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(Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

It was supremely ironic. President Trump stood in front of a monument to the Warsaw uprising, the Polish underground resistance armys catastrophic, failed attempt to overthrow Nazi rule at the end of World War II. The uprising was a national tragedy: 200,000 of the countrys best-educated and most patriotic young people, the men and women who would have been its leaders, died. The capital was burned to the ground. And in large part, the disaster was caused by the fact that none of the other allies not Britain, obviously not the Soviet Union, and certainly not the United States came to Polands defense, even though the resistance army believed they would.

In front of this monument to unfulfilled expectations of distant allies, this memorial to the horrors of a Europe riven by brutal nationalist struggle, Trump offered his support to a Polish government that is both the most nationalist in Europe and now the most isolated in Europe. He made lengthy remarks about the uprising, complete with the now familiar references to the blood of patriots, and at the same time offered his support for Poland in carefully delineated terms.

In essence, Trump called on Poland to help the United States in the struggle of Western civilization against Islamist terrorism though at times he made it sound as if the real enemy were cultural, not political. He didnt talk about the democratic values that would unite the West in this struggle, but of the ties of God and family, language designed to appeal to nationalist-Catholic Poles, but not to the whole country. He made only one allusion to Russia, speaking of its destabilization of Ukraine (in fact it was an invasion) even though Russia poses a far greater threat to Poland than Islamist terrorism. Russia will hold major military exercises on Polands borders in September. A previous version of these exercises included a simulated nuclear attack.

In failing to focus on Russia, Trump broke with precedent. By comparison, President Barack Obama, at a speech in Estonia in 2014, declared clearly that Russias aggression against Ukraine was a threat to a Europe that is whole and free and at peace. Trump also broke with precedent, but in a different way: He barely mentioned democracy. And he alluded mostly negatively to the rest of Europe, speaking (misleadlingly) of the billions and billions of dollars that Europeans are now supposedly paying into NATO, as if it were a protection racket. When he lauded the military equipment and the gas that the United States will sell to Poland, he joked about needing to charge more.

He did after refusing to do so on his last trip finally refer to Article 5, the part of the NATO treaty that says an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. But earlier, at a news conference, he told journalists that he had not discussed military guarantees with Polands president. And after his speech, the American president known for his mendaciousness and untrustworthiness left Warsaw for his meeting with the Russian president.

In truth, Poland, like its neighbors, will only ever be safe from Russian military intervention or political interference if the country is deeply integrated into a strong, cohesive, unified and democratic Europe. It will only be safe if its own democratic institutions are strong enough to withstand outside meddling. But right now, Poland is run by a political party, Law and Justice, that has launched an assault on the countrys democratic institutions and has, by doing so, managed to alienate all of its most important European neighbors.

The free press is under attack in Poland, along with the independence of the judiciary. The current defense minister has even begun to undermine the professionalism and apolitical character of the military. These policies have alienated Poland from the rest of Europe and also led to a deep schism inside the country. The crowd at Trumps speech, supporters bused in from around the country, booed and shouted insults at opposition politicians, among them Lech Walesa, the anti-communist hero, despite the fact that this was a solemn, national, military and diplomatic occasion.

In giving such a speech in such a place, Trump has confirmed Polands nationalist government in its isolationist and anti-democratic course. He also encouraged Poles to be brave, as in the past, when they fought alone, and encouraged them once again to place their faith in distant allies. Lets hope that faith never has to be tested.

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Originally posted here:
Trump affirms the Polish government's assault on democracy - Washington Post

What European democracies have lacked most, since at least the 1980s, is high-profile political vision.

Helmut Kohl. October 1978.Wikicommons/German Federal Archive. Some rights reserved.In recent weeks there have been crucial elections in three large European countries, France (presidential and parliamentary), Britain, and Italy (municipal elections). Overall, about 105 million voters have been called to the polls. While results have been quite surprising, and relatively new figures (Jeremy Corbyn and Emmanuel Macron) have gained international prominence, European democracy has not really demonstrated its strengths.

