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By Jessica Mathews By Jessica Mathews August 22 at 4:16 PM

The swift exodus of chief executives that collapsed the White House business councils last week reveals a strange and disquieting fact about American society: Our politics works better in the private sector than it does in the public one.

President Trump's two major CEO councils disbanded Aug. 16 after Trump was slow to condemn white supremacy groups. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)

With the exception of Kenneth Frazier of Merck, who cited personal conscience for his quick decision to step down after President Trumps response to the neo-Nazi protests and violence in Charlottesville, these resignations did not follow moral conviction. The CEOs were reacting to pressure from constituents their customers.

These men and women live in a separate universe from most Americans. They fly in private planes, live in gated communities and travel the world to tend global markets. It has been years, maybe decades, since any of them has had to spare a thought for the family budget other than where to invest the annual surplus. They dont worry about the mortgage or medical care or retirement.

Yet as distant as they are from how most Americans live, the leaders of even the largest enterprises tremble in the face of public opinion. Once a trend has taken hold, they know they have to act quickly.

In stark contrast, the elected representatives whose job it is to reflect their constituents thoughts and experiences, to know the price of a carton of milk and how to get a college loan, spent days in stunning silence. With a handful of exceptions, Republican condemnations of Trumps response Charlottesville were tweeted in the distant third person or the impersonal declarative (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan: We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive.). Trumps name was not mentioned. Nor was a response offered.

By last Thursday, the congressional party was dug into a deep communal foxhole. CNN announced that it had invited all 52 Republican senators to appear on its morning show in a failed effort to find one who would do so. In this case, it is Republicans who are frozen, but if the facts were reversed, there is little doubt that Democrats would be doing the same.

The firms that raced to distance themselves from the president included Campbell Soup and Walmart, which are obviously vulnerable to brand damage or even a consumer boycott. But even hedge funds that cater to the uber-rich and companies that sell mostly to other businesses felt a greater need to respond to the public revulsion than did members of Congress. Because elected representatives face the ultimate public test of reelection, this seems paradoxical.

But election to Congress is now tantamount to a lifetime appointment. Last year, 97 percent of incumbent representatives and 93 percent of senators were reelected. These numbers (slightly above recent averages) include losses to primary challengers.

At some level, Americans seem to have absorbed this. A group of New York-based advocacy groups collected 400,000 signatures asking the heads of JPMorgan Chase and Blackstone to resign from one of Trumps councils. This political effort was presumably directed where the organizers felt it would have an impact: not to their congressman but to a corporate executive. Why?

There is some evidence that people have given up on the federal government. A poll has asked the same question every few years since 1958: Do you trust the government in Washington to do what is right, all or most of the time? Until the mid-1960s, 75 percent of Americans said yes, but the trust percentage fell below half in about 1972. So, although Americans have voted for drastic changes in leadership and ideology over the ensuing decades, anyone younger than 45 has lived their entire life in a country where the majority does not expect their government to do what they think is right.

Before you despair, note it wasnt that long ago that Washington did function. In four years of Lyndon Johnsons presidency, Congress passed nearly 200 major laws, including three revolutionary civil rights laws that transformed the nation the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act plus Medicare and Medicaid. Two Cabinet agencies,food stamps, Head Start and 35 national parks and protected areas were created. The essential Freedom of Information Act was passed and a great deal more from urban mass transit to international monetary reform.

Much has changed since then, some of which we cannot control especially globalization and job-destroying technological advances. But most of what has produced glaring inequality, an underperforming, overly costly health-care system, crumbling infrastructure and rising deficits is the result of conscious policy choices, and to practices, from gerrymandering to campaign finance rules, that have produced an immovable, unresponsive and unproductive Congress.

Threats from abroad quickly capture national attention. But for most people, such as myself, who are professionally concerned with national security, the greater anxiety these days is the long-term threat from domestic gridlock and the consequent loss of self-confidence that underlies a successful foreign policy. Quite apart from Trumpian chaos, this is a system in need of basic repair.

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Why CEOs are quicker than Republican legislators to denounce Trump - Washington Post

Many observers believe our democracy is in trouble. This is supported by polls showing a large majority of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and only 26 percent believe the national government is making effective progress.

Scholars of democracy warn of what they call democratic deconsolidation the increasing disaffection citizens have with democracy as a form of government. Globally, this is reflected in data showing that the percentage of citizens believing it is essential to live in a democracy has fallen in many democratic nations, particularly among millennials; only 30 percent of Americans in this cohort agree with this statement, for example.

