed away with him.

My fears had proven unfounded. It turned out, as Pumphrett explained, that he was the only member of the White House Staff who hadn’t conspired with Kisylak. With the Justice Department “off the leash” and endless investigations looming, the White House needed someone on the Staff who was “perjury proof.” Accordingly, my companion had become the man of the hour and had not only been retained but—“to make my testimony seem more credible”—promoted.

He took this turn of events as another confirmation of his thesis about ignorance, and now, as we made ourselves comfortable, he began expounding—rather too portentously for my taste—on the virtues of vapidity as they related to success in the Trump White House.

“I tell you, Cushy, some of these people make me look positively informed by comparison. You take young Steven Miller….please! (Pumphrett, I should explain, has an unfortunate fondness for old Henny Youngman jokes). He’s barely out of short pants, he’s never had an occupation save lackey, and yet there he is writing orders to ban millions of Muslims from visiting the United States. And he didn’t even have the sense to make the racism implicit, as a more seasoned toady would have. Of course, it all went south, but that’s beside the point. I tell you, Cushy, the man girds his loins with cluelessness. And yet he rises. If he could only stop his eyes swiveling on camera, he’d probably displace us all.”

I always grow uncomfortable when Pumphrett mentions loins, but now I couldn’t resist tweaking him. “Why, Pumphrett,” I chortled, “you’re jealous.”

“Well, he is spending a lot of time with Steve. (The reference, I gleaned, was to White House eminence grise Stephen K. Bannon, for whom Pumphrett feels a not altogether ideological attraction.)

“So, it’s ‘Steve’ now is it? You know, old man, I don’t think it’s healthy to…” He interrupted me with an upraised palm.

“That’s not it,” grumped a blushing Pumphrett, stamping his Farragamo loafer on the executive carpeting. Eying me conspiratorially he continued: “You don’t understand what it’s like. The long knives are out. It’s so bad people have taken to stabbing each other in the front. I need a patron, a godfather—and one who’ll be around for a while. Obscurity isn’t enough anymore.”

I suddenly noticed that the crowd in the Mess was curiously subdued. At every table sat hunched clutches of dark-suited young people speaking in low tones and glancing furtively around them. Many a brow was beaded with sweat. Cupping a hand in front of his mouth, Pumphrett elucidated:

“The President,” he intoned in the manner of an Aztec priest explaining a recent earthquake, “has been in a mood.”

“Mad, is he?”

“As a hatter. But angry, too.” He took a deep breath. “I happened to be hugging the wall in the Oval Office when he let loose on the staff. His face turned an even more unearthly color and he started swearing fit to shame a Tijuana brothel keeper. Why was it, he demanded, that he was always signing executive orders he hadn’t read? (Priebus started to edge out from behind Bannon to respond to this, but quickly thought better of it.) And who had told Flynn to reassure the Russians about sanctions? (We all looked at each other at this point, but no one, of course, looked at him.) And why had no one told him about Sessions recusing himself, just because of some furshlugginer law.”

“Now that part surprises me,” I interceded. I didn’t think he had any Yiddish.”

“He didn’t actually say furshlugginer, Cushy. I’m trying to be polite. Then he rounded on Miller and inquired what the hell they were paying him for if he couldn’t make a simple Muslim ban seem less racist than it actually was. Miller started to explain they’d never had to worry about that sort of thing when he was working for Sessions, but Trump cut him off. Then he screamed that we were all betraying him, that Priebus was a useless lump, that Ryan was chisel-chinned lunkhead who couldn’t count, that everywhere he went was bugged, and that Putin’s voice was echoing ceaselessly in his head.”

“In his head? Really, now. He didn’t say that, did he?”

“I’m trying to give you the flavor, Cushy.”

“So, it was bad.”

“Well, not for me personally. A memo had circulated asking for our support for the President’s claim about Obama’s wiretapping. I responded that I didn’t know that it hadn’t happened. It was the most positive response they received, so my stock is up.”