The most encouraging aspect has been the rise in the youth vote, which in Britain has mainly been won by Corbyns Labour. British youngsters are somewhat better off than their peers on the continent: youth unemployment would be around 11%, much less than in most EU countries (22% in France; 35% in Italy; 39% in Spain). And yet they have expressed dissatisfaction by voting en masse for Corbyn and rejecting the perspectives of austerity, debt, and uncertainty.

At the same time their choice has been a demand for better politics, and for a return of values, vision, and ideas; they have had enough of self-serving Oxford-educated cliques, and lite infighting. They have had enough of the few, of all the browbeating issued by the oligarchy in the run-up to the Brexit referendum as well as in its aftermath. An anti-lite attitude has emerged also among the French youth. At least in the first round of the presidential polls (22 April), those under 24 preferred more extremist Le Pen and Melenchon to the moderate and centrist, Emmanuel Macron. Macron largely won the second round and the legislative polls; yet the overall turnout in the latter two rounds was as low as 49 and 43%. So the fact that Republique en Marche! brought many youngsters to the National Assembly is not a true measure of its appeal among younger generations. Will Macron really bring change? If so, in what way?

A strong political cleavage, also evident last year in the US elections, is forming between metropolitan areas and the countryside. Better-educated urbanites voted Democrats, Labour, and Macron. Most British large cities voted Labour; in London, Corbyns party obtained 49 seats; the Conservatives, 21. Similar conditions apply to Macron in France he won Paris with a share of almost 90%.

That said, Labour and En Marche! differ profoundly in many other respects. Corbyns platform is clear and well-defined, partly through discussion with a high-profile (and much-debated) Committee of Economic Advisors. There is a party, there is a vision. By contrast, and despite his connections with heavyweight economists (such as Jacques Attali and Jean Pisani-Ferry), Macron has been vague and generic, bordering on demagogy and resembling a constantly metamorphosing hologram.

His case is as worrying as that of the so-called personality parties (Berlusconis Forza Italia being the most famous example) which emerged in Europe about twenty years ago and which still maintain a degree of organisation and structure; Republique en Marche! looks like a big tent, one tailored to a supposedly charismatic leader, who somehow puts himself before and above the party, and has crucial links to little-transparent external forces (such as high finance). Needless to say, this evolution is highly problematic for modern democracy.

Such a growing personalisation of politics, and the volatility of party structures in peripheral areas, have also contributed to the decline in popularity of globalist and progressive forces in the rural areas. Feeling more and more marginalised, the periphery (a derogatory and unfair term in itself) has turned both far right and far left.

Protectionism, re-industrialisation, exit from the euro, and other (sometimes populist) slogans have captured the attention and the votes of dispossessed factory workers, miners, agricultural workers, or the unemployed. Can the global world, if it wants to stick to democratic principles, afford to neglect and forget millions and millions of voters? After all, Hillary Clinton, amongst other reasons, lost the US presidential polls in the peripheries, while Macron realised the point a bit late on, after his opponent Marine Le Pen visited an embattled factory in his own home town, Amiens.

Now though is the time to act. Will the new president understand that democracy cannot be rule by the few and demonstrate this in the facts and choices he puts before people, beyond his flamboyant rhetoric?

What European democracies have lacked most, since at least the 1980s, is high-profile political vision. A politician with a vision in fact passed away on 16 June: we are talking about Helmut Kohl. The former German chancellor was not flawless (from a CDU financial scandal to the much-debated early recognition of Croatia, which contributed to increasing tensions in the former Yugoslavia). But he had a grand vision for Germany and Europe, and pursued it despite numerous obstacles. German re-unification, in his view, complemented European integration; it was Kohl, who, despite little knowledge of economics, pushed the euro as a political project of peace between Germany and France.

As he used to recall, he had lost an older brother in World War Two and was deeply committed to European peace. Moreover, German re-unification might have given him a place in history books, but probably cost him the chancellorship (in 1995), because of its tremendous economic effects on the eastern Lnder. In a sense, he sacrificed his own career, and did not then attempt the financially rewarding adventures into consultancies, banks, or corporations, which so many younger politicians have attempted.

