Tag: public trust
Netanyahu’s Attack on Democracy Left Israel Unprepared
This summer I spent several days in Israel talking with people who were afraid for their country’s future. They were not, at that moment, focused on terrorism, Gaza, or Hamas. They feared something different: the emergence of an undemocratic Israel, a de facto autocracy. In January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his justice minister had announced a package of judicial “reforms” that, taken together, would have given their coalition government the power to alter Israeli legal institutions to their own
Tracing the Decline of Trust in America
Plus: A case for a new veep
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Do you trust America’s institutions more than, less than, or as much as you did a decade ago? Why? Feel free to respond generally or to
The Seven Social-Media Commandments – The Atlantic
Like any other technology, whether nuclear power or the printing press, social media is only as good as the people who use it—and over the past decade, we haven’t exactly used it well. What began as a promising prospect for connecting communities and amplifying new voices has gradually evolved into an engine for sowing upset, distrust, and conspiracy. As the next generation of social-media sites emerges, one question is: Can we do better?
I think so. Rather than holding out
Old Anti-Abortion Laws Are Taking on Unintended Meanings
Abortion opponents seem not to have expected some of the more draconian consequences of the Dobbs decision—that anti-abortion laws would prevent pregnant women who were not seeking abortions from receiving needed treatment for miscarriages, or that women facing dire medical complications from their pregnancies would not be able to get proper care. After all, the anti-abortion laws that were in force in the pre-Roe era before 1973 were almost never used to prosecute doctors treating miscarriages or providing lifesaving
North Carolina Is a Warning
The ad that signaled the coming catastrophe for democracy in North Carolina appeared just four days before the November 2012 election. As the ad opened, a woman’s voice wondered aloud whether voters “can trust Sam Ervin IV to be a fair judge.” Ervin, captured in black and white, looks shifty, moving his eyes back and forth before turning his head suddenly as if he is on the run. Ervin and his family, the ad announced, had donated to the
The Seven Habits of COVID-Resilient Nations
The tweet has stuck with me for months now: a chart of cumulative COVID-19 deaths per capita in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. The U.S. and U.K. lines rise up like mountains relative to the valley of South Korea below. Even as Omicron-related deaths have increased in South Korea more recently, the picture hasn’t changed much.
South Korea “kept deaths 40 times lower all the way till 75% of population fully vaccinated,” the physician Vincent
We May Never Be ‘Fully Vaccinated’
For nearly a year now, the phrase fully vaccinated has carried a cachet that it never did before. Being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is a ticket for a slate of liberties—a pass to travel without testing and skip post-exposure quarantine, per the CDC, and in many parts of the country, a license to enter restaurants, gyms, and bars. For many employees, full vaccination is now a requirement to work; for many individuals, it’s a must for any socialization at all.
NEA President Becky Pringle on Vaccine and Mask Mandates
Nearly 90 percent of members of the National Education Association, America’s largest teachers’ union, self-reported in a recent survey that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. But that still leaves a lot of unvaccinated teachers and school support staff; the union has roughly 3 million members. Becky Pringle, the NEA’s president, has strongly encouraged vaccination, but she told me that regular testing should be available as an alternative to legal mandates: “We have to make sure that school districts work