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Republicans are outraged outraged! at the surge of migrants at the southern border. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declares it a crisis created by the presidential policies of this new administration. The Arizona congressman Andy Biggs claims, we go through some periods where we have these surges, but right now is probably the most dramatic that Ive seen at the border in my lifetime.

Donald Trump demands the Biden administration immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy.

Our country is being destroyed! he adds.

In fact, theres no surge of migrants at the border.

US Customs and Border Protection apprehended 28% more migrants from January to February this year than in previous months. But this was largely seasonal. Two years ago, apprehensions increased 31% during the same period. Three years ago, it was about 25% from February to March. Migrants start coming when winter ends and the weather gets a bit warmer, then stop coming in the hotter summer months when the desert is deadly.

To be sure, there is a humanitarian crisis of children detained in overcrowded border facilities. And an even worse humanitarian tragedy in the violence and political oppression in Central America, worsened by US policies over the years, that drives migration in the first place.

But the surge has been fabricated by Republicans in order to stoke fear and, not incidentally, to justify changes in laws they say are necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting.

Republicans continue to allege without proof that the 2020 election was rife with fraudulent ballots, many from undocumented migrants. Over the past six weeks theyve introduced 250 bills in 43 states designed to make it harder for people to vote especially the young, the poor, Black people and Hispanic Americans, all of whom are likely to vote for Democrats by eliminating mail-in ballots, reducing times for voting, decreasing the number of drop-off boxes, demanding proof of citizenship, even making it a crime to give water to people waiting in line to vote.

To stop this, Democrats are trying to enact a sweeping voting rights bill, the For the People Act, which protects voting, ends partisan gerrymandering and keeps dark money out of elections. It passed the House but Republicans in the Senate are fighting it with more lies.

On Wednesday, the Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz falsely claimed the new bill would register millions of undocumented migrants to vote and accused Democrats of wanting the most violent criminals to cast ballots too.

The core message of the Republican party now consists of lies about a crisis of violent migrants crossing the border, lies that theyre voting illegally, and blatantly anti-democratic demands voting be restricted to counter it.

The party that once championed lower taxes, smaller government, states rights and a strong national defense now has more in common with anti-democratic regimes and racist-nationalist political movements around the world than with Americas avowed ideals of democracy, rule of law and human rights.

Donald Trump isnt single-handedly responsible for this, but he demonstrated to the GOP the political potency of bigotry and the GOP has taken him up on it.

This transformation in one of Americas two eminent political parties has shocking implications, not just for the future of American democracy but for the future of democracy everywhere.

I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Joe Biden opined at his news conference on Thursday.

In his maiden speech at the state department on 4 March, Antony Blinken conceded that the erosion of democracy around the world is also happening here in the United States.

The secretary of state didnt explicitly talk about the Republican party, but there was no mistaking his subject.

When democracies are weak they become more vulnerable to extremist movements from the inside and to interference from the outside, he warned.

People around the world witnessing the fragility of American democracy want to see whether our democracy is resilient, whether we can rise to the challenge here at home. That will be the foundation for our legitimacy in defending democracy around the world for years to come.

That resilience and legitimacy will depend in large part on whether Republicans or Democrats prevail on voting rights.

Not since the years leading up to the civil war has the clash between the nations two major parties so clearly defined the core challenge facing American democracy.

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Republicans have taken up the politics of bigotry, putting US democracy at risk - The Guardian

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In the 1800s the Republican Party championed the democratic principles of freedom, liberty, justice and equality for all. The Democratic Party stood for the wealthy and powerful, the plantation owners, the captains of industry. It was a tug of war between democracy and oligarchy.

Today we are in that same tug of war. This time the Democrats espouse those principles, while the Republican legislators are in the pockets of the wealthy and powerful. It is evident in their refusal to increase the minimum wage, while endorsing huge tax cuts for the top 1%, reducing the inheritance tax, using taxpayer money to bail out bad acting, too big to fail banks and Wall Street all actions that continue to redistribute money upwards. The list goes on, especially in the regulatory area by eliminating workers rights and reducing financial and environmental standards.

They have failed to hold the wealthy and powerful accountable for their criminal behavior. One standard of justice for the rich and powerful, another standard for everyone else.

Republican lawmakers believe that government should stay out of the way of business making money with no regulation, no social contract, no protection for workers. This type of government might work for the wealthy, but not for you and me. Who is going to protect us from domestic and foreign terrorists, pandemics, the ravages of climate change?

This is not an individual task, but together by pooling our resources, we can help one another. That is what democracy is all about, government of, by and for the people, not just for the wealthy and powerful.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon

Categories:Letters to the Editor | Opinion

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Letter to the editor: Democracy for all people, not just the powerful - TribLIVE

LEWISBURG The Lewisburg Childrens Museum is offering some education on the democratic process. Executive Director Kahla DeSmit says encouraging a lifelong love of learning through hands-on imaginative play has always been the goal of the Lewisburg Childrens Museum. She says some of its latest programming focuses on the importance of voting and how the democratic process affects every aspect of our lives.

