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Thomas Friedman| The New York Times

On Saturday morning I was sitting in the kitchen with my wife, Ann, who was stirring her Cream of Wheat, when out of nowhere she surprised me with a question: Is not lying one of the Ten Commandments?

I had to stop and think for a second myself, before answering: Yes. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

The fact that the two of us even momentarily struggled over that question is, for me, the worst legacy of the Trump presidency.

You remember the old joke? Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and tells the children of Israel: Children, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I bargained him down to 10. The bad news is that adultery is still in.

Well, Ive got bad news and worse news: Were now down to nine.

Yes, this was a historic four years even one of the Ten Commandments got erased. Lying has been normalized at a scale weve never seen before. Hence Anns question.

I am not sure how we reverse it, but wed better and fast.

People who do not share truths cant defeat a pandemic, cant defend the Constitution and cant turn the page after a bad leader. The war for truth is now the war to preserve our democracy.

It is impossible to maintain a free society when leaders and news purveyors feel at liberty to spread lies without sanction. Without truth there is no agreed-upon path forward, and without trust there is no way to go down that path together.

But our hole now is so deep, because the only commandment President Donald Trump did believe in was the Eleventh: Thou shalt not get caught.

Lately, though, Trump and many around him stopped believing even in that they dont seem to care about being caught.

They know, as the saying goes, that their lies are already halfway around the world before the truth has laced up its shoes. Thats all they care about. Just pollute the world with falsehoods and then no one will know what is true. Then youre home free.

The truth binds you, and Trump never wanted to be bound not in what he could ask of the president of Ukraine or say about the coronavirus or about the integrity of our election.

And it nearly worked. Trump proved over five years that you could lie multiple times a day multiple times a minute and not just win election but almost win reelection.

We have to ensure that the likes of him never again appear in American politics.

Because Trump not only liberated himself from truth, he liberated others to tell their lies or spread his and reap the benefits. His partys elders did not care, as long as he kept the base energized and voting red. Fox News didnt care, as long as he kept its viewers glued to the channel and its ratings high. Major social networks only barely cared, as long he kept their users online and their numbers growing. Many of his voters even evangelicals did not care, as long as he appointed anti-abortion judges. They are pro-life, but not always pro-truth.

For all those reasons, lying is now such a growth industry it deserves its own GDP line: Auto sales and durables were each down 10% last quarter, but lying grew 30% and economists predict that the lying industry could double in 2021.

Israeli Bedouin expert Clinton Bailey tells the story about a Bedouin chief who discovered one day that his favorite turkey had been stolen. He called his sons together and told them: Boys, we are in great danger now. My turkeys been stolen. Find my turkey. His boys just laughed and said, Father, what do you need that turkey for? and they ignored him.

Then a few weeks later his camel was stolen. And the chief told his sons, Find my turkey. A few weeks later the chiefs horse was stolen. His sons shrugged, and the chief repeated, Find my turkey.

Finally, a few weeks later his daughter was abducted, at which point he gathered his sons and declared: Its all because of the turkey! When they saw that they could take my turkey, we lost everything.

And do you know what our turkey was? Birtherism.

When Trump was allowed to spread the birther lie for years that Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in Kenya and was therefore ineligible to be president he realized he could get away with anything.

Sure, Trump eventually gave that one up, but once he saw how easily he could steal our turkey the truth he just kept doing it, until he stole the soul of the Republican Party.

And, had he been reelected, he would have stolen the soul of this nation.

He and his collaborators are now making one last bid to use the Big Lie to destroy our democracy by delegitimizing one of its greatest moments ever when a record number of citizens came out to vote, and their votes were legitimately counted, amid a deadly and growing pandemic.

It is so corrupt what Trump and his allies are doing, so dangerous to our constitutional system, but you weep even more for how many of their followers have bought into it.

Lies dont work unless theyre believed, and nearly half the American public has proved remarkably gullible, my former Times colleague David K. Shipler, who served in our Moscow bureau during the Cold War, said to me. I think of each of us as having our own alarm and its as if half of their batteries have died. Lots of Trumps lies, and his retweets of conspiracy fabrications, are obviously absurd. Why have so many people believed them? Im not sure its fully understood.