So, is America experiencing democratic deconsolidation? The data suggest we might be, but this apparent trend can be altered. We can do that by adopting reforms that foster trust and hope among those who feel alienated or left behind.

To this point, the American system is more resilient than other democracies because of the strong role played by state and local governments, and the opportunities they present for testing innovative reforms on a smaller scale. Reforms that amplify previously silenced voices and open up opportunities for political participation can go a long way toward improving citizens confidence in Americas political system. Limiting the power of concentrated interests, making it easier to vote, donate money or time to a campaign or political party, and take part in governmental decision-making should be embraced by anyone who espouses the American ideal of liberty and justice for all.

Here are just two examples of how locales are attempting to reinvigorate democracy.

In 2015, Seattle became the nations first city to try a type of campaign financing called democracy vouchers. Under the law, each registered voter receives $100 in vouchers to spend however theyd like on candidates for city offices. The vouchers are funded by a property tax levy that costs the median homeowner only $11.50 a year. This program helps offset the outsized effect of big-money donors, and undercuts the sense of powerlessness that average citizens feel under our predominant system of campaign finance that favors wealthier interests.

In 1995, the Texas legislature passed a statute allowing local school districts to adopt cumulative voting as the method of choosing board members. Under this system, voters cast votes equal to the number of open seats, as usual, but they are allowed to cast all their votes for one candidate, if they prefer. Many corporate boards already use this method to improve the diversity of representation. The Texas experience shows it also works to encourage more representative political participation.

The legacy of our forebears is an unwavering belief in the possibility of a more perfect union. Their efforts to foster this ideal established for succeeding generations the responsibility to live up to that dream. Advocating for the above types of reforms is a tangible way to meet that responsibility and thereby counter the disturbing trend toward democratic deconsolidation.

Rob Baker, Ph.D., teaches political science at Wittenberg University and is a regular contributor.

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COMMENTARY: Some ways to strengthen our democracy - MyDaytonDailyNews

Roy Cooper greets supporters during an election party hosted by the North Carolina Democratic Party on Nov. 8, 2016; Pat McCrory, Republican candidate for Governor of North Carolina, during a debate at WRAL studios in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 18, 2016.Ethan HymanRaleigh News & Observer/Getty Images; Chris SewardCharlotte Observer/Getty Images

Weiser is the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Weiner is a senior counsel in the program.

The unraveling of longstanding democratic norms (not to mention decency norms) in Washington, D.C., is understandably transfixing many Americans. But we should not lose sight of the fact that democratic values are under assault in the states, too.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in North Carolina . There, a case questioning some basic tenets of representative government is playing out before the state Supreme Court right now. On the surface, the case involves a power struggle between the newly elected Democratic governor and the Republican-controlled state legislature over control of the state election process. But more importantly, the case is about how much a legislative majority can manipulate the rules to make its advantage permanent regardless of what the voters decide.

North Carolina is a closely divided state. It voted just under 50% for Obama in 2008 and for Trump in 2016, and it regularly holds some of the closest Senate and gubernatorial elections in the country. In 2010 Republicans rode a national wave to take control of the state legislature for the first time since 1899 and assumed full political control of the state in 2013. In 2016, however, the incumbent Republican Governor lost his reelection bid to Democrat Roy Cooper. Then things turned ugly.

Seventeen days before Cooper was to take office, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a package of sweeping changes designed to limit his authority, which the outgoing Republican governor signed into law. The centerpiece of this effort was a plan to ensure continued Republican dominance of powerful state and county boards of elections , which are responsible for running elections in the state and have been controlled by appointees from the Governors party for more than a century. (The original law was struck down by a state court in March but then reenacted over Coopers veto with only minor changes.)

The new law extends the tenure indefinitely, for all intents and purposes of the sitting Republican-appointed Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, North Carolinas leading election official. She would otherwise have been supplanted by a new Democratic appointee. The law also awards half the seats on state and local election boards to Republicans, which allows them to block any changes to voting rules adopted by the previous Republican-controlled bodies. The law even says Republicans get to chair all election boards during every crucial election year when the President, Governor and all statewide officials are on the ballot.

These changes leave little doubt as to who would really be in charge of North Carolinas election process and that is the point. Some legislative leaders openly admitted that one of their main goals of the election board law was to keep Republicans in power.

State legislators have tried to justify this power grab by pointing to Democrats efforts to increase their political power in the state in the 1970s and 1980s. But while North Carolina Democrats dont have clean hands, this latest Republican gambit to control the election process is part of a dangerous historic escalation.