Macron is 48 years Kohls junior. Will history remember him as a statesman or a pale hologram, a leader, or a figurehead in pursuit of factional interests? Perhaps it is too early to say. But western democracy urgently needs to regain the vision, the ideals, the nobility of the generation of politicians who witnessed World War Two and its aftermath. It matters to Europe, to democracy, and to our future. Better economic conditions, which so many youngsters need, require first and foremost better politics.

See original here:
Democracy in the age of Macron - Open Democracy

Seattle can serve as a model for the rest of the country most Americans favor campaign-finance reform.

THESE days we cannot have electoral reform without a lawsuit. So is the case in Seattle with its innovative way to fund local campaigns. Under the system, every Seattle resident is provided with four $25 vouchers to give to candidates for local office who agree to various campaign-finance restrictions. A new lawsuit challenges this program under the First Amendment. The court should reject that challenge.

Seattles Democracy Vouchers program is a smart way of limiting big money from influencing elections. It allows everyday individuals to help fund campaigns. Candidates who do not have wealthy backers or a large personal war chest now have a chance to compete on a roughly even playing field. Candidates who opt-in and accept the vouchers must follow various campaign-finance limitations and disclosure rules. The voucher system is good for democracy.

Perhaps more significantly, Seattle can serve as a model for the rest of the country. Most Americans favor campaign-finance reform. The Democracy Vouchers program provides a way for everyday individuals to help achieve that reform. If it works well, then other localities, and eventually states, may follow suit. If states are laboratories of democracy, then cities like Seattle can be test tubes of democracy, trying out novel ways to fix the worst problems in our democratic system.

Joshua A. Douglas is a law professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law who specializes in election law, voting rights and constitutional law. He is the co-editor of Election Law Stories.

Local innovation in election procedure is vitally important to understand the best ways to run our voting process especially in the current political environment. Congress and polarized state legislatures are unlikely to pass meaningful electoral reform in the near future. It is up to cities around the country to try out innovative, democracy-enhancing measures to improve our election system.

For example, some cities in Maryland allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections, creating a culture of democratic engagement among our youth. Now other places are considering this reform. Benton County, Oregon, along with the state of Maine, will try out Ranked Choice Voting, a new way of choosing candidates in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference. A few California cities have adopted independent redistricting commissions to draw local lines. And some places in addition to Seattle are passing honest-elections platforms to improve the financing and ethics of local elections.

The election-law community is watching the Seattle experiment carefully to see what we can learn. We should champion these efforts and allow them to flourish so that the best ideas can spread.

Thats why the court should defer to Seattle and reject this legal challenge. When considering local-election laws, courts should defer to cities that pass democracy-enhancing measures, reserving strict judicial review for when a city seeks to limit who may participate in the democratic process. Seattles campaign finance voucher program is a classic democracy-enhancing move: it opens up democracy to more individuals to donate to campaigns and more candidates who will have the chance to compete. The case for judicial deference is even stronger given that Seattle voters themselves approved the measure.

The system also likely does not violate the First Amendment. Any public subsidy for education, health care, or anything else that might involve expressive activity entails taking public tax money and using it for a public purpose that someone may disfavor. That does not mean that the government is compelling speech. If this public financing measure fails, then likely all public financing is unconstitutional. But the U.S. Supreme Court has long approved public financing as a means to root out corruption in elections.

Seattle is the courageous city that has tried out a new way to fix a big problem: the immense amount of money, particularly from wealthy interests, that infiltrates our elections. The court should let that local democracy-enhancing experiment play out.

Go here to read the rest:
Seattle's campaign-voucher system is good for democracy - The Seattle Times

Donald Trump arrives at Hamburg Airport on July 6, 2017.

U.S. President Donald Trump just sought to redefine the West.

In a speech to cheering crowds in Warsaw on Thursday, Trump described the Wests values in terms of religion and culture and called for the defense of its civilization against radical Islam. It amounted to a manifesto for his foreign-policy vision.

The address included repeated invocations of God, faith, tradition, national sovereignty and family. It made only passing reference to what are usually cited as core Western values: the rule of law, democracy and freedom of speech. Religious tolerance did not get a mention.

The people of Poland, the people of America, and the people of Europe still cry out We want God, said Trump. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.