“Making ignorance work for you.”

“Yes, but I prefer to think of it as following the President’s example. You’ve heard that he’s done away with the morning intelligence briefing.” I had heard that and wondered why a President would choose to be uninformed, but now Pumphrett explained.

“As you know, Cushy, the President’s normal approach might best be described as an exercise in free-range psychosis. Ideas bubble out of him like swamp gas in the everglades. It’s all new age, improvisational. In short, he just lets fly. But that style depends—and crucially so—on his not knowing what he’s talking about. Facts are like static on the clear channel between his id and his larynx. And here’s the rub: The more the intelligence briefers tell him, the more he knows, and the more he knows, the less he can say.”

“But why not just ignore all that and go on, you know, winging it?”

“Because he has a sort of prehensile grip on the problem of sources and methods. He knows that big trouble in that direction lies. But how is he to remember what the briefers told him, what he watched on Fox, and what he heard from some crackbrained, public access radio personality? You see the problem.”

“I do, yes. But how does this help you?”

“It’s quite simple, Cushy. One ignoramus can always recognize another. So, as I say, my stock is rising. In fact I’m drawing nearer the throne.”

“Have a care, there, Pumphrett.” Remember: Hic semper in umbra tenet deorum.”“I have to tell you, Cushy, this business of thowing Latin at me is growing a trifle tiresome. You know I never went much beyond e pluribus pluribus, or whatever it was.”“It means: ‘It is always darkest in the shadow of the Gods.’” “Oh tosh,” replied Pumphrett. “In fact I think I’ve discovered the secret of success. Why, if I can just keep from finding out about anything, there’s really no limit to how high I can go.”

Trump and the Promised Land

Michael Herzog concluded his recent insider analysis of the most recent Israeli-Palestinian peace process failure by warning, “No one really knows when the window for a two-state solution will close, but one day it will. Continued stalemate after three failed attempts to reach a deal accelerates the closing of this window and endangers Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state.” He’s right: The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is on life-support and does not have that much time left before the Palestinians permanently reject themselves out of any state and Israel settles itself out of a Jewish and democratic future. There is no specific deadline, and a few more years will not make a decisive difference, but the two-state solution will be hard-pressed to survive eight or even perhaps four more years of stasis.

So the question is whether (and when) President Trump should attempt to achieve “the ultimate deal.” It is not enough for the U.S. government to want peace; the willingness and political wherewithal to make the agonizing concessions necessary have to exist in both Jerusalem and Ramallah. Today, and for the foreseeable future, they exist in neither.

Both Israel and the Palestinians are experienced masters at stonewalling and making unwanted U.S. peace initiatives go away. Think the Rogers plan, Shultz plan, Roadmap, and “President’s vision”, among others. Both will do so again, if confronted by less than a total American commitment—and even then nothing is assured, as Arafat’s rejection of the proposals at Camp David and the “Clinton parameters” in 2000 demonstrated.

Israel is paralyzed by a right-wing government and unable to reach a deal, even if Netanyahu is willing to make the necessary concessions, which has yet to be conclusively proven. Israel’s current policy, which is limited—mostly but not entirely—to settling in the accepted “settlement blocs”, is gradually creating a binational reality, even if the international image of mass, unbridled settlement throughout the West Bank is incorrect; it has been overwhelmingly restricted to the settlement blocs. But there has been a steady growth over the past decade of approximately 2,000 people per year outside of the blocs, thereby slowly creating the binational reality and rendering Israel’s future ability to make concessions that much harder politically and economically. Moreover, the open land available for future territorial swaps is gradually being used for other purposes. In reality, there is no status quo.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, are paralyzed by a protracted succession process and could not conclude a final agreement, even if Abbas wanted to, as long as the West Bank and Gaza remain divided and Hamas remains opposed to any accommodation with Israel. This is a fundamental obstacle that the international community, which is overly focused on the more tangible and visceral settlements issue, overlooks: Israel could agree to dismantle every settlement and we would still not be that much closer to an agreement.

