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By Brian Klaas By Brian Klaas March 10 at 8:10 AM

Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on March 5 denied that President Trump's 2016 campaign was wiretapped while senators of both parties weighed in on the allegations. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) is a fellow in comparative politics at the London School of Economics and author of The Despots Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy.

Today, March 10, is President Trumps 50th day in office. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has governed in a way that poses a unique threat to the integrity of American democracy.

Democracy is bigger than partisanship. Therefore, this is not a critique of Trumps policy proposals. Rather, its a sober assessment of American democracy at a pivotal moment and a call for Americans of all political stripes to press all politicians to agree, at minimum, on preserving the bedrock principles that make the United States a democracy.

The call is urgent. In just 50 days, Trumps presidency has already threatened American democracy in six fundamental ways:

1. Trump has attacked the integrity of voting, the foundation of all democratic systems. Without any evidence, Trump has repeatedly claimed that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. This claim is not true. Every serious study that has assessed voter fraud, including studies conducted by Republican presidents, has concluded that the scale of the problem is negligible.

Nonetheless, on his sixth day in office, Trump called for a major investigation into voter fraud now largely forgotten by many Americans. Unfortunately, his assertion has not been forgotten by a large swath of Trumps base. Tens of millions likely now believe Trumps claim which will certainly prove an important alternative fact when, in the future, attempts are inevitably made to make it harder for certain Americans to vote.

2. After attacking the integrity of his own election, Trump has also undermined the credibility of his own office. Democracy will not function if Americans cannot be sure that the presidents claims are at least grounded in evidence-based reality. And yet, in just 50 days, Trump has made at least 194 false or misleading claims an average of about four daily. (March 1 was the only day without one, so far.)

Recently, Trumps early morning tweet-storm alleging that former president Barack Obama personally ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower has not been backed up by a shred of evidence. Key Republican senators and representatives have expressed their bafflement at the accusation. Yet there have been no consequences for the president baselessly accusing his predecessor of criminal action. Rep.Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) went so far as to chide reporters for asking questions about the wiretap claim, saying, I think a lot of the things he says, I think you guys sometimes take literally. How can democracy function when people cant take the president literally?

3.Trumps administration has repeatedly flouted ethics guidelines without consequence. When Trump failed to discipline Kellyanne Conway for brazenly giving a commercial for Ivanka Trumps jewelry and clothing line, the Office of Government Ethics had to send an extraordinary letterreminding Trump that ethics rules apply to the executive branch. Trump has also failed to meaningfully separate himself from his business interests. Most recently, Trump received 38 lucrative trademarksfrom China, not just a likely violation of the Constitutions emoluments clause but also a benefit that will call into question whether Trumps foreign policy will pursue what is best for the American people or what is best for his profits. That conflict of interest is precisely why democracies set ethics guidelines and why it threatens democracy to violate them.

4. Trump has attacked the independent judiciary. When U.S. DistrictJudge James Robart defied Trumps travel ban, Trump called him a so-called judge and insinuated that he would lay blame for a terrorist attack squarely at the feet of the judiciary. Presidents routinely object to individual court decisions, but it threatens democracy to go one step further and demonize any judge that dares cross the president. After all, the judiciary is charged with upholding the law and the Constitution not blindly affirming the presidents worldview.

5. Crucially, Trump has accelerated a long-term trend, prodding tens of millions of Americans to further lose faith in basic institutions of American government. Any experts in federal agencies are now the deep state. Trumps team has begun suggesting that the nonpartisan, independent Congressional Budget Office a trusted authority for Democrats and Republicans since 1974 is simply a group of hacks. There is virtually no authority trusted by both Democrats and Republicans anymore. Instead, the opposing sides are all too inclined to view government as captured by evil partisans rather than disagreeing patriots. Rep.Steve King (R-Iowa) made this view explicit, recently calling for a purge of leftists from government in an astonishingly totalitarian tweet. Public trust is part of the lifeblood of democracy, and it is draining faster than ever.

6. Finally, Trump has attacked a cornerstone of every democracy: the free press. He has called legitimate media organizations fake news no fewer than 22 times on Twitter in the first 50 days and many more times in speeches. Worse, Trump called the press the enemy of the American People, language that echoes Mao and Stalin rather than Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy.

Trump only views the press as a legitimate player in American democracy insofar as it is willing to affirm his narrative. To Trump, negative polls are fake. Unfortunately, his attacks are working. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 81 percent of Republicans agree that the media is the enemy of the American people. Eighty-six percent of Republicans trust Trump to tell the truth rather than the media (up from 78 percent just two weeks earlier). Throughout history, the blurring of the line between fact and fiction has been a critical precursor to the breakdown of democracy and the creeping advance of authoritarianism.