That is why its vital that every reputable news organization especially television, Facebook and Twitter adopt what I call the Trump Rule. If any official utters an obvious falsehood or fact-free allegation, the interview should be immediately terminated, just as many networks did with Trumps lie-infested, postelection news conference last week. If critics scream censorship, just shout back truth.

This must become the new normal. Politicians need to be terrified every time they go on TV that the plug will be pulled on them if they lie.

At the same time, we need to require every K-12 school in America to include digital civics how to determine and crosscheck if something you read on the internet is true in their curriculum. You should not be able to graduate without it.

We need to restore the stigma to lying and liars before it is too late. We need to hunt for truth, fight for truth and mercilessly discredit the forces of disinformation. It is the freedom battle of our generation.

Thomas Friedman writes for The New York Times.

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Friedman: Only truth can save our democracy - The Register-Guard

Speaking of those advantages, do you hear any Democrats saying that the Senate was stolen, even though their minority has consistently represented many millions more Americans than the Republicans majority? Instead, after a disappointing election night, they regrouped and said, we have to get out the vote and win those two runoffs in Georgia. Thats what you do in a democracy.

Sure, Democrats are mad at Mr. Trump and opposed to his presidency not only because he lost the popular vote by so much, but because he was and remains so manifestly unfit to hold the office, as many top Republicans used to say themselves.

One of the countless measures of Mr. Trumps unfitness is his willingness to accept or even solicit foreign interference to win. That is why, if there was any cheating in the 2020 election, it was committed by the president himself, when he tried to extort a foreign nation to gin up dirt on Mr. Biden and his son Hunter. For this high crime he was impeached by the House of Representatives. To be clear, that impeachment was not the result of Democrats refusal to accept his legitimacy to govern; it was a result of his decision to squander that legitimacy yet again by behaving like a strongman.

But the bigger picture here is the decades-long descent of the Republican Party which now prefers conspiracy theories over facts, magical thinking over science and delegitimizing its political opponents over substantive and responsible governance. Just a few recent examples: The racist birther slurs that Mr. Trump spearheaded against Mr. Obama; the reflexive opposition to everything Mr. Obama tried to do, even before he took office; the blanket denial of his appointment of federal judges, culminating in the theft of a Supreme Court vacancy that arose nearly a year before he left office; and finally, the seating of Mr. Trumps Supreme Court nominee only days before an election that he lost fair and square.

Republicans have been working tirelessly to make voting harder for many years, and especially this year, for precisely this reason. They knew that Mr. Trump was unpopular and that Mr. Biden would probably win if more people voted. When voter suppression failed, they had only two options: accept their fate like serious and responsible people do, or claim that any loss they suffered was by definition the result of fraud.

Once again, they picked door number two. This is the problem with getting comfortable with the perks of minority rule, as Republicans have over the past several decades. Its not just that you can ignore what most Americans want. Its that you genuinely believe that theres no way your opponent can win much less by an absolute majority without cheating.

That attitude is fatal to a democracy, the survival of which depends, above all, on the loser accepting the results. The Democrats, along with most of the rest of the world, understand this. One party alone is responsible for dragging the nation to this perilous place.

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Trump, in Attacking the Election, Is Attacking Democracy - The New York Times

Italian elementary schoolchildren assemble for a propagandistic photo praising fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Translation: Leader, We Love You.

Courtesy of Diana Garvin

On the Saturday before Election Day this year, a coalition of scholars who study authoritarianism issued an open letter of warning titled, How to Keep the Lights on in Democracies. It began: Regardless of the outcome of the United States election, democracy as we know it is already imperiled. However, it is not too late to turn the tide.

It continues, While democracy appeared to be flourishing everywhere in the years following the end of the Cold War, today it seems to be withering or in full-scale collapse globally.

The letter points out that many of the societal conditions that allowed fascism and authoritarianism to flourish in history are evident in modern society. And it issues a call to safeguard critical thinking based on evidence.

Since then, much has happened in American history. One week after the letter was issued, former Vice President Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election. Outgoing President Donald Trump, as of this writing, has refused to concede the race.

Related: Trump election lawsuits have mostly failed. Here's what they tried.

Still, the scholars write, We believe that unless we take immediate action, democracy as we know it will continue in its frightening regression, irrespective of who wins the American presidency.

