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Voters stand in line before casting their ballots under Sheikhs 42C heat. (Photo: Greg Mills)

The authors were members of the international election monitoring team convened by the Brenthurst Foundation, and were based in the Sahel region in eastern Somaliland.

A dirty white, bullet-pocked house, without electricity and running water, does not merit a second glance in the town of Burao high in the east of Somaliland. Yet this former colonial governors residence shaded by a giant acacia was the site of the Grand Conference of the Northern Peoples in Burao, held over six weeks, concluding with the declaration of Somalilands independence from Somalia on 18 May 1991.

Since then, the Somalilanders have stuck with a winning formula, despite the absence of international recognition and the tepid democratic enthusiasm of much of the Horn of Africa.

Only Somaliland is not ranked as unfree (with a score of 42/100) on Freedom Houses political rights and civil liberty rankings. Ethiopia (22), Djibouti (24) and Somalia (7) all rank as unfree, the same as Uganda (34), Rwanda (21), Burundi (14), Egypt (18), Sudan (17), South Sudan (2), and Eritrea (2) in the next regional ring. Only Kenya (48) to the south enjoys partly free status.

Somaliland uses democracy to keep its people together. Its steady democratic performance and progress is a breath of fresh air in a continent where right now its an uphill struggle for democrats.

Only seven countries of 49 in sub-Saharan Africa are now in the free category. This is the lowest figure since 1991, with less than 10% of the population of the continent now living in countries classified by Freedom House as free.

The reasons are simple. Incumbents have little interest in changing things, even though a vast majority of Africans regularly polled prefer democracy to other forms of government, despite the popularity among elites of the Big Man thesis.

Somaliland also shows that you dont have to be rich to be democratic. Despite a tiny national budget of just $250-million for its 3.5 million people, tough geography and a hostile climate, Somaliland is to the contrary showing the way for much richer African countries how to do it.

A place that has made something out of virtually nothing is how former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo describes the progress made by Somaliland. His trip there in May 2019 was the first by an African president since the territory re-declared its independence in May 1991.

In June 1960, Somaliland gained its initial independence from Britain before making an ill-fated decision to join former Italian Somaliland five days later in a union that was envisaged ultimately to include French Somalia (now Djibouti), the Somali-dominated Ogaden region of Ethiopia (now Region 5) and a chunk of northern Kenya.

In the centre of the capital, Hargeisa, is the independence memorial, comprising a MIG-17 fighter-bomber erected on a plinth. This commemorates the event when, having lost control of the province, Siad Barre ordered his air force, operating from the local airport, to bomb the city which had been briefly captured by local Somali National Movement (SNM) liberation fighters in May 1988. Flown by Zimbabwean mercenaries, among others, this resulted in many thousands of civilian casualties.

By the time of Siad Barres fall three years later, the main cities of Hargeisa and Burao had been razed to the ground. Not for nothing was Hargeisa known as the roofless city after systemic looting by Mogadishu had stripped it of roof sheeting and even doors and their frames.

Somalilanders have since sought stability on the principle of maximum ownership and the reality of minimum resources.

Peace did not require vast external financing. There was none available anyway at the time. In fact, the absence of outsiders may be precisely the reason for its success, at least compared with its southern neighbour, Somalia, which has lurched violently from peace conference to initiative, peacekeeping mission to external military intervention, and failing government to fragile coalition seemingly with little discernible progress. In Somalia, conflict entrepreneurs have fed off both the fighting and the talking in a top-down process financed by donors mostly taking place outside the country.

Somalilands peace conferences were by contrast managed and financed by locals, bringing their own food and shelter. The last conference in 1993 was held over five months under the trees in the western city of Boroma.

Such dialogue, long a feature of Somaliland society, was organic, bottom-up rather than top-down. Somalilanders concentrated on achieving peace, not on acquiring comforts and financial rents for delegates from a peace process. Despite its obvious dysfunctionality, Somalia somehow refuses to countenance Somalilands right to a divorce, clinging chauvinistically to the notion that the marriage can be repaired. And Africa blindly stumbles on with hopes for reunion and fears of the impact of accepting the current two-state reality.

The recovery since has similarly demanded persistence and the principle of inclusion.

The former British protectorate has developed a stable, democratic system of politics, merging modern and traditional elements. In 2002, Somaliland made the transition from a clan-based system to multiparty democracy after a 2001 referendum, formalising the Guurti as an Upper House of Elders, which secures the support of traditional clan-based power structures. There have since been regular elections and a frequent turnover of power between the main political parties. The 2003 presidential election was won by Dahir Riyale Kahin by just 80 votes in nearly half a million from Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo.