Whether these six attacks are a deliberate long-term strategy to erode American democracy, or simply a political ploy to poison the electorates view against any anyone that is willing to defy the president, remains to be seen. Certainly, Trump is not fully to blame; he is capitalizing on long-term divisions and a long-term erosion of American institutions. But he has accelerated those trends.

The Constitution and checks and balances are not magical guardians. Documents dont save democracy people do. American democratic institutions are only as strong as those who fight for them in times of duress. This is one of those times, and this is just the beginning. It will be a long fight. To win it, Democrats and Republicans must set aside policy divides and unite in the defense of democracy.

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How President Trump has already hurt American democracy in just 50 days - Washington Post

Bernie Sanders has launched a withering attack on Donald Trump, accusing him of being a pathological liar who is driving America towards authoritarianism.

In an interview with the Guardian, the independent senator from Vermont, who waged a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, gave a bleak appraisal of the new White House and its intentions.

He warned that Trumps most contentious outbursts against the media, judiciary and other pillars of American public life amounted to a conscious assault on democracy.

Trump lies all of the time and I think that is not an accident, there is a reason for that. He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy.

Sanders warning comes 50 days into the Trump presidency at a time when the country is still reeling from the shock elevation of a real estate businessman and reality TV star to the worlds most powerful office. In that brief period, the new incumbent of the White House has launched attacks on former president Barack Obamas signature healthcare policy; on visitors from majority-Muslim countries, refugees and undocumented immigrants; and on trade agreements and environmental protection programs.

Speaking to the Guardian in his Senate office in Washington DC, Sanders said that he was concerned about what he called Trumps reactionary economic program of tax breaks to billionaires and devastating cuts to programs that impact the middle class. But he reserved his most excoriating language for what he believes are the presidents authoritarian tendencies.

He charged Trump with devising a conscious strategy of lies denigrating key public institutions, from the mainstream media to judges and even the electoral process itself, so that he could present himself as the sole savior of the nation. The aim was to put out the message that the only person in America who stands for the American people, the only person in America who is telling the truth, the only person in America who gets it right is the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

Trumps fragile relationship with the truth has been one of the distinguishing features of his fledgling administration. He astonished observers by calling a judge who issued a legal ruling blocking his travel ban a so-called judge, accused Obama without producing any evidence of wiretapping Trump Tower, and claimed falsely that up to 5 million votes had been cast illegally in the November election.

Sanders, however, suggested the lies all serve a purpose. To underline his point, Sanders compared the 45th president with the 43rd. George Bush was a very conservative president, I opposed him every single day. But George Bush did not operate outside of mainstream American political values.

While the media spotlight remains firmly on Trump and the daily bombardment of his Twitter feed, quietly and largely unmarked, Sanders, the self-styled democratic socialist senator, is spearheading a nationwide resistance to the new administration. The Brooklyn-born politician is working in tandem with, though at arms length from, former senior advisers in his presidential campaign to rouse for a second time the vast army of young people who flocked to his cause in 2016.

He said that despite what he sees as the virulent threat of Trump, he finds comfort in the evidence that the resistance is already in full swing. You are seeing a very active progressive movement. Our Revolution a group which came out of my campaign other groups, the spontaneous Womens March, thats all an indication of the willingness of the American people to fight back for democracy.

Trumps end goal was to end up as the leader of a nation which has moved in a significant degree toward authoritarianism, he said. The only way to defeat that trend is for massive grassroots resistance, and clearly we are seeing that right now.

As examples of what he meant, Sanders pointed to the 150 rallies in 130 congressional districts that were held in one recent weekend alone. The events mobilized tens of thousands of people demanding meetings with their members of Congress to protest against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Sanders made a specific appeal to his Republican colleagues in Congress to join him in this resistance. He addressed himself directly to those Republicans who believe in democracy, who do not believe in authoritarianism. It is incumbent upon them, in this moment in history, to stand up and say that what Trump is doing is not what the United States is about, its not what our constitution is about. They have got to join us in resistance.

He added: I hope in the coming months to be working with some conservative Republicans, who I disagree with on every economic and environmental issue you can imagine, to say to this president that you are not going to undermine American democracy.

The Vermont senator also remarked on the ongoing inquiry into alleged connections between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government under Vladimir Putin. Intelligence agencies have accused the Kremlin of trying to distort the presidential election in Trumps favour by hacking into Democratic email accounts.

Russia played a very heavy role in attempting, successfully, I think, to impact our election. That is unacceptable, Sanders said.