The project behind the letter, The New Fascism Syllabus, came together around the time of the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Historians with expertise in 20th Century fascism, authoritarianism and right-wing populism were becoming concerned with how some of what they saw in the United States seemed to echo conditions they recognized from their fields of study. The projects editorial board of 18 international scholars curates and crowdsources syllabi and scholarly writings to provide insight into how past societies experienced and resisted fascism.

Professor Diana Garvin is an assistant professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oregon. She studies the history of fascism in Italy and its former colonies in East Africa.

Courtesy of Diana Garvin

The creation of the open letter was a group effort by that board, spearheaded by Jennifer Evans of Carleton University and Brian J. Griffith of UCLA. Another member of the editorial board, and one of the more than 200 scholars who signed the letter, is professor Diana Garvin. Garvin is an assistant professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oregon and studies the history of fascism in Italy and its former colonies in East Africa. Shes also the author of the forthcoming book, Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Womens Food Work."

Garvin spoke recently with OPBs Jenn Chvez regarding what we can learn about modern democracy from the history of Italian fascism, as Americans move past a historic election. Here are some highlights from their conversation:

So, heres what Italian politics looked like about 100 years ago. Giovanni Giolitti, an old hand at Italian politics, has just been reelected prime minister of the Liberal Union. So thats a centrist liberal government, and its trying to modernize, its going global. Italy is going to help found the League of Nations that year. But not everything is rosy.

"Leftist protests are raging across the urban north. And yet, the Liberal Union tries to ignore the noise. It keeps supporting factory owners. Plus, theyve got a tendency to leave poor, rural voters behind.

An Italian menu from the fascist period with a propagandistic illustration promoting domestic food production. Translation: Italians, resist! Buy national [Italian] products.

Courtesy of Diana Garvin

"And that group was the first to sign up for the Fasci di Combattimento. To these voters, it seemed like the Giolitti government didnt care about them at all. It was catering to foreigners, to urban elites. And worse still was the governments style, which they considered to be feminized. It was too conciliatory, too subtle. It was not sufficiently invested, they thought, in questions of national pride and the military.

"Many were veterans, and they felt that they had done a great service to the country in World War I. But then they came home to diminished prospects and massive unemployment. This made them prime recruits for the nascent Fascist Party. They were sad, they were angry and they were very familiar with guns.

Over the past four years, weve seen the creation of a model for anti-democratic approaches to American politics. In 2016, we talked a lot about outrage fatigue, but we dont say that anymore. Its now commonplace to hear vanguard newspapers dismissed as fake news, to hear climate change described as a belief, to see caravans of armed drivers in the United States. In other words, the past four years have already shattered our limits of acceptable behavior. And its not just for leaders, its also for American citizens.

"So even with the Biden/Harris win, far-right groups are part of the new political landscape. We might reject white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters and Patriot Prayer, but were covering them regularly on mainstream stations. That is new. These formerly fringe groups are now relevant to American citizens, and it makes me think of a historical lesson from interwar Italy, which is: Fascism wreaks havoc not through hyperbole, but through normalization.

Members of the Proud Boys and other far-right demonstrators rally on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Portland, Ore.

John Locher / AP

"At present, Democrats have got to resist the temptation to throw a party and then take a four-year nap. Were still at high risk for violence and paramilitarism. Militia numbers and activity are on the rise, and that is the result of four years of repeated and deliberate galvanization of radical right groups. It was in whispers to the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. But it goes back to Charlottesville, to some very fine people on both sides. Its that kind of rhetoric.

Members of the Giovane Italiane (Young Italians) fascist youth group on the march in Rome, circa 1935

Courtesy of Diana Garvin

"To understand the psychology of these groups, the history of fascism offers some helpful insights. Under democracy, the use of force is usually the province of state: so the military, or the police. But fascism deputizes its followers to use violence. So, patriots can use force against enemies, so long as its on the states behalf.

"The Blackshirts those were the followers of fascism nursed a rigid sense of victimhood. And that remained true even when they held power in a single-party state. What fascism did was it made the Blackshirts feel big. It gave them license to physically dominate and to bully, and it told them that they were part of a movement that was going to put them on top of society, over effeminate elites, intellectuals, where they so rightfully belonged. Oregons political geography puts it on the front lines of a similar cultural battleground.