Moreover, the Palestinians, including the ostensibly moderate and peace-seeking Abbas, have repeatedly rejected, or walked away from without rejoinder, dramatic proposals that would have given them a state on virtually all of the territory, with East Jerusalem as its capital. They did it to Ehud Barak and they did it again to Ehud Olmert. They have also yet to recognize a fundamental and painful truth: that the price of statehood is a willingness to forgo the self-proclaimed “right of return” and explicitly recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Among the very complicated core issues to be negotiated, settlements are actually one of the more readily resolvable ones. So Palestinian intransigence is similarly contributing to an onrushing binational reality.

We know what binational states look like. They are called Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia—and they have become bywords for catastrophe. Those who advocate various one-state solutions, mostly on the Palestinian side (but increasingly on the Israeli side as well, including Minister of Education Naftali Bennett), are dooming both sides to endless strife. The first and second Intifadas, and the past two years’ “Intifada of the knives” (the haba in Arabic), are early previews of what a one-state reality would look like. It is rare that it we are offered such a glaring preview of the future. In fact, the future is already here.

The issue is thus pressing, but the President should resist the temptation to act prematurely. He should wait for the appropriate moment, possibly only after leadership changes in Jerusalem and Ramallah—a prospect that may not be that far off. Netanyahu’s coalition is unlikely to last much more than a year, if not less, although his demise is far from assured, and Abbas will not be there for more than a few years. As Herzog notes, another unsuccessful attempt will deepen the sides’ loss of faith in the process, further undermine American standing, and further reduce the prospects for a future agreement. Secretary Kerry made an heroic effort, but in the absence of both willing and able local partners and an all-out presidential commitment, his quixotic attempt was preordained to fail.

In the meantime, American policy should be focused on preserving the conditions for a two-state solution, for a time when the appropriate political circumstances evolve. To this end, U.S. policy should again adhere to the compromise, worked out under the Bush 43 Administration, whereby Washington accepts Israeli settlement in the “settlement blocs” and existing neighborhoods in East Jerusalem in exchange for a cessation in other areas. This appears to be the positioned staked out during the recent contacts between Trump’s peace process envoy, Jason Greenblatt, and his Israeli and Palestinian interlocutors—although disagreements reportedly arose with Netanyahu regarding the delineation of these areas. The matter is not a technical one for Netanyahu but a political landmine for the future of his coalition, not to mention his future relations with the Trump Administration, and it may yet contribute to the holding of early elections.

As for the Palestinians, U.S. policy should up the pressure on them to prevent terrorism and especially incitement, including an end to the unconscionable funding of the families of terrorists. Moreover, the Palestinians have to be made to understand, clearly and unequivocally, that they can only achieve their objectives through negotiations with Israel, including the need for painful concessions, and that the U.S. government will systematically block their attempts to circumvent negotiations by internationalizing the issue.

An actual breakthrough should only be attempted if and when the U.S. leadership is truly willing to put its stature and political capital on the line, crack heads, and offer significant inducements. The basic contours of the deal are well known and must finally be put to the two sides in the clearest terms and with consequences for saying no: Both sides compromise on territory, with Israel withdrawing from more than 90 percent of the West Bank, but the Palestinians must agree to land swaps in exchange for the remainder—with Israel making the agonizing concession on Jerusalem, agreeing to a division of the city along its ethnic lines (with both sides accepting a special regime for the Old City and holy sites), and with the Palestinians making an agonizing concession on refugees, who will only be allowed to return in numbers of significance to the future Palestinian state, not to Israel, and also explicitly recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

If Trump decides to get involved, he must play to win, and that requires a major, sustained, and highly focused presidential effort—not necessarily his strongest points. Paradoxically, however, Trump, who is beholden neither to domestic constituencies nor to diplomatic orthodoxies, may prove to be the President who is willing to exert unprecedented pressure on both sides.