The tables were turned in 2010, with Silanyo winning 49% of the vote to his opponents 33%. Muse Bihi Abdi, a former SNM fighter, who had earlier served as a Soviet-trained fighter pilot in the Somali Air Force, was elected in November 2017, receiving 55% of the vote, becoming the countrys fifth president, and cementing a tradition of peaceful handovers of power rare to the region.

On 31 May 2021, around the 30th anniversary of Somalilands independence and the 20th anniversary of its multiparty democracy, despite Covid-19, the parliamentary and local district elections went off smoothly, with 1.1 million voters registered by the National Electoral Commission (NEC), and the establishment of 2,709 polling stations countrywide.

Unlike Somalilands previous six elections, which were mostly funded by outsiders, 70% of the $8-million budget was financed internally. And despite delays in the election, caused by a standoff between the presidency and opposition parties over the nomination of members of the NEC, and challenges with the iris biometric voter registration system, these were the most competitive yet, with 246 candidates for 82 parliamentary seats and 966 for 249 district municipality posts across the six regions.

Critics say that Somalilands democracy has been facilitated by the dominance of a single clan, the Isaaq, unlike Somalia, which has to balance the competing interests and ambitions of four major clans and several smaller ones. But this argument understates the differences between the Isaaqs sub-clans and sub-sub clans, ignores the internal violence that accompanied the birth process, which had to be resolved, and overlooks the tremendous hard work that went into it.

The focus on the relative integrity of the clan system, president Abdi contends, also underestimates the impact of the democratic culture of the SNM. For 10 years, he says from his offices in Hargeisa, the SNM was struggling for democracy, refusing the dictatorship of Siad Barre. The democracy we now have was also based on the constitution of the SNM, which was very democratic, in which there were regular elections every two years, and in which the central committee operated like a parliament.

He cites the example of former president Silanyo who was removed in the 1989 SNM elections and yet accepted the change. We have a tradition of accepting results and changing power, and accepting leadership even outside of the SNM, which is very unusual, he points out, among African liberation movements.

Donors have helped in sponsoring the local civil society group that provides election oversight: in 2021, the European Union was the principal contributor to the $2-million budget of the Somaliland Non-State Actors Forum (Sonsaf), which deployed nearly 900 monitors countrywide and ran an Election Situation Room in Hargeisa staffed by 16 operators collecting and collating countrywide incident reports between April and July 2021.

This is how donors can spend money well and wisely in supporting local governance initiatives and the cause of peace and stability.

Of course, as with any democracy, there are challenges of consolidation. Delays to the election process have resulted in officials serving well beyond their original mandates, while journalists face problems of access and pressure from authorities. There are instances of minor clans being subject to political and economic marginalisation, and violence against women remains a serious problem in a highly patriarchal society.

We observed the 31 May election in Sahel region, including Burao, the former colonial capital of Sheikh and the villages of Ina Dhakool and Qoyta, the latter the site of a casualty clearing station during the civil war. For all of its diplomatic isolation, Somaliland is strongly globalised. The link with the diaspora is in the names of Buraos suburbs, including Xaafada London, Abu Dhabi and Jarmalka (Germany).

Yet Somaliland is synonymous with grinding poverty and dirt-scrabble hardship. A high percentage, too, of the population is illiterate, requiring assistance at the polls, many of which were run by university students. The slow pace of voting is accompanied by constant grumbling on a high Somali volume setting. Regardless, the enthusiasm was palpable, not least among the very old and young. Preference is patiently given to disabled and woman voters. A voting age of 15 might seem low, and a cynical way of vote-stealing, but it serves as a deradicalising mechanism for the largest demographic: 70% of Somalilands 3.5 million population is under the age of 30. The younger generation sees democracy as a means of diluting the impact of the clan system.

Democracy demands and creates a high-trust and transparent environment. Assisted voters, about one-fifth of those in our area of observation in 46 polling stations, would be asked their preference to be filled in by the presiding officer, and showed immediately to the agents representing the three parties in the station. These practices help to ensure votes are respected. The crowds were not voting just for political parties; they voted for nationhood and the pride for self-determination.

Somalilands commitments to improving democratic norms and standards and its regular change of leaders at the polls have made it a regional democratic superpower. Its progress should shame those much richer African countries where incumbents are rolling back democratic progress, since this threatens their power and financial privilege.

Those African leaders government and oppositions alike committed to democracy should recognise Somalilands undoubted progress from war to peace. The opposite also holds true. DM

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Somaliland: The power of democracy - Daily Maverick

Andrew Yang thinks community boards are a bastion of democracy even if they end up obstructing his agenda as mayor.