Helping them to understand concept of voting and what the democratic process can look like in their own lives, DeSmit adds.

Partnering with the National Constitution Center, the Mauch Project, and the League of Women Voters of the Lewisburg Area, the museum is adding a new virtual class to its current voting booth and womens suffrage exhibits.

DeSmit says their latest programs may encourage civil discourse and community involvement at an early age, We really want to encourage children and families to be emboldened to stand up for what is right, and we hope we can do it in a fun and kid-friendly way.

You can enjoy the museums interactive exhibits Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., while following CDC guidelines on masks and social distancing.

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Children's Museum Program Focuses on Kids and Democracy | - wkok.com

China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, got uncomfortably close to the truth when he lectured American officials about creating turmoil by invading other countries, having a "Cold War mentality" and trying to impose its democracy on the world.

Of course, Yang would not admit to China's appalling human rights record, crushing of dissent, or flouting international rules and claiming disputed territory.

But when he sat down with his American counterparts in Alaska, he made it clear that there is another big voice in the world and the American led so-called "global liberal order" does not run the game.

Perhaps his most telling comment, though, was that far from being a model of democracy, "many people in the United States have little confidence" in their own government.

America and by extension, the West is going through a period of soul searching where it appears exhausted, unsure of itself, and hypocritical.

Reuters: Frederic J. Brown/Pool

Many people no longer believe in the "promise of democracy". Freedom House an organisation that measures the health of democratic nations globally now counts 15 years of declining democracy.

Democracy is rotting from the inside: deformed by weak institutions, tribalism, the tyranny of the rich and an elite who dominate positions of power, racism, sexism, and crippling inequality.

The growing gap between rich and poor is a cancer that is eating democracy.

Take the US: there, the wealth of someone in the top 1 per cent of society is 950 times greater than a member of the bottom 50 per cent.

The poor have seen their factories close down, their neighbourhoods trashed; they have lost their homes while the rich have grown richer.

They have still not recovered from the global financial crash of 2007/08, while the bankers who caused the disaster are back receiving their bonuses.

The rich in America pay lower taxes today than they did before the crash.

In his new book, Capital and Ideology, French economist Thomas Picketty says inequality has less to do with the economy than the political choices governments make.

In 2008 US President Barack Obama sided with the bankers over the people.

As Picketty writes: "Every human society must justify its inequalities; unless reasons for them are found, the whole political and social edifice stands in danger of collapse."

AP:Evan Vucci

How does America justify such gross inequality? And the entire political edifice is in danger of collapse. Do we need any more evidence than four years of Donald Trump in the White House and the storming of the Capitol Building?

74 million people voted for Trump: the election of Joe Biden and his appeals to decency will not bridge that divide.

The Democrats champions of neoliberalism that put the market ahead of people have been part of the problem.

In country where life expectancy among the poor has been decreasing and many feel abandoned by Washington, democracy, in the words of economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, looks like a "scam".

The wealth gap has played into a culture war which, combined with racism, has been rich pickings for demagogues and political populists who feed on fear and anxiety.

In America it helped put Trump in the White House, while in Europe it has inspired a revival of the far right, contributed in no small part to Brexit, and has fuelled a backlash against immigration and refugees.

In Australia, we have largely avoided the worst of political extremism and even the most egregious inequality. But there are worrying signs.

In recent years the wealth gap has widened. Research from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Social Services last year showed that the average wealth of the top 20 per cent of income earners is 90 times that of the lowest 20 per cent.

This was based on pre-COVID figures; after the pandemic the situation may worsen.

AAP: James Gourley

Picketty has pointed out that inequality is built into our societies, predating the Industrial Revolution and the technology age. We keep finding new ways to justify it.

The times when inequality decreased were during periods of war or upheaval or long stages of economic growth like the decades following World War II.

Reducing inequality, Picketty argues, depends on the decisions made by governments and is not possible without increasing taxes on the rich.

But where is the appetite for that type of reform? Politicians who take a high-taxing agenda to an election inevitably lose. People vote for their own interests and the poor get poorer and angrier and our politics becomes more divided and toxic.

China is becoming more aggressive in tone and actions, while the US is strengthening its regional alliances.

Democracies die. We are seeing that around the world. Often they're killed by the people we elect.

Harvard University Professors in Government, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, say democracies die in war, but they also die at the hands of elected leaders: "Presidents or Prime Ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power."

Leaders who have presided over shocking inequality and others who exploit it for their own gain. As the poet William Blake wrote: "A dog starved at his master's gate predicts the ruin of the state."

We should heed those words today.

China's Yang Jiechi certainly knows America's weakness, and perversely it is what has been America's strength: its democracy.

He might also have reminded them that while the poor in America get poorer, China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty.

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In America, a cancer is eating democracy from the inside, and China has clocked the weakness - ABC News

Tiny Montenegro has long been different from its neighbors in the former Yugoslavia.