U.S. leverage over Israel is constrained by the fundamental closeness of the relationship, but even limited pressure has had major resonance in Israel in the past—for example, the reaction to Obama’s refusal to veto the recent Security Council resolution on settlements. If the new and supposedly friendlier U.S. Administration applies pressure in a deliberate fashion, the impact will be greatly magnified. Indeed, the Israeli right is already being forced to confront the bitter reality that the Messiah has not arrived in Washington, and that the new Administration is actually no more accepting of settlements than its predecessors.

Alternatively, Trump’s ostensible lack of preference for a one- or two-state solution places the burden on Israel to finally decide what it wants and constitutes a considerable source of indirect pressure. Those who have been playing with the one-state idea, like Bennett, will be forced to face its harsh consequences. Mostly, U.S. pressure can help Israel address its justified concerns, for example, even greater assistance for missile defense, potentially even a security treaty. In coordination with America’s European allies, it could also hold out the promise of a major improvement in Israeli-European relations and, assuming that the European Union survives its present challenges, even a major upgrading of Israel’s EU status, just short of full membership. The impact on Israel’s strategic circumstances and economy would be dramatic.

With the Palestinians, U.S. leverage is clearer and the demands must be stark: Abandon the rejectionist all-or-nothing approach of the past, which has indeed left the Palestinians with nothing but an aching and unredeemable hope, agree to a state on almost but not all of the territory, forgo the unrealistic dream of a return of the refugees, or lose American support and aid. Even if the U.S. government cannot truly abandon the two-state solution, retraction of its active support for a Palestinian state would constitute a major diplomatic reversal for them, setting them back to the Clinton years or even earlier. They would also have to face up to their own self-defeating threat to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, the one significant symbol of Palestinian independence after seventy years, and to the likelihood that the West Bank would come under Hamas’s control. In addition to what should be the overwhelming inducement—the prospects of finally having a state—the United States and its allies could also hold out the possibility of major development aid.

This approach is not entirely balanced. Israel is a close American ally, the Palestinians are not, and U.S. frustration should always be tempered by the realization that even democratically elected allies can be recalcitrant. Should negotiations reach an advanced stage, however, the U.S. government must be willing to apply decisive pressure on both sides.

We have long been at a stage where the problem is not one of process—of some new and creative negotiating tactic—but that both sides face truly excruciating decisions. All of the supposedly simple issues have been explored fully and, in reality, even they have proven far from simple. The latest negotiating ploy, the “outside-in” approach, in which the Arab states press the Palestinians to go forward on negotiations, is no more than a rebranded tactic unlikely to achieve more today than it has in the past. In the end, if Trump decides to truly engage, it must be an all-out effort, or else its back to conflict management at the margins of a problem that can only get worse with time.

A (Electronic) Textbook Case of Disruption

Schools are starting to take advantage of cheap tablets and open-sourced learning materials to give their students touchscreen, on-demand textbooks that—and here’s the kicker—can save school districts millions of dollars every year. The WSJ reports:

[A} growing number of districts nationwide [are] embracing “open educational resources,” or OER, for kindergarten through 12th grade. These are typically materials in the public domain or released under an intellectual property license that allows teachers to use, remix and repurpose them for free. Supporters see this shift as giving teachers more leeway to be creative, though some skeptics warn the resources can be of inconsistent quality. […]

Teachers say these resources are often more engaging and up-to-date than commercial textbooks and their digital versions, and make it easy to pull in different lessons for students of a wide range of abilities. Some see OER as a cost-saving boon for students in poor districts.

Like any disruptive new technology, these “open educational resources” have a long road ahead of them to public acceptance. Along the way, they’ll have to navigate quality concerns, legacy teachers and administrators resistant to change, and a host of unforeseeable challenges that are sure to surface.