At a Battery Park press conference on Tuesday announcing his plans for democracy reform which include lowering the municipal voting age to 16 and granting non-citizens the right to vote Streetsblog asked Yang how community boards fit into his vision. Are these groups of citizens who are appointed by borough presidents and local council members more likely to be conduits of popular democracy or do they have too much influence over city governance?

What an interesting question. I feel like community boards are tremendous because its people stepping up in their neighborhoods trying to address and resolve issues that matter to them and their neighbors, the candidate replied. I have a very hard time imagining how you could see community boards as anything but positive for democracy, because its a very high level of civic engagement.

Reminded that community boards often impede life-saving bike lanes and traffic calming infrastructure, Yang insisted he had no issue with them.

Its interesting. Again, I appreciate the people that want to give a voice to interests in their communities. I just see that as something to be admired, Yang said.

Community boards have no actual authority to make laws or veto city projects their volunteer roles are purely advisory. Yet over the years, city government, especially the Department of Transportation, has given community boards an outsized amount of influence that is mostly used to discourage the administration from carrying out road redesigns that can make the city safer.

Members of community boards have delayed street calming measures and crucial bike infrastructure across the city in many cases for years, costing lives. Their members have stoked a racist police crackdown on delivery cyclists, advocated for tow pounds over affordable housing, suggested that some pedestrians deserve to die, and that low-income workers dont have a right to relieve themselves with dignity. They have opposed popular programs like open streets and the installation of Citi Bike racks, and demand the right to break traffic laws when the laws dont suit them.

One community board even used city money to buy itself a fancy car.

Mostly, their objections to changing the lived environment boils down to complaints overa loss of parking spaces, a position that is out of step with a city that largely does not own cars, and would prefer to see valuable curbside real estate used for something else. Sometimes, members of community boards complain about a lack of engagement by the DOT.

In 2018, New Yorkers voted to amend the city charter to limit the service of community board members to four consecutive two-year terms. The amendment also stated that borough presidents must turn over demographic information on the citys 59 community boards to ensure that they actually represent their neighborhoods, but so far that data has been spotty.

Yang clearly hasnt acquainted himself with the lengthy, paint-peeling community board process (sometimes there are fisticuffs and Epstein allegations!) since he was asked about community opposition to bike infrastructure at the Bike NY forum in March.

Other candidates werent much better. The New York Times-endorsed Kathryn Garcia said she would keep the boards advisory role, but wouldnt let them stop the DOTs bike network. Shaun Donovan said something about introducing improvements as part of a comprehensive set of options. Ray McGuire had his bicycle in the frame behind him.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is virtually running neck-and-neck with Yang in the recent polls that still show undecided dominating, said he would use credible messengers to dispel the notion that bike lanes are akin to gentrification. But he also said this: Ive communicated with community board members around the borough, and Im telling you that at the heart of their concerns, they feel, Eric, no one is talking to us; theyre talking at us.

Scott Stringer had a somewhat valiant, if unrealistic plan for addressing community boards: I will commit to this: As mayor, Ill go to community boards. Ill build consensus around the table.

While Yang was in front of the Statue of Liberty to ostensibly talk about his democracy reforms, he also took the opportunity to hypea recent New York Times story that detailed how Adams reaped campaign donations from firms with business before the city, and then multiplied those donations under the citys matching funds program.

Seeing another candidate violate these rules and then dismiss it as a paperwork issue is extraordinarily upsetting, Yang told reporters, adding that he had filed a complaint with the citys Campaign Finance Board. New York: Eric Adams took your tax dollars and used them to amplify special interests here in New York City that did not need it.

Streetsblog asked Yang if he too could be accused of amplifying special interests since his top campaign adviser was a longtime lobbyist in New York for clients like the Police Benevolent Association and Uber. The lobbyist, Bradley Tusk, literally referred to Yang as an empty vessel, which we pointed out to the candidate.

I think theres a major, major distinction between people who work on your campaign who may have lobbied at some point, which I think is true with just about every campaign, and violating campaign finance rules in front of all of us, Yang replied.

Adamss campaign responded to Yangs critique with its own letter to the CFB, alleging self-dealing between Yangs mayoral campaign, his nonprofit, and his presidential campaign.

Andrew Yang literally paid himself from his own campaign to run for office and had his campaign buy more than $225,000 worth of copies of his book, Adamss campaign spokesperson Evan Thies said in a statement. Hes funneled more than $1 million from his dark money nonprofit to his two campaigns, loaned his bankrupt presidential campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, and left a trail of highly questionable activity between multiple entities that promote him. If anyone deserves to be investigated, its Andrew Yang.