Its an outlook fervently shared by the presidents hosts, Polands Law & Justice Party. Last year, Polish President Andrzei Duda took part in a religious ceremony that officially recognized Jesus as the King of Poland. And the worldview Trump outlined in Warsaw also chimes with that of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two leaders will meet for the first time on Friday at a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Hamburg.

But while popular among eastern Europes conservatives, Trumps reinterpretation of Western values will set him further apart from more liberal G-20 leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, already alienated by the presidents opposition to climate-change targets and free-trade agreements.

Some of Trumps comments were less out of step with Washingtons traditional priorities. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a habitual critic of the president, said he was encouraged by relatively strong language attacking the Russian interventions in Ukraine and Syria, as well as by Trumps statement of support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations Article 5 clause on collective defense.

The speech contained both conventional foreign-policy rhetoric and nativist undertones, said Erik Brattberg, director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Its basic message was that the U.S. remains the indisputable leader of the West, he said.

Trump stuck to his theme after leaving Poland. THE WEST WILL NEVER BE BROKEN. Our values will PREVAIL. Our people will THRIVE and our civilization will TRIUMPH! he tweeted after landing in Hamburg.

Much of the address in Warsaws Krasinski Square was devoted to a recounting of Polands struggles against Russia and Nazi Germany, in particular the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. But in an earlier briefing, a White House official had singled out the role of faith and the need to defend Western civilization as key messages.

It was very Huntingtonian, former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said of the speech.The Polish government has reason to be very pleased with it, because it very much echoes their philosophy.

Sikorski was referring to the 1993 Foreign Affairs article by Harvard scholar Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations? In the article and a later book, Huntington argued that the Wests ideological contest with the former Soviet Union would be followed by a growing struggle between religious blocs.

Many leaders have seen in Huntingtons thesis a warning of what to avoid rather than an agenda to pursue -- an important distinction when addressing immigration, for example, or combating Islamist terrorism. By contrast, some of Trumps current and former aides, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, have embraced the idea that a fundamentally Christian West is at war with Islam.

Bannon laid out his view last year in a now-famous contribution via video link to a Vatican conference. He said the Judaeo-Christian West had become too secular and fallen into crisis as a result. Were at the very beginning stages of a global conflict against Islamo-fascism, Bannon said.

Flynn made a similar point in a book he co-authored the same year, which argued that were in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people, most of them inspired by a totalitarian ideology: Radical Islam.

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Trump identified bureaucracy alongside terrorism as the twin threats the West must defeat. That reference is likely to be seen in Poland, and elsewhere in Europe, as directed at the Brussels-based institutions of the European Union. The EU launched an investigation into Poland in 2016, citing threats to the rule of law that it said were incompatible with EU values, such as suppression of judicial independence and media freedoms.

There was no mention of those allegations in Trumps speech. A White House official said his remarks should not be interpreted as an attack on the EU.

Still, the presidents strong praise for the conservative government in Poland can be seen as a snub of Angela Merkels Germany and the EU, with whom Warsaw has an increasingly strained relationship, Carnegies Brattberg said.

In Poland, there are many whod take Merkels side of that argument, against Trumps.

For me, talking about Western civilization without mentioning rule of law, democracy and human rights isnt possible, said Jerzy Stpie, a former head of Polands constitutional court, which has been involved in a protracted battle with the Law & Justice government. Im not sure how President Trump defines Western civilization, but for me these attributes are indispensable.

Here is the original post:
Trump Just Redefined Western Values Around Faith, Not Democracy - Bloomberg

Despite his campaign comments to the contrary, President Donald Trump will apparently meet Friday for the first time with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Germany.

If Trump fails to stand up to Putin and forcefully raise the issue of Russian interference in our elections, the Kremlin will conclude that he is too weak to stand up to them at all. That makes his statement todaythat no one really knows who was behind the hacking and dumping of Hillary Clinton's emailsmore than discouraging. Far from putting America first, if he continues to cling to this personal fiction, he will be elevating Russian interests above all others.