But this is what progress looks like, and if it can bring more current and gripping teaching materials into the hands of students at a fraction of the cost, we wish it the best of luck.

Maduro Dissolves Legislature in Venezuela

Dark days in Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro has made his most blatant power grab to date in a move that looks set to create an unvarnished dictatorship in the oil rich country. The New York Times:

Venezuela took its strongest step yet toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night.

The ruling effectively dissolved the elected legislature, which is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents, and allows the court to write laws itself, experts said.

The move caps a year in which the last vestiges of Venezuela’s democracy have been torn down, critics and regional leaders say, leaving what many now describe as not just an authoritarian regime, but an outright dictatorship.

Not content with steering Venezuela into a downward spiral of hyperinflation, food shortages, and dwindling oil production, Maduro seems determined to drag Venezuela’s democracy down with him. Maduro’s muzzling of the National Assembly is the dramatic culmination of his ongoing campaign against the opposition, from mass arrests of opposition leaders to the suspension of a recall referendum to remove him from power.

Maduro seems to have timed the move as a defiant rebuke to his international critics. On Tuesday, the Organization of American States called for Maduro to engage in dialogue with the opposition, respect the “functioning of democracy,” and recognize the National Assembly. The very next day, Maduro dissolved it.

With international pressure so far proving fruitless, Venezuela’s domestic opposition is already organizing; initial reports tell of opposition leaders blocking a highway in Caracas in the first protests since the ruling. But such street tactics have failed to produce change in the past, and enthusiasm and turnout has been dwindling since the fall. It remains to be seen whether Maduro’s power grab will further crush the opposition’s spirit or galvanize it.

One measure to watch is whether Maduro’s own allies might break ranks: on Friday morning, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that the ruling was unconstitutional, signaling a break with Maduro that caused state television to immediately cut off her transmission. These fissures within Maduro’s government, no less than the opposition protests, should be watched carefully as Maduro seeks to consolidate Venezuela’s slide from democracy to dictatorship.

Maduro Dissolves Legislature In Venezuela

Dark days in Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro has made his most blatant power grab to date in a move that looks set to create an unvarnished dictatorship in the oil rich country. The New York Times:

Venezuela took its strongest step yet toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night.

The ruling effectively dissolved the elected legislature, which is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents, and allows the court to write laws itself, experts said.

The move caps a year in which the last vestiges of Venezuela’s democracy have been torn down, critics and regional leaders say, leaving what many now describe as not just an authoritarian regime, but an outright dictatorship.

Not content with steering Venezuela into a downward spiral of hyperinflation, food shortages, and dwindling oil production, Maduro seems determined to drag Venezuela’s democracy down with him. Maduro’s muzzling of the National Assembly is the dramatic culmination of his ongoing campaign against the opposition, from mass arrests of opposition leaders to the suspension of a recall referendum to remove him from power.

Maduro seems to have timed the move as a defiant rebuke to his international critics. On Tuesday, the Organization of American States called for Maduro to engage in dialogue with the opposition, respect the “functioning of democracy,” and recognize the National Assembly. The very next day, Maduro dissolved it.

With international pressure so far proving fruitless, Venezuela’s domestic opposition is already organizing; initial reports tell of opposition leaders blocking a highway in Caracas in the first protests since the ruling. But such street tactics have failed to produce change in the past, and enthusiasm and turnout has been dwindling since the fall. It remains to be seen whether Maduro’s power grab will further crush the opposition’s spirit or galvanize it.

One measure to watch is whether Maduro’s own allies might break ranks: on Friday morning, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that the ruling was unconstitutional, signaling a break with Maduro that caused state television to immediately cut off her transmission. These fissures within Maduro’s government, no less than the opposition protests, should be watched carefully as Maduro seeks to consolidate Venezuela’s slide from democracy to dictatorship.

Red Dawn Turning to Dusk?

Two WSJ stories point to the growing problems and contradictions in red state governance:

First, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature was forced to backtrack on the aggressive “bathroom bill” that created a culture war firestorm this past year.