North Carolinas new election board law is part of a series of actions the Republican majority in the legislature has taken to consolidate their hold on power since 2010. They passed aggressive gerrymanders that gave their party 10 of the closely divided states 13 congressional seats and super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature. They also sought to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning constituencies especially African-Americans and young people by imposing sweeping new voting restrictions, including cutbacks to early voting, strict voter ID requirements and reductions in voter registration opportunities.

These prior efforts to game the political system have been roundly rebuked by the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down both North Carolinas congressional and state legislative maps as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders . And last year, the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court struck down the states new voting law, famously criticizing the almost surgical precision with which the legislature targeted black voters.

As the state supreme court considers the constitutionality of this latest effort to change the states electoral laws later this month, the legislatures nakedly partisan motives and its past efforts to tweak the system for partisan advantage will likely loom large over the courts deliberations as they should. As more and more courts are recognizing, efforts to rig the electoral system are simply inconsistent with constitutional democracy.

Whether the North Carolina legislature gets away with its electoral power grab could have widespread repercussions. Although its democratic breakdown is extreme, the state is the canary in the coal mine. Throughout the country, democratic norms are under tremendous pressure. State legislatures are increasingly experimenting with anti-democratic electoral laws, like new restrictions on voting access and extreme gerrymandering . These anti-democratic strategies are gaining traction at the national level, where a presidential commission is expected to promote regressive voting laws.

The North Carolina Supreme Court is neither the first nor the last court to face an important test of the strength of our constitutional democracy. How it performs could be an early sign of whether we are in for more bad news or are finally turning a corner.

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Democracy In North Carolina Could Disappear. Is Your State Next? - TIME

Vice President Mike Pence steered clear of Trump's talk of 'military options' on Wednesday afternoon. | AP Photo

DORAL, Fla. Vice President Mike Pence made a quick trip Wednesday afternoon to this Miami suburb, home to the nations largest Venezuelan community, to reinforce and reiterate the Trump administrations commitment and support for those fighting against the authoritarian government of Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro.

The U.S will continue to bring the full measure of U.S. economic and diplomatic power to bear until democracy is restored in Venezuela, Pence told a cheering crowd of hundreds of people at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The collapse of Venezuela will endanger all who call the Western Hemisphere home. We cannot and will not let that happen.

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Pences visit comes a little more than a week after President Donald Trump, speaking from his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, told reporters a military operation, a military option, is certainly something we could pursue in Venezuela.

Pence steered clear of uttering military operation or military options in South Florida, speaking only of economic and diplomatic powers in dealing with the Maduro government. His comments echoed what he said last week during a tour of Latin American nations, where he spoke of a peaceable solution for Venezuela in a sharp departure of Trumps declaration.

As the president mentioned a few days ago, the United States has, in his words, many options for Venezuela, Pence said at an Aug. 15 press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But the president and I remain confident that, working with all our allies across Latin America, we will achieve a peaceable solution to the crisis facing the Venezuelan people.

Venezuela and its 32 million people are in the throes of a worsening political and economic crisis that has spawned a food shortage, rampant inflation and a scarcity in basic medical supplies and medicines.

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest against Maduro in violent clashes since April that have left more than 120 people dead.

Pence blamed the South American nations troubles on Maduro, saying he has taken the oil-rich country on a path from prosperity to poverty.

The Venezuelan people have been brought to this point by the brutality and barbarism of the Maduro regime, Pence said. This is not the fate the Venezuelan people have chosen. No free people has ever chosen to walk the path from prosperity to poverty.

Venezuela has gone in the opposite direction toward dictatorship, not democracy, toward oppression, not freedom, he said.

Joining Pence at the church in the city nicknamed Doral-zuela because of the burgeoning number of Venezuelan nationals who dominate the community were U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.).

In prepared remarks in English and Spanish before Pences speech, Diaz-Balart praised the Trump administrations moves to back the opposition in Venezuela in its battle against Maduro.

Let it be clear that the Trump administration I repeat, the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress stand with the Venezuelan people, including its courageous activists, opposition leaders, political prisoners and their families, the doctors and nurses who have demanded access to basic medicines for their patients, and others who have risked everything to achieve a democratic Venezuela, Diaz-Balart said.

He mentioned several people including Wuilly Arteaga, a young violinist and popular activist who had been imprisoned in Venezuela for speaking out against Maduro and his thugs.

Wuilly has been beaten and arrested simply for his musical protests against the Maduro regime, Diaz-Balart said. With his defiant renditions of Venezuelas national anthem, ringing out in the midst of brutality perpetrated by Maduros thugs, Wuilly has become one more symbol of the protest movement which persists despite Maduros escalating repression.

