Tag: public support
Biden’s Democracy-Defense Credo Does Not Serve U.S. Interests
“We’ve got to prove democracy works,” Joe Biden declared in his first press conference as president. He has dedicated his administration to this task. Biden took office weeks after his predecessor tried to overturn an election and sparked an insurrection. The violent transition of power confirmed America’s spot in the “democratic recession” that has beset dozens of countries since the mid-2000s. Several times since, Biden has remarked that future generations will see that the global contest between democracy and
The Patronage That Undermines Britain’s Peerage
Something that always bothers liberal Britons is that Americans might believe a TV series such as Downton Abbey is a semi-documentary, and that the United Kingdom is still a class-ridden society in thrall to ideas of inherited rank and social position. Because liberal Britons know this is unfair and untrue. Or rather, it is unfair and untrue with one extraordinary exception: the British honors system, the customary practice of awarding medals and titles to citizens.
This exception of ancient
The Queen of the World
Queen Elizabeth II’s longevity alone places her in the pantheon of royal greats. At the time of her death, at Balmoral Castle today, she had served 70 years as Queen—the longest of any sovereign in the English monarchy’s 1,000-year history. But it is not simply her longevity that marks her for greatness, but her ability to stay relevant as the world changed around her.
She was the product of ancestral inheritance but was more popular than any of her
Biden Can Still Turn His Presidency Around
Ronald Reagan did it. So did Bill Clinton. Barack Obama did as well.
Can Joe Biden do it too?
After a difficult first two years in the White House, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama each rebuilt enough public support to win a second term—not long after many observers had labeled them fatally damaged by their early setbacks.
Although the specific environment and challenges confronting those three presidents diverged in many ways, the trajectory of each man’s first term followed the same
Omicron Isn’t Mild for Hospitals
When a health-care system crumbles, this is what it looks like. Much of what’s wrong happens invisibly. At first, there’s just a lot of waiting. Emergency rooms get so full that “you’ll wait hours and hours, and you may not be able to get surgery when you need it,” Megan Ranney, an emergency physician in Rhode Island, told me. When patients are seen, they might not get the tests they need, because technicians or necessary chemicals are in short supply.
So Much for a ‘Foreign Policy for the Middle Class’
The fall of Kabul is a major disaster.
It is a major disaster for the people of Afghanistan, who will now have to live under a theocratic regime that suppresses their most basic liberties, ruthlessly punishes dissenters, and proudly oppresses women. It is a major disaster, in particular, for the tens of thousands of Afghans who helped Western journalists and diplomats in an attempt to build a better country, then looked on in