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Andrew Yang Says Community Boards are 'Positive For Democracy' Even When Reminded That They're Not - Streetsblog New York

In the last few years, many elected leaders have attacked voting rights, cast doubt on free and fair elections, and served private interests over the public good. To pull American democracy back from the brink, we must use the full force of the lawand four laws will, if passed, set us on the right track.

Lets pretend, for a moment, that its November 2022election season. Youre a proud Georgian, born and raised, and youre ready to cast your ballot. What do you do?

Well, voting is about to get harder. If you want an absentee ballot, youll need a state ID. If you dont have one, too badand if you do, youd better hurry: You have half the time you had before to request an absentee ballot. Did you use a ballot drop-box in 2020? Good luck finding one now. And if you do everything rightif you show up at the right polling place at the right time (easier said than done) and wait in line for hours in the sweltering Georgian heat, nobodynot your friend, neighbor, or pastorcan give you water to drink.

These are real requirements of a real law, rammed through by state legislators in March. And Georgia isnt unique. Across the country, legislators are cracking down on voting accessslashing early voting, purging voter rolls, and closing polling sites. They do so in the name of election security, but these reforms are new clothes for the old Jim Crow. Rather than make elections safer and fairer, they aim to make voters whiter and wealthier.

Consider photo-ID requirements. On the surface, they might seem benigndoesnt everybody have a photo ID? In fact, millions dont, and Black, Latino, and Indigenous people are less likely than white people to have them. Black voters are also more likely to take advantage of early voting, and in the 2020 elections in Georgia, more Black voters relied on mail-in voting than white voters.

These legislators may feign innocence, but they know who these insidious bills will hurt: Black people, young people, urbanites, and other voters of color. In fact, thats the point. For these officials, its hard to appeal to diverse constituents, and easier to keep them from voting at all.

So how do officials justify these measures? Often, with lies. By peddling falsehoodsthat voter fraud is rampant (its not), noncitizens vote in droves (they dont), and the 2020 election was stolen (it wasnt)unethical leaders can rationalize their assaults on free and fair elections. These lies have consequences, not only for those robbed of their rights, but for democracy as a whole: On January 6th, Trump supporters, wrongly convinced that Trump had won re-election, stormed the US Capitol in what many deemed an attempted coup.

But all is not lost. To restore American democracy, we must start with four laws.

If enacted, the law would:

In the US today, elections arent competitivein 2016, only 4% of House races were considered toss-ups. Because only one party can represent people in single-seat districts, millions of Americans are represented by leaders they oppose. Worse, this system makes it possible for a single party to control leadership in the House even if another party wins more votes.

The Fair Representation Act (FRA) would change this. If enacted, the law would:

That law, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, remains one of the nations greatest legislative achievements, a triumph of integrity and equity over racism and oppression. Among many things, the VRA required some states, those with histories of discriminatory voting practices, to get federal permission to make changes to their voting laws. This preclearance requirement kept jurisdictions from installing new barriers to voting, barriers that usually hobble the rights of Black and Brown voters. But in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the VRAs preclearance requirement, a devastating assault on voting protections.

The JLVRAA, named after the late civil rights activist and House Representative John Lewis, would restore preclearance, expand the types of voting changes that would require it, and let federal courts scrutinize a broader array of potentially discriminatory voting laws. For decades, the VRA worked to protect people of color from voting discrimination. It is vital that the JLVRAA pick up the mantle.

More than 700,000 people call DC homemore people than live in Vermont or Wyoming. Per capita, DC residents pay more in federal taxes than any state, and men in DC must, like all US men, register for the draft. But while DC residents have the same responsibilities as residents of states, they dont have the same rights: They have neither senators nor voting representatives. In other words, the residents of DC endure taxation without representation.

This is not only undemocratic, but racist. Washington, DC is a historically Black city, and nearly half of DC residents are Black. The US government has long overrepresented white people and underrepresented everyone else. Nowhere is this more apparent than in DC, a diverse city with no voice in federal government.

The Washington, DC Admission Act would right this wrong, making DC the 51st state and giving it the same rights enjoyed by other states, including two senators in Congress and a voting representative in the House. After more than 200 years of systemic inequality faced by DC residents, its time for change.

Most Americans support these election reforms, but the path to passing these bills is long and difficult. Our congressional leaders are cleaved by bitter partisan divide, and the filibuster rule has left the minority party with outsized control and very little interest in representing the public.