On the agenda should also be Russia's continued destabilization of Ukraine, Russia's propping up of Bashar al-Assad, and a clear declaration that the U.S. will not turn a blind eye to any potential Russian support of the Taliban or increased trade with North Korea.

There is little evidence, though that Trump plans to confront Putin on any of these serious matters. Instead, he may seek little more than the exchange of pleasantries and the usual claims of a fabulous meeting.

This would be a historic mistake, with damaging implications for our foreign policy for years to come. Because what the Russians have in mind goes well beyond interference in one election, or the restoration of Russian dominance in what it considers to be its sphere of influence into a profound challenge to a rules-based international order that has been of incalculable benefit to freedom-loving people around the world.

Last summer, what began as a Russian effort to gather foreign intelligence on candidates for the presidency of the United States became a very different kind of enterprise when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to weaponize the data stolen by his intelligence services. Putins dumping of private stolen emails in an effort to influence the U.S. election was a breathtaking escalation of Russian interference in our internal affairs. It is vital that we understand both why he chose such a provocative course, and the new threat that the Russian government poses to the very idea of liberal democracy.

There is no question that Putin despised former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her support of pro-democracy protesters who gathered by the tens of thousands in Moscow streets years earlier to protest his governments fraud and corruption. Putin was terrified by these mass protests and believed he saw the hidden hand of the Central Intelligence Agency behind them.

Putin understands innately that the only real threat to his regime will come from the streets, not from an election process where opposition leaders are continually jailed or killed, and where the state controls all the major media. Putin was more than aware Clinton would continue her strong support of sanctions over Russias invasion of Ukraine, and those sanctions are a keen threat to the regime specifically because they have slowed the Russian economy and made the prospect of popular opposition to Putin even greater.

Apart from opposing Clinton, there was every reason for the Russian government to prefer Donald Trump, who over the course of the campaign belittled NATO, celebrated Brexit and a further weakening of Europe, expressed a common purpose with Russia in Syria notwithstanding our very different interests on the survival of the Assad regime, and most significantly, made clear his willingness to revisit our economic sanctions on Russia.

But we would make a grave mistake to assume the Russian intervention was solely about hurting Clinton or helping Trump, or even its main object. Above all, Putin wanted to tear down American democracy just as he is assaulting other liberal democracies around the world. We are in a new battle of ideas, pitting not communism against capitalism, but authoritarianism against democracy and representative government. America must not shrink from its essential role as democracys champion.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we lived in a world in which the number of people living in free societies was ever increasing. The triumph of liberal democracy in Europe seemed certain, and around the world, democratic change was often plodding but seemed inexorable.

Today, even with welcome victories for candidates like Emmanuel Macron, we may be at an inflection point in which we can no longer be assured that the number of people around the world who will enjoy the freedoms of speech, assembly and religion will increase. It may, in fact, contract. Putins autocratic model is on the rise in places like Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines and elsewhere.

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The narrative Putin wishes to tell is that there is no such thing as democracy, not in Russia nor in the United States, and our commitment to human rights is mere hypocrisy. Putins aims are served when Trump baselessly accuses President Obama of illegally wiretapping him or when the President lashes out at a secretive deep state allegedly working against him.

Of all the praise heaped undeservedly on Putins leadership, none would have pleased him more than when Trump was asked during the campaign why he could not criticize Putin's assassinations of reformers and journalists, at home and abroad. Trump responded, Well, you think our country is so innocent?

The Trump Administration has decided that democracy and the promotion of human rights will no longer be a top priority and instead we will put America first. This fundamentally misapprehends the degree to which the success of democracy around the world is a core American interest.

When the President complements Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on a massive campaign of extrajudicial killing, he is not advancing American values or interests only causing the rest of the world to turn away. We fought two world wars to make the world safe for democracy, because we recognized, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., that a threat to democracy anywhere was a threat to democracy everywhere.

America is not a victim, as the President so often paints her, but the most powerful nation on earth and the greatest beneficiary of a liberal world order established at tremendous cost in American blood and treasure. That is a legacy to cherish and to defend.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Read the original post:
Schiff: Putin Aims to Take Down Liberal Democracy. To Put America First, Trump Must Stand Up to Him - Daily Beast