Second, Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas vetoed a Medicaid expansion bill that was passed by a strong legislative majority, and which is supported by 82 percent of voters, according to one poll.

North Carolina and Kansas have been among the states that have pushed to envelope on state GOP ideas. But in both states voters have rebelled, and the forces of pushback are strong.

It’s important to watch whether this trend spreads. Republican state governments in the Midwest have made progress reforming the civil service and beating back public sector union power, but state-level GOP innovation has been disappointingly elusive overall.

If Republicans in state capitols can’t articulate a coherent governing agenda that satisfies the political center, the red tide that has brought the GOP to its most commanding position in state governments in a hundred years could begin to shift.

Cracks in the Gorsuch Blockade

It’s looking more likely that the Senate will avoid an institution-rattling showdown over President Trump’s first Supreme Court nomination. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said Thursday they would vote in favor of putting Judge Neil Gorsuch on the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first Democrats to support President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year.

“I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice,” Mr. Manchin said. […]

Mr. Manchin, part of the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate, facing re-election in 2018 in a state that Mr. Trump won by more than 40 points.

Ms. Heitkamp, also a centrist, faces a similarly tough race in North Dakota, which Mr. Trump won by more than 30 points.

There will be no shortage of voices condemning these two Democratic Senators for political opportunism in acceding to Trump’s Supreme Court pick. But there are three important things to be noted here: The first is that Gorusch is an extremely well qualified nominee; one can differ with his judicial philosophy, but one can hardly accuse him of being anything other than a scrupulously honest and unusually intelligent judge. Second, as a conservative taking Antonin Scalia’s seat, Gorsuch does not change the ideological balance on the Court. Third, the voters that both Senators Manchin and Heitkamp represent by and large want to see him confirmed, and do not want to see the Senate convulsed by either a filibuster or the death of the filibuster.

In other words, while the vote may well be in the political interest of these two senators, it also makes sense to avoid trench warfare over this nomination.

There may come a time when a nomination by Trump or some other President of a strongly conservative judge to a seat now held by a liberal or moderate justice would tip the balance of the Court. Whether in that case the Democrats should risk a fight that would upend the Senate and intensify the polarization that is eroding the institutional foundations of the American system is up for debate. But this nomination is not, even from a partisan Democratic or deeply liberal point of view, a threat to the republic that justifies the destruction of the filibuster—a procedural safeguard that for all its faults has become an important bulwark of minority rights in U.S. politics.

Let’s hope that at least six of their colleagues will also rally to the banner of common sense and level-headed governance in this unusual time.

Crunch Time for South Africa and the ANC

South African President Jacob Zuma has ousted his independent finance minister, as part of a massive cabinet reshuffle that has many in his own party crying foul. The Wall Street Journal reports:

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress lurched deeper into crisis on Friday as top party officials and coalition allies rebelled against President Jacob Zuma’s decision to fire his popular finance minister, deepening rifts in the liberation movement that has ruled Africa’s most industrialized economy since 1994. […]

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a prime contender to succeed Mr. Zuma as ANC leader, said he and other senior party officials had objected to Mr. Gordhan’s dismissal and that it was unacceptable. […]

The late night cabinet overhaul, which saw 10 ministers and 10 deputy ministers moved or ousted, packed the government with allies of Mr. Zuma. It comes just months before the ANC convenes its elective conference in December to choose Mr. Zuma’s successor as party leader.

Given Zuma’s record and the record of his new finance minister—a pliant loyalist who has repeatedly defended Zuma against well-established charges of corruption—this looks like a naked attempt by Zuma to enrich himself at his country and his party’s expense, as the end of his time in office looms. Much of the ANC leadership is appalled by this, as well they should be. Whether the ANC has the institutional power to force Zuma’s hands out of the cookie jar will tell us a lot about the future of South Africa, and even more about the future of the ANC.