After a decade of bloody civil wars that included ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide, Yugoslavia in the 1990s split violently along ethnic lines into six different independent republics. But Montenegro escaped the worst of the war and for years remained with Serbia its dominant, Russian-allied neighbor as part of the rump Yugoslavia.

In 2006, Montenegrins voted for independence and separated from Serbia peacefully. Montenegro became a stable and inclusive democracy. It is a mountainous, postage-stamp sized country of 640,000 on the eastern Adriatic Sea.

Rather than maintain the Slavic ethnic identity of Serbia, Montenegro made room for all kinds of people. It was home to Montenegrins who are Orthodox, Muslim, Catholic and atheist yes, but also Bosniaks, Albanians, Roman-Catholic Croats and Serbs. Montenegro also has a Jewish community.

Montenegros post-independence leaders in the socialist party worked to build a broad civil society that recognized the many identities of its citizens. Many refugees from the Balkan wars sought safety in Montenegro.

Its political system favored neither majorities nor minorities, a value system inherited from Yugoslavia. In 2017, Montenegro joined NATO, the transatlantic security alliance, against Russias wishes. It wants to join the European Union.

Montenegros Balkan success story and its very national identity is now in danger after a right-wing coalition aligned with Serbia and Russia took power in December.

A fight over the Montenegrin language is symbolic of the broader political fight playing out in Montenegro.

All the former Yugoslavian republics Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia share a mutually intelligible language, previously called Serbo-Croatian. The differences among them are comparable to the varieties of English spoken by Americans, Australians, British and South Africans.

Since Yugoslavia broke up, each new Balkan nation has used language to create a common political and cultural identity for itself, establishing each language with its distinctive style and standardizing its usage.

As my research and others show, some were more successful in that effort than others. Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are now well established as national languages, used in schools, the press, business and government.

Montenegrin, however, remains contested.

It is embraced by citizens who stand for an inclusive, multi-ethnic Montenegrin society. But those who view Montenegro as fundamentally an extension of the Serbian state consider Montenegrin merely a dialect of Serbian. According to a leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Montenegrin does not exist.

Montenegros new coalition government seems to side with the Serbs on the language question.

In March the new minister of education, science, culture and sports, Vesna Brati who identifies as a Serbian nationalist threatened to close the Faculty of Montenegrin Language and Literature in the old royal capital of Cetinje and has blocked its funding since January. The institute has led efforts to standardize the Montenegrin language and foster scholarship about Montenegrin literature and culture.

In a young country still forging its national identity, erasing the Montenegrin language that has bound its people together is akin to eliminating the Montenegrin identity.

Multi-ethnic Montenegro has so far achieved stability through a balancing act that recalled how Yugoslavian premiere Josip Broz Tito ran multi-ethnic Yugoslavia for much of the last century.

Yugoslavia, founded in 1918, was dominated by Slavic-speaking Serbs, Croats and Slovenes but was home to many Hungarians and Albanians, among other non-Slavic minorities. It was also divided religiously, between Roman Catholicism the faith of Slovenians and Croatians and the Eastern Orthodox Christianity of Serbians, Montenegrins and Macedonians.

After the Second World War, Marshal Tito and his Partisans having driven out Nazi occupiers led Yugoslavia under socialist rule. For four decades, Tito maintained order and quelled rivalry within Yugoslavia with an iron fist and by careful balancing of conflicting claims for cultural dominance.

From the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade, Tito promoted a one-party system and ideology fostering brotherhood and unity among Yugoslavias many disparate traditions and communities.

That delicate balance broke down after Titos death in 1980.

Wars erupted in Yugoslavia along national, ethnic and religious lines. Serbian and Croatian paramilitaries seeking to carve out ethnically pure states carried out ethnic cleansing operations against their rivals in each others territories and elsewhere. Bosnia and Herzegovina fragmented among Catholics, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox witnessed the gravest atrocities.

Montenegro now seems to be at risk of a similar unraveling with its long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists out of power. While rhetorically supporting Montenegros NATO and EU membership, Montenegros new political leadership is ideologically aligned with Serbia and Russia.

Many Montenegrins are appalled by their young democracys unexpected twist of fate. They fear Serbian cultural hegemony will negate their progress in nation-building and move Montenegro away from European values and toward Russia.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is watching the struggle over Montenegros future closely. Russia has traditional cultural and religious ties to Montenegro, and having Montenegro in Putins portfolio would give Russia access to a Mediterranean port.

Some Montenegrins even worry that violent ethnic conflict could begin again anew. For them, the Balkan wars are still a fresh memory. And theyve seen several democracies in Eastern Europe Poland and Hungary chief among them come under autocratic rule.

The West learned the hard way 25 years ago that conflict in the former Balkans can end in tragedy. Will this history repeat itself in Montenegro?

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Montenegro was a success story in troubled Balkan region now its democracy is in danger - The Conversation US