Since the Biden/Harris win, theres been an escalation of far-right rhetoric about Democrats being too dangerous to rule. Historically, its that kind of chatter that precedes exceptional government actions. The risk now is not a Trump campaign in 2024. He might aspire to authoritarianism, but he lacks the commitment and the skill to carry it off. The real threat would be a far-right figure who could match the populist bluster, while also saying just enough of the right things to gain institutional support. A patient autocrat would be much more dangerous.

Fascism as a phenomenon was born in Europe at the start of the 20th Century. And historically, fascism doesnt rise alone. Instead, it gained ground through an uneasy but very effective collaboration with traditional elites.

"Contrary to popular belief, Mussolini did not take power in a coup. Against a backdrop of economic depression, labor crisis, Italian politicians in the 1920s were aimless and divided. So those were the background conditions. With a lethargic parliament and the threat of violence in the air, the King of Italy offered Mussolini the chance to form a coalition government. The political establishment had considered Mussolini to be kind of ridiculous. He was a brawler, a yeller, he didnt seem very bright. But his brash, vulgar style was popular and they thought they could use him to energize the party.

I always tell my students to think about how to make speaking up feel easier. Find something that youre already good at, and then tweak it toward doing good. That way, you make activism sustainable.

"So first, you could learn how to persuade. Logic alone rarely works, but emotion does. People have to want to do something. You can paint vivid pictures for your listeners. Use the future tense. When I teach courses on fascism and neo-fascism, we prepare talking points in advance. Then you can talk directly with people who you dont agree with. Maybe theyll come around, maybe they wont, but you start seeing yourself as someone who speaks up. Thats the first step.

People, many carrying signs bearing messages opposing white supremacist groups, attend the Portland Solidarity with Charlottesville vigil at Portland City Hall Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017.

Bryan M. Vance / OPB

"The next one is to take part in broader civic debates. You could get started by checking out the Mellon Foundations Monuments Project. They pledged $250 million to reimagine monuments over the next five years. We need to rethink the places where national history gets written. So memorials and statues, but also museums and art installations. These are the places where we write who we are as a nation.

"Then finally, and most importantly, you could help out with the organizations that have been fighting these forces for a long time. So, Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, Indigenous Environmental Network, Transgender Law Center ... History has demonstrated that nonviolent protest is extremely effective, and that was true, even in the darkest years of fascism.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking play on the audio player at the top of this article.

See the article here:
What protectors of democracy can learn from the history of Italian fascism - OPB News

Election 2020 has a winner. So what did we learn? We look at the long-term impact of the 2020 presidential election, and what America can do to heal.

Danielle Allen,political philosopher. Professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. (@dsallentess)

Ret. Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell (2002-2005). Served 31 years in the U.S. Army.Adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary.

Michael Kruse, senior staff writer atPOLITICO. (@michaelkruse)

Washington Post: "The results of our national election may tell a story of division. Ballot measures tell a different tale." "The results of our national election may tell a story of division, but state ballot propositions tell a different tale. They show Americans agreeing about significant priorities, including a fundamental remaking of our justice system. There is much to be grateful for here, and something to build on."

POLITICO: "How Misfortuneand Stunning LuckBrought Joe Biden to the Presidency" "Its been barely more than eight months since Joe Bidens presidential campaign looked all but done."

New York Times: "As Trump Refuses to Concede, G.O.P. Remains Divided" "White House advisers have warned President Trump of his narrow chances in any legal fight. The Biden team turned its focus to the transition. And world leaders offered their congratulations to the president-elect."

POLITICO: "Donald Trump Confronts a New Label: Loser" "I win, I win, I always win. In the end I always win, Donald Trump once said."

Reuters: "Biden campaign urges federal agency to approve official transition" "President-elect Joe Bidens campaign on Sunday urged the Trump political appointee who heads the U.S. General Services Administration to approve an official transition of power despite President Donald Trumps refusal to concede."

The Guardian: "Don't underestimate the threat to American democracy at this moment" "In the early morning hours after election day, the president of the United States showed his authoritarian ambitions. He launched an attack on our democratic system at a moment when it is at its most fragile in recent memory."