But failure is not an option. Without a functioning democracy, none of our other hopesfor health, safety, clean air and water, good jobs, education, a stable climateare possible. What can we do?

Posted in: Science Advocacy, Science and Democracy Tags: Democracy Reform, election reform, Voting rights

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How to Stop the Dismantling of Democracy - Union of Concerned Scientists

In the past few years Ive found myself questioning my assumptions and doubting what I thought I knew about my country. What if the good guys dont always win? What if people cant find a way to get along in spite of their differences? What if the flawed heroes were really the villains all along? What if the arc of the universe bends toward chaos? I wonder sometimes why I ever believed otherwise. Maybe because Ive seen too many movies, or maybe I misunderstood what I saw.

Like many Americans, I had a movie education that was idiosyncratic, haphazard and intensive. I learned at least as much about American life from what I saw in multiplexes and revival houses, on late-night television and on VHS and DVD as I did from my teachers or parents. Moviegoing isnt really a civic duty, but it can feel like a ritual of citizenship. You may know that what youre watching isnt real historians and journalists are always eager to point out inaccuracies, omissions and outright fabrications in the Hollywood version but you also might believe that, on some level, its true. Thats how mythology works: not as blatant propaganda, but as a set of stories that shape our perceptions of whats fair, good and natural.

The only way to see clearly is to look again, even into a warped mirror. What follows isnt a history so much as a key to the national mythology, a guide to the civic imagination through moving-picture images. Its inevitably both subjective and collective, since movies, though we consume them alone, are something we have in common. Maybe the only things.

And like so much else in our common life, they are full contradictions, inconsistencies and outright delusions. Often a single movie will pull in both directions at once, offering reasons for faith and grounds for skepticism in the same gesture.

Each of these seven movies plays that kind of double game. But since no movie exists in isolation, each one is accompanied by others that heighten the contradictions and flesh out essential lessons. Together they suggest a syllabus, less a set of operating instructions than a guide to what we aspired to be, should have been and never really were.

Extremists on both sides is a treasured phrase in the American political lexicon. Its a rallying cry of the embattled middle, an appeal to moderation, a motto of pragmatic whataboutism. And in spite of occasional outbursts of radical or reactionary zeal, Hollywood has avidly upheld the ideal of heroic centrism.

Which is not exactly the same as defending democracy. Look at Caesar, the hero of the 21st-century Planet of the Apes trilogy. His name evokes the leader who transformed Rome from a republic into a dictatorship, and at the start of the second episode (Dawn, which comes after Rise and anticipates War) he is the wise, brave, beleaguered warlord of a simian settlement in the forests north of San Francisco. His ministate is hierarchical, patriarchal and militaristic, a utilitarian utopia rather than a revolutionary experiment.

Caesar (Andy Serkis) faces two main threats: from the humans who are his kinds historic oppressors and from Koba (Toby Kebbell), an ape whose experience of human cruelty has imbued him with a bitter, vengeful radicalism. The main drama involves the struggle of Caesar and his human counterpart to negotiate terms of peaceful coexistence. Each faces resistance from his own side, since anti-ape prejudice is still part of the formerly dominant species worldview.

To maintain control, Caesar must violate the prime ethical imperative of his movement ape not kill ape with the excuse that Koba has forced his hand. Caesar kills his rival and onetime ally with a heavy heart, an awareness of the tragedy of the situation. That combination of ruthlessness and regret is what legitimizes Caesars assertion of dictatorial authority.

Benevolent tyranny the rule of the smart and sensitive in the name of progress and good sense is the political ideal of 21st-century Hollywood. It defines the utopian horizon of the Marvel universe, where a politburo of super-empowered, unelected strongmen (and a few women) defend the interests of a passive and vulnerable public. Meanwhile, the Caesar-Koba dynamic repeats itself in the contests between Professor X and Magneto, and TChalla and Killmonger, reminders that the test of leadership is how mercilessly and sensitively you deal with the extremists in your own ranks.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is available to rent or buy on major platforms.

In politics, freedom has many different meanings and ideological colorations. Onscreen, its mostly a matter of geography. The kind of freedom that movies capture most naturally and celebrate most eagerly is the freedom of movement. The cinematic idea of liberty is bound to the romance of the open road.

Road movies offer visions of escape of the headlong flight from convention, oppression, habit and home made vivid by danger and buoyed by the possibility of friendship. Our most cherished vagabonds travel in pairs, sometimes romantic (like Bonnie and Clyde or the young outlaws in Badlands), but more often platonic. Some visions of solidarity on the run are more politically charged than others, like Thelma and Louise, which inspired some pearl-clutching back in 1991 for its forthright feminism. A Time cover story then purported to explain Why Thelma & Louise Strikes a Nerve. The answer was that the lengths to which its heroines were willing to go to be free to be left alone was thrilling to some viewers while it made others uncomfortable.