We need to know what kind of influence the Russian oligarchy has over Trump. Many people are astounded. Here he is, seemingly in strong disagreement with Australia, with Mexico, with long-term allies; but he has nothing but positive things to say about Mr Putin who is an authoritarian leader.

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'Trump lies all the time': Bernie Sanders indicts president's assault on democracy - The Guardian

Middlebury College students turn their backs to Charles Murray during his lecture on March 2, 2017. Photo: Lisa Rathke/AP

Heres the latest in the assault on liberal democracy. It happened more than a week ago, but I cannot get it out of my consciousness. A group of conservative students at Middlebury College in Vermont invited the highly controversial author Charles Murray to speak on campus about his latest book, Coming Apart. His talk was shut down by organized chanting in its original venue, and disrupted when it was shifted to a nearby room and livestreamed. When Murray and his faculty interlocutor, Allison Stanger, then left to go to their car, they were surrounded by a mob, which tried to stop them leaving the campus. Someone in the melee grabbed Stanger by the hair and twisted her neck so badly she had to go to the emergency room (she is still suffering from a concussion). After they escaped, their dinner at a local restaurant was crashed by the same mob, and they had to go out of town to eat.

None of this is very surprising, given the current atmosphere on most American campuses. And protests against Murray are completely legitimate. The book he co-authored with Harvard professor Richard Herrnstein more than 20 years ago, The Bell Curve, included a chapter on empirical data showing variations in the largely overlapping bell curves of IQ scores between racial groups. Their provocation was to assign these differences to both the environment and genetics. The genetic aspect could be and was exploited by racists and bigots.

I dont think that chapter was necessary for the books arguments, but I do believe in the right of good-faith scholars to publish data as well as the right of others to object, critique, and debunk. If the protesters at Middlebury had protested and disrupted the event for a period of time, and then let it continue, Id be highly sympathetic, even though race and IQ were not the subject of Murrays talk. If theyd challenged the data or the arguments of the book, Id be delighted. But this, alas, is not what they did. (I should add up-front that I am friends with both Murray and Stanger having edited a symposium on The Bell Curve in The New Republic over two decades ago, and having known Allison since we were both grad students in government at Harvard.)

But what grabbed me was the deeply disturbing 40-minute video of the event, posted on YouTube. It brings the incident to life in a way words cannot. At around the 19-minute mark, the students explained why they shut down the talk, and it helped clarify for me what exactly the meaning of intersectionality is.

Intersectionality is the latest academic craze sweeping the American academy. On the surface, its a recent neo-Marxist theory that argues that social oppression does not simply apply to single categories of identity such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. but to all of them in an interlocking system of hierarchy and power. At least, thats my best attempt to define it briefly. But watching that video helps show how an otherwise challenging social theory can often operate in practice.

It is operating, in Orwells words, as a smelly little orthodoxy, and it manifests itself, it seems to me, almost as a religion. It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., check your privilege, and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. The sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.

Like the Puritanism once familiar in New England, intersectionality controls language and the very terms of discourse. It enforces manners. It has an idea of virtue and is obsessed with upholding it. The saints are the most oppressed who nonetheless resist. The sinners are categorized in various ascending categories of demographic damnation, like something out of Dante. The only thing this religion lacks, of course, is salvation. Life is simply an interlocking drama of oppression and power and resistance, ending only in death. Its Marx without the final total liberation.

It operates as a religion in one other critical dimension: If you happen to see the world in a different way, if youre a liberal or libertarian or even, gasp, a conservative, if you believe that a university is a place where any idea, however loathsome, can be debated and refuted, you are not just wrong, you are immoral. If you think that arguments and ideas can have a life independent of white supremacy, you are complicit in evil. And you are not just complicit, your heresy is a direct threat to others, and therefore needs to be extinguished. You cant reason with heresy. You have to ban it. It will contaminate others souls, and wound them irreparably.

And what I saw on the video struck me most as a form of religious ritual a secular exorcism, if you will that reaches a frenzied, disturbing catharsis. When Murray starts to speak, the students stand and ritually turn their backs on him in silence. The heretic must not be looked at, let alone engaged. Then they recite a common liturgy in unison from sheets of paper. Heres how they begin: This is not respectful discourse, or a debate about free speech. These are not ideas that can be fairly debated, it is not representative of the other side to give a platform to such dangerous ideologies. There is not a potential for an equal exchange of ideas. They never specify which of Murrays ideas they are referring to. Nor do they explain why a lecture on a recent book about social inequality cannot be a respectful discourse. The speaker is open to questions and there is a faculty member onstage to engage him afterward. She came prepared with tough questions forwarded from specialists in the field. And yet: We cannot engage fully with Charles Murray, while he is known for readily quoting himself. Because of that, we see this talk as hate speech. They know this before a single word of the speech has been spoken.