The 23-year-old Arteaga was released from government custody last week after being detained for about three weeks.

Diaz-Balart specifically applauded the Trump administration for imposing sanctions on more than a dozen top Venezuelan leaders, including Maduro.

The U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month targeted Maduro with the sanctions in accusing him of widespread human rights abuses. All of Maduros assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction were frozen, and U.S. persons were prohibited from dealing with him.

Pence said Wednesday that the administration is preparing more sanctions against Venezuelan government officials.

"At President Trumps direction, the United States has already issued three rounds of targeted sanctions against Maduro and his inner circle and theres more to come," Pence told the applauding crowd. "And well continue to act until the Maduro regime holds free and fair elections, releases all political prisoners, and ends the repression of the Venezuelan people."

Read the White House transcript of Pence's speech here.

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Pence: US to use 'economic and diplomatic power' to restore democracy in Venezuela - Politico

By Marisa Stone

He has been investigated for criminal activities, corruption and being in the pocket of billionaires. And yet he survives. Donald Trump? No, an even more unpopular leader, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. On Aug. 8, a constitutional motion of no confidence in Zuma was defeated in the Parliament 198-177, with nine abstentions. Zuma will stay in office for another year.

The election of Nelson Mandela, and the abolition of apartheid in 1994, was a cause for euphoria in South Africa, after decades of harsh repression and a litany of injustices against the vast majority of the population. But that euphoria has become crushing disappointment, as black South Africans realize that one of their own, a leader of the once beloved African National Congress (ANC), has enriched himself and his family, while a third of his fellow citizens live in tin shacks without benefit of sanitation services or running water.

Our driver throughout most of our Southern Oregon University Democracy Project trip in South Africa, was Nick, a 50-year-old black man who lives in Alexandra Township near Johannesburg. I asked him if he liked living there. No, it is chaos, he said, but I was able to get my daughter out to go to school.

Nick was an articulate and hardworking man, but because of a lack of education as a result of apartheids residual effects he has never been able to develop the skills to find a better job.

During our tour of Soweto (an abbreviation for Johannesburgs Southwest Townships), Queen, our guide, told us that many of the girls in the townships drop out of school before graduating. When pressed for the reason, she said that many of them could not afford sanitary pads during menstruation. To avoid embarrassment at school, they stay home, get too far behind in their studies, and often never return.

Hearing that, one of our Democracy Project group members suggested we all chip in and buy some feminine-hygiene supplies. So we did, several bags full, that we gave to Queen to distribute to those young women in Soweto, who could not afford something so basic. Of course, this was a bit of charity that made us feel good, but was such a trivial thing when compared to the misery these people suffer through every day.

What surprised many of us was how isolated people were in their homes. In Johannesburg and Pretoria, beautiful homes were surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire, sharp pointed poles, and glass. South Africans, black as well as white, often fall prey to Afrophobia, in which they stereotype immigrants coming to South Africa from other African nations, in search of economic opportunity. The similarity to current American politics was unnerving.

The hope for the future of South Africa lies with the young people born since 1994, for whom apartheid is ancient history. We met some of these young people at the University of Johannesburg, when we visited the Universitys Political Science and International Relations Department. These young graduate students were united in their contempt for President Zuma, but did not always agree about the future of South Africa, and the best path forward.

Some opined that South Africa was not yet ready for democracy and perhaps they should model their government on that of China. The ANC has retained power for over 25 years, and in some ways already resembles Chinas one-party state.

Others saw the education of young girls, the countrys future mothers, as the key to economic recovery. Research conducted by the United Nations and various universities around the world, demonstrates that educating girls and women leads to a reduction in child mortality, growth in jobs, and greater democratic participation. See http://en.unesco.org/themes/women-s-and-girls-education.

Most the students were cautiously optimistic because of the strengths South Africa possesses, such as a diverse economy, well-developed transportation network, literate and skilled workforce, healthy financial institutions, advanced medical facilities (in some locations) and a vibrant system of higher education. Whatever their beliefs about South Africas future, these smart, articulate young graduate students left us all with a sense of hope that one day soon, it would be they who would finally realize Mandelas dream of delivering economic equality and justice to all their citizens.

From a distance, it is easy to criticize the rocky and uneven path to democracy that South Africa has taken since 1994. What we need to remember is that it is a young democracy; consider the first tenuous quarter century of Americas history. Democracy is not easy, but it is worth it. Perhaps the quote attributed to Winston Churchill articulates it best, Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Marisa Stone is a participant in Southern Oregon University's Democracy Project.

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South Africa's uneven path to democracy - Ashland Daily Tidings