That nerve is always raw. When men onscreen fight back, take flight, drive fast and look great doing it, its just a movie. When women do the same, its an issue, and the question of what they are fleeing from or fighting against risks being drowned out by the question of whether they are going too far. Thelma & Louise, released in the year of Anita Hills accusation of sexual harassment against the Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, glances back to the second-wave feminism of the 70s and forward to the #MeToo moment.

The bravery and resilience of the heroines their humor, their honesty, their pursuit of pleasure, the absolute charm of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis collides with an edifice of injustice that seems immovable. Its not just that some men (not all men!) are awful, or that male allies arent much help. Its that what Thelma and Louise are fighting against is so deeply embedded in the structure of normal existence that a solution seems unimaginable. In Callie Khouris brilliantly rigorous script, liberation and desperation become synonymous, a convergence indelibly captured in the final freeze-frame of their Thunderbird suspended in midair over the Grand Canyon. The poetry of the image almost inspires you to lose sight of its fatalism. The drive for freedom is strong, but the law of gravity the inertia of propriety, patriarchy and state power will win in the end.

Thelma & Louise is available to rent or buy on major platforms.

Is revenge the truest form of justice, or is true justice the transcendence of revenge? This is a philosophical conundrum that haunts American movies, whose obsessions with law and order have fostered an enduring romance with vigilantism.

Batman in his mid-2000s Christopher Nolan-Christian Bale Dark Knight incarnation, embodies that romance. He is motivated equally by a sense of duty to protect Gotham Citys residents from crime and a personal sense of grievance rooted in the violent deaths of people he loves. The personal and public motives operate in harmony. Bruce Wayne becomes a masked hero because he was a victim first, and his victimhood guarantees his authenticity. Hes not just some guy in a uniform doing a job, and he is free of the corruption and compromise that bedevil the legally constituted authorities.

Extralegal violence as a tool of social control and racist terror has a long and ugly history in America, and Hollywood has played a role in sanitizing and civilizing this toxic strain in the national story. In place of the bloodthirsty mob, movies put the law in the hands of a complicated hero, a lone figure who dwells on the margins of respectability. With or without a badge, hes a maverick, an anti-institutional player whose disregard for rules and procedures marks him as a rebel, an outlaw on the side of the good guys. That ambiguous DNA connects the gunslingers of classic westerns with the urban avengers of the 1970s and then with the sometimes antiheroic superheroes of our own time.

In the American entertainment system, law and order for the most part occupy distinct genres. The setting of most courtroom dramas is a merciful, rational place, where lies are exposed and gray areas are illuminated by the impersonal workings of a mostly benevolent system. But the real action is on the streets, where everything is personal and where the dirty work of the system is carried out in the dark.

The Dark Knight is available to stream on HBO Max.

MoneyThe Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The relationship between democracy and capitalism is a subject of endless debate among historians and economists. The pursuit of wealth is seen as the basis of a society free from rigid old-world hierarchies, even as the acquisition of wealth creates dangerous inequalities. The rich are worshiped and demonized, and money itself is both the measure of success and the source of corruption.

Hollywood thrives on this ambivalence, and no movie expresses it more vividly than Martin Scorseses Wolf of Wall Street. Adapted from a boastful, semi-apologetic memoir by the renegade stock trader Jordan Belfort, the film oscillates between disgust at its selfish, obnoxious, amoral protagonist and giddy fascination with his exuberant, unabashed greed. Jordan has such a good time being bad, and it doesnt hurt that hes played by Leonardo DiCaprio with just the right blend of kid-brother charm and movie-star swagger.

There are those who insist that Wolf is a ferocious indictment of the money culture, or at least of the shallow scammers who treat the serious business of capitalism like a casino. And there are others who cant stop ogling the drugs, the cars, the boats and Margot Robbie, even if the spectacle makes us feel a little squeamish.

Everyone is right! Disapproval of excessive wealth and unchecked avarice is Hollywood gospel. See Citizen Kane, Its A Wonderful Life, Wall Street and the Godfather movies. But see the same movies for contrary evidence. Wealth onscreen is beautiful, exciting, erotic. Hollywood is as two-faced about money as about sex maybe more so, since it has more skin in the game. The movies are an industry, a con game with a half-guilty conscience. In Wall Street, Gordon Gekko proclaims that greed is good. (Does anyone remember a word that movies ostensible good guys have to say?) He was flattering us, though feeding us a line and letting us off the hook of our own hypocrisy. Jordan Belfort offers a more compelling, more troubling lesson. Greed is fun.