Then this: Science has always been used to legitimize racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, ableism, and homophobia, all veiled as rational and fact, and supported by the government and state. In this world today, there is little that is true fact. This, it seems to me, gets to the heart of the question not that the students shut down a speech, but why they did. I do not doubt their good intentions. But, in a strange echo of the Trumpian right, they are insisting on the superiority of their orthodoxy to facts. They are hostile, like all fundamentalists, to science, because it might counter doctrine. And they shut down the event because intersectionality rejects the entire idea of free debate, science, or truth independent of white male power. At the end of this part of the ceremony, an individual therefore shouts: Who is the enemy? And the congregation responds: White supremacy!

They then expel the heretic in a unified chant: Hey hey, ho ho! Charles Murray has got to go. Then: Racist, Sexist, Anti-gay. Charles Murray, Go away! Murrays old work on IQ demonstrates no meaningful difference between men and women, and Murray has long supported marriage equality. He passionately opposes eugenics. Hes a libertarian. But none of that matters. Intersectionality, remember? If youre deemed a sinner on one count, you are a sinner on them all. If you think that race may be both a social construction and related to genetics, your claim to science is just another form of oppression. It is indeed hate speech. At a later moment, the students start clapping in unison, and you can feel the hysteria rising, as the chants grow louder. Your message is hatred. We will not tolerate it! The final climactic chant is Shut it down! Shut it down! It feels like something out of The Crucible. Most of the students have never read a word of Murrays and many professors who supported the shutdown admitted as much. But the intersectional zeal is so great he must be banished even to the point of physical violence.

This matters, it seems to me, because reason and empirical debate are essential to the functioning of a liberal democracy. We need a common discourse to deliberate. We need facts independent of anyones ideology or political side, if we are to survive as a free and democratic society. Trump has surely shown us this. And if a university cannot allow these facts and arguments to be freely engaged, then nowhere is safe. Universities are the sanctuary cities of reason. If reason must be subordinate to ideology even there, our experiment in self-government is over.

Liberal democracy is suffering from a concussion as surely as Allison is.

Meanwhile, of course, President Trump continues his assault on the very same independent truth in this case, significantly more frightening given his position as the most powerful individual on the planet. He too has a contempt for any facts that do not fit his own ideology or self-image. Thats why the lies he repeats are not just moments of self-interested dishonesty. They are designed to erode the very notion of an empirical reality, independent of his own ideology and power. They are an attack on reason itself. A fact-driven media has to be discredited as fake news if it challenges Trumps agenda. Equally, a bureaucracy designed impartially to implement legislation has to be delegitimized, if its fact-based neutrality challenges Trumps worldview. And so the administrative state, in Steve Bannons words, has to be deconstructed.

Likewise, a health-care bill must be passed through committee before an independent CBO can empirically score it. The overwhelming conclusion of climate scientists that carbon is warming the Earth irreversibly is simply denied by the new head of the EPA. The judiciary can have no legitimate, independent stance if it too counters the presidents interests. A judge who opposes Trump is a so-called judge. Equally, intelligence-gathering can have no validity if it undermines Trumps interests. It suddenly becomes intelligence. It can be ignored. Worse, the intelligence agencies are maligned as inherently political, rather than empirical. Last week, Trump went even further, claiming, with no evidence, that the Justice Department colluded in a criminal wiretap with the previous president to target Trumps candidacy in the last election. Maybe this was designed merely as a distraction from the accumulating lies of his campaign surrogates about their contacts with Russian officials. Maybe it was another temper tantrum from a man with no ability to constrain his emotions by reason. But I tend to think Peter Beinarts take is closer to the mark. Trump was delegitimizing the Justice Department so that he can reject the conclusion of any investigation of his campaigns ties to Russia as politically rigged:

They are all corrupt. They are all agents of the opposition, part of the massive conspiracy to deny Trump his rightful triumph. And thus, the independent standards by which they judge his actions are a sham. There are no independent standards. There is only the truth that comes from Trump himself.

This is the vortex we are being led into by the most reckless, feckless, and malevolent president in this countrys history. It is a vortex where reality itself must subordinate itself to one political side; where facts are always instruments of power and nothing else; where our entire Constitution, designed to balance power against power to give truth and reason a chance, is being deliberately corroded from within. Its been seven weeks. And the damage done to our way of life is already deep, and deepening.

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Thats the year it was meant to explode, because Obama wont be here, the president explained to the House GOP leadership.

