Category Archives: Populism

Meghan McCain has revealed that she's considering running for office "in a few years," as she voiced concerns about former President Donald Trump's continued power within the Republican party.

McCain, the daughter of late Arizona Senator John McCain, is known for being an outspoken conservative, most notably through her four-year stint as a panelist on The View. While she proudly aligns herself with the right, she has drawn the line at supporting Trump and the wave of populism that has engulfed the party since his 2016 presidential run under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" (MAGA).

During an appearance on British TV network GB News earlier this week, McCain was asked if she would ever consider following in the footsteps of her father by running for a political post.

"Maybe in a few years. It's the first time in my entire life I've ever considered it. But this fever of MAGA has to breakone way or the other," said McCain, who departed The View last summer.

"President Trump has to get re-electedGod forbidagain, or he has to just leave the national stage. Because as we have seen in the last election and in the primaries right now, he can't make candidates but he can break them," she said. "And right now there's still just a lot of people who are winning that are following in his footsteps and I would really love more ideological diversity in the party."

However, McCain added that one stumbling block she could potentially face in her pursuit of public office is the fact that she's the daughter of a politician.

"There's a big disdain for political families in the country right now," she said. "It's very populist. President [George W.] Bush's nephew [George P. Bush], I believe, just ran for office and lost in Texas in his home state. There's a real palette for it where people really don't like it."

In an interview with Newsweek in April, McCain said that she did not vote for Trump on either of his presidential runs in 2016 and 2020. She also said that her refusal to go "full MAGA, red meat, alt-right conservative" or renounce the