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After 2020: The Election's Long-Term Impact On Democracy - WBUR

HONG KONG Hong Kongs pro-democracy lawmakers said Wednesday they would resign en masse to protest Beijings growing control over the local legislature, one of the last remaining centers of dissent in the Chinese city.

The 15 resignations were set off by a decision earlier in the day out of Beijing that forced the removal of four opposition lawmakers in Hong Kong.

The lawmakers departure comes amid Beijings intensifying efforts to silence Hong Kongs political opposition and to curb a vast protest movement.

Heres a look at key moments in the long showdown between pro-democratic forces and the Beijing-backed authorities who have chipped away at Hong Kongs special status as a bastion for free speech and independent courts.

Extradition bill incites enormous protests.

In May 2019, Hong Kong lawmakers scuffled over a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China, where courts are controlled by the ruling Communist Party. That was followed by huge street protests, with organizers estimating that one million people marched on June 9, 2019, in a city of about 7.5 million.

Three days later, the police fired tear gas at protesters who had blocked a major highway outside the Legislative Council, Hong Kongs legislature. The heavy-handed response prompted another June march that organizers said drew nearly two million people.

On July 21, after protesters vandalized Beijings liaison office in Hong Kong, a mob attacked a group of protesters in a train station. Dozens were injured, including journalists and a pro-democracy legislator. The appearance of police inaction that night would fuel widespread anger toward the Hong Kong police force and suspicion that officers were unwilling to protect antigovernment protesters.

In the months that followed, street clashes became routine between the police and black-clad protesters, who targeted symbols of authority, including local police stations and the citys vaunted subway system.

Even as the arrests intensified, the protest movement claimed a major success: In September 2019, Hong Kongs leader, Carrie Lam, withdrew the extradition bill.

The concession did not end the protests, though, and some began getting more intense. Confrontations on college campuses in mid-November began resembling medieval sieges, with students fortifying their campuses against police charges and sometimes even shooting arrows out toward riot police. The police continued their harsh tactics, using tear gas, batons, water cannons and rubber bullets.

But if Beijing officials were betting that the increase in violence would turn local opinion against the protest movement, they were wrong.

The movement earned a stunning victory in late November as pro-democracy candidates captured most of the seats in local elections for district councils. It was a vivid expression of defiance toward and anger with Beijing and their allies in Hong Kongs leadership.

The pandemic strikes, and elections are put off.

After the pro-democracy movements election wins, a lull in protests set in for several weeks. Then, on New Years Day, demonstrators returned to the streets in full force in a protest that started peacefully but descended into violent clashes with the police.

But even as they marched, many protesters were expressing more trepidation than righteous anger. Mainland and Hong Kong officials had made clear they would not back down, and Hong Kongs economy was showing signs of intense strain from the disruption.

The tone was already shifting, and then the coronavirus pandemic struck. As the new virus began spreading around the world, social-distancing rules and the imperative to stay home took even more steam out of the protest movement.

The Hong Kong government said the pandemic meant the legislative election scheduled for September would need to be postponed by a year. The opposition cried foul and said the government was afraid that establishment candidates would be defeated.

After a year of protests, and opposition election victories, Beijing had had enough.

In late June this year, the mainland government imposed an ominously vague and far-reaching national security bill on Hong Kong that targeted dissent and protest. Calls for Hong Kong to be independent were made illegal, and sabotaging transportation infrastructure, which became increasingly common during the protests, was designated as terrorism. A national security office was set up, and Chinas state security apparatus, which had previously worked covertly in Hong Kong, was allowed to operate in public.

More than two dozen people have since been arrested under the new law. Most prominent among them was Jimmy Lai, founder of the citys biggest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily.

This week, Beijing officials went even further, granting the Hong Kong government broad powers to remove lawmakers from office who do not show clear loyalty to China.

Within minutes, Hong Kong officials removed the four lawmakers, prompting the other 15 members of the pro-democracy bloc to resign in protest. Their departures will leave the political opposition without a voice in the Hong Kong legislature, which had stood as a symbol of the one country, two systems framework intended to keep Hong Kong semiautonomous until 2047.

Read more:
What Led to the Hong Kong Resignations? - The New York Times