Then-president-elect Donald Trump had asked the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to stay on in November.

GOP Representative Justin Amash of Michigan tweeted an apology to his constituents.

Steve Bannons old site (correctly) notes that the House GOPs Obamacare replacement would hurt Trumps base and endanger his party in 2018.

And then force you to mitigate your genetic liabilities, or else accept higher premiums on your health insurance.

As GOP leaders try to whip the AHCA through the House unchanged, Trump is negotiating with conservatives in a way that could destroy Senate support.

Executive-branch employees are supposed to keep quiet on jobs numbers for an hour after their release.

Trump claims he didnt know that Flynn had lobbied for Turkey when he hired him. But his transition team was informed of that before Inauguration Day.

The action star is said to be keen on a Senate run so he can needle Trump, but hell first have to win back Californians.

Another report that hints at the the marginalization of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

A simple question explains the logic of the GOPs hatred for universal health insurance.

Which is to say, pretty much in line with what was happening under Obama.

Its pretty clear the economy was not Clintons problem.

Its the latest academic craze, and in practice it veers far from principles of liberal democracy.

Hes avoided questions from reporters, and wont take any members of the press on his trip to Asia.

Its still unclear what the barrier will look like, and even Republicans are questioning how it will be paid for.

Her ouster following a corruption scandal could have a major impact on how Asia and the U.S. handle North Korea.

Tom Cotton tells CNN that Paul Ryans bill would not solve the problems of our health-care system and would make things probably worse.

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Liberal Democracy Is Suffering From a Concussion - New York Magazine

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Indivisible: A Social Action Startup for Democracy Common Dreams The cognoscenti continue to believe that Washington DC is the center of the US political universe; that everything important happens in DC, whether it's Trump's latest Tweet or congressional action on healthcare or the organization of the Democratic Party. and more »

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Indivisible: A Social Action Startup for Democracy - Common Dreams

March 10, 2017 BeijingIt was a striking end for South Korean President Park Geun-hye.Only six of the eight justices on the South Koreas Constitutional Court needed to support the impeachment motion filed by lawmakers for her to be formally removed from office. When the court announced its ruling on Friday, it was unanimous, making her the countrys first democratically elected leader to be forced from office.

"The negative effects of the president's actions and their repercussions are grave, and the benefits to defending the Constitution by removing her from office are overwhelmingly large, acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said at the hearing, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

The corruption scandal that led to Ms. Parks ouster has plunged South Korea into political turmoil. It has coincided with a resurgence in the Norths nuclear program and an escalation in regional tensions over an advanced US antimissile system being deployed south of Seoul.

Still, the ruling on Friday offers a sign of how far South Koreas young democracy has evolved since it was first established in the late 1980s. It follows months of peaceful protests that drew millions of people into the streets, as well as the legislative impeachment vote in December that suspended Parks presidential powers.

South Korea's ruling and opposition parties both said they would accept the courts decision ahead of its announcement on Friday in another sign of the countrys maturing political institutions.

The courts ruling shows that in any circumstance Korea's democracy is still solid, including the president's impeachment, Lee Won-jae, a prominent economist and political commentator, says in an email from Seoul. Its historic because it tells us that the people have power superior to the president the most powerful person in the country.

Park was South Koreas first female president and the daughter of the military dictator Park Chung-hee. Nostalgia for her fathers conservative rule led her a sweeping electoral victory in 2012.

In the aftermath of her dramatic downfall, political power is expected to shift in the direction of the liberal opposition. Among the oppositions major policy proposals are its calls for more engagement with North Korea and defusing tensions with neighboring China.

The courts ruling on Friday, which was met with protests by hundreds of Park's supporters, brought an end to Parks nearly five years in power. But the corruption case is far from over. Prosecutors have accused her of extortion, bribery, and abuse of power in connection with allegations that she conspired with a confidante to extort tens of millions of dollars from large companies. Park has maintained her innocence throughout.

Prosecutors have already identified Park as a criminal suspect. Now that shes no longer immune from prosecution, they can make a stronger push for indictment. Their investigations have led to the arrests of former government officials as well as Lee Jae-yong,the de facto leader of Samsung who is accused of bribing Park in return for business favors.

Meanwhile, South Koreans are required by law to elect a new president within 60 days. The acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, will remain in office until the election, which is expected May 9.

Moon Jae-in, a former opposition party leader who lost to Park in the 2012 election, is the front-runner in opinion surveys. He has stressed the need for dialogue with Pyongyang and has said Seoul should reconsider its plans to deploy THAAD, the US missile-defense system.

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In President Park's dramatic ouster, a test of South Korea's young democracy - Christian Science Monitor