The Wolf of Wall Street is available to rent or buy on major platforms.

Lonesome Rhodes, the ebullient, harmonica-blowing celebrity played by Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd, was recently rediscovered as one of the cultural markers who supposedly predicted Trump. There isnt really much resemblance between the characters, though, and to view Elia Kazan and Budd Schulbergs post-McCarthy parable through the lens of very recent history is to risk missing its wider application to the pathologies of modern American life.

Movies about the news media tend either to romanticize or demonize the work of journalists. You either get crusading, ink-stained heroes (All the Presidents Men, Spotlight) or unscrupulous, self-serving cynics (Ace in the Hole, Absence of Malice). Sometimes the cynicism almost accidentally serves the causes of truth and justice, as in His Girl Friday. And sometimes the forces of idealism and greed do battle inside the newsroom, as in Network and The Insider.

A Face in the Crowd is a slightly different beast, though simultaneously a critique and a defense of the power of modern media. Lonesome is discovered in a Southern jail cell by a radio producer played by Patricia Neal, who transforms him (with the help of Walter Matthau) into a popular raconteur and pitchman and then into a populist political force. He connects effortlessly with his audiences aspirations and resentments, but turns out to be greedy, dishonest, predatory and an all-around threat to decency and civic order. The elites who empowered him, spooked by the monster they have created, contrive to destroy him. A hot mic captures an unguarded expression of contempt for regular folk, and the regular folk want nothing more to do with him.

Lonesomes downfall echoes that of Joseph McCarthy, who was humiliated on national television by Joseph Welch during hearings about alleged Communist influence in the Army. The reality was a bit more complicated, but the idea that the media can both empower and destroy demagogues that it can, in effect, break its own spell retains its seductive charm. Even though the movie looks less like a warning than a fairy tale.

A Face in the Crowd is available to stream on HBO Max.

Politicians love to present themselves as outsiders, uniquely capable of rising above partisan bickering and ideological posturing, rolling up their sleeves and solving Americas problems. That attitude is older than the movies, of course, but at the movies the story of a regular guy coming to Washington to shake things up is almost a genre unto itself.

The paradigm may be Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but the most memorable recent avatar of this tradition is Chris Rock in Head of State. It isnt a great movie, but thats part of the point: the anti-political political movie is a form of self-canceling satire, an argument that what the country needs is a bland, boring, uncontroversial approach to public life.

Of course, the name Chris Rock signifies the opposite of all that, and Head of State includes a few flights of profane, insightful inspiration. But what it does not include is any political issue that people are likely to argue about. Mays Gilliam, the city councilman whose frustration leads him to the brink of national office, takes stands that nobody could disagree with. Hes for good schools and jobs, fiscal responsibility and honest government. He sounds just like a politician, in other words. And also, perhaps improbably, like the voice of Hollywood consensus.

Head of State is available to rent or buy on major platforms.

Politicians love nothing more than to invoke the American people, but who exactly are they talking about? We are a pluralistic and often polarized nation, and we might have less in common than we would like to believe. But movies share a persistent reverence for what used to be called the common man, and very few films have the nerve to call him what he really is: a fraud, a fiction, an ideological construct hatched from the feverish imaginations of officeseekers, Hollywood moguls and other self-serving hucksters.

Sullivans Travels, written and directed by Preston Sturges on the eve of Americas entry into World War II, with the Great Depression very much in mind, remains the definitive celebration and debunking of Hollywood-style populism. The titular hero, played by Joel McCrea, is a hotshot director dissatisfied with the escapist fare that has made him rich. His filmography includes such gems as Hey Hey in the Hayloft and a nameless action picture that ends with two guys slugging it out on moving trains a clich even then. But Sullivan wants his studio to greenlight O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a passion project that he believes will tackle the real problems of humanity.

To placate their golden goose, the bosses arrange a heavily publicized junket through real America. Along the way, Sturges and Sullivan with the help of Veronica Lake as the Girl swerve into romance and farce before stumbling back onto the path of sincerity. After the official tour is over, a mishap throws our hero into the real real America, but without press coverage or an entourage. He winds up in a prison farm on a vagrancy charge, where the harshness of the conditions are relieved only by movie night. The convicts and the guards gather to watch a Mickey Mouse cartoon projected on a bedsheet, Sullivan learns his lesson and Sturges delivers his moral. What do the people want? They want to escape. They want to laugh. They want Disney.

Sullivans Travels is available to stream on the Criterion Channel or to rent or buy on major platforms.

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What I Learned About Democracy From the Movies - The New York Times

The fragility of democracy in Samoa has been on full display in the past month. On April 9, voters used the national election to deliver a powerful rebuke to the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), which has ruled their Pacific nation for four decades as a virtual one-party state.

Initially, the HRPP was locked in a dead heat (25 seats each) with the Fa'atuatua I Le Atua Samoa Ua Tasi (FAST) party, with one independent candidate, Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio, deciding the victor.

FAST was formed in protest against the government rushing three bills into law in 2020 that fundamentally altered Samoas constitutional, judicial and customary frameworks. The stunning election results registered the depth of anger about this legislation and the desire for change.

But on the eve of Tualas announcement he would join FAST and launch a new political era, troubling events began. On April 20, Samoas Election Commissioner announced via social media that a new 52nd parliamentary seat had been created and signed into law by the head of state, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi. An HRPP candidate was installed in the seat. This announcement denied FAST (headed by a former deputy prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa) its one-seat majority and victory.

On May 4, when the Supreme Court of Samoa questioned the 52nd-seat manoeuvre, the head of state (who was appointed by the government) declared the April 9 election results void and that a new snap election would be held on May 21. He also questioned the impartiality of Samoas highest court.

Read more: Samoa's stunning election result: on the verge of a new ruling party for the first time in 40 years

Caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has held that office since 1998, declared himself shocked by the head of states announcement, but thought an electoral rerun would make the peoples will more clear. He also asserted he was appointed to rule Samoa by the highest authority of all: God.

On May 17, the Supreme Court declared the 52nd seat unconstitutional, giving FAST back its one member majority. The Supreme Court will soon decide on the voided election too it is unlikely to be in favour.

But the HRPP has sown the seeds for a direct confrontation between the head of state and the judiciary. The HRPP is likely to continue the push for the second election, having denounced the courts, the Samoan diaspora, Facebook, protesters and Samoas leading newspaper, which strongly opposes Tuilaepas actions.

Scepticism abounds about how orderly a rerun election will be, given the extraordinary events since April 9. Despite a veneer of democracy, Samoa is ominously facing an autocratic future.

Samoa has struggled with autocracy and democracy before. The 1920s were a tempestuous time for the nation, which was reeling from the devastation of the influenza epidemic that killed more than one in five of its people. (Due to closed borders Samoa has been almost free of COVID-19, but the economic, social and political impacts of eligible voters being unable to return home to cast ballots have been considerable.)

The 1918 pandemic aftershocks resulted in a mass civil disobedience campaign known as the Mau (stance) Movement. It laid the blame for the calamity solely at the feet of New Zealand, which took over the German colonial regime in its first action of the first world war. So intense was the publics anger, the new administrator brought in to quell the situation likened ruling Samoa to sitting on top of a volcano.

One of the Mau leaders was Taisi O.F. Nelson. He relentlessly fought New Zealands autocractic rule, likening the administrators powers to that of a dictator. He was singled out by New Zealand as the cause of all the trouble. Ta'isi was exiled from Samoa for ten years, imprisoned and financially ruined for the peaceful, multifaceted, international campaign he led.

Samoan protests intensified especially when New Zealand attempted to alter the functioning of Samoan customs. With the endorsement of Britain and the League of Nations (Samoa was one of the leagues mandated territories from 1920), New Zealand met the peaceful protests with military force. This led to the infamous 1929 Black Saturday Massacre, which killed nine protesters including Mau leader Tupua Tamasese Lealofi. The ongoing Mau campaign succeeded in Samoa becoming the Pacifics first independent nation in 1962 and its most stable democracy.

This history is detailed in my book, Tautai (navigator). In 2021, the history of Samoans passionate fight against autocratic rule should be well remembered, as there are many echoes of it in the present crisis.

Widespread anger against the three 2020 laws, attacks on censorious press and even Tuilaepas singling out of Taisis grandson, who was both a former prime minister and head of state, as the mastermind behind FASTs campaign strategy, are some of the most apparent similiarities.

Read more: Devastated by disease in the past, Samoa is on high alert after recent coronavirus scares

The corrosion of democracy in Samoa is part of a global trend. Chinas growing influence in Samoa under Tuilaepa shadows current events. But, in the coming days, democracys endurance will be tested and, hopefully, saved by Samoas people and institutions.

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Despite a veneer of democracy, Samoa is sliding into autocracy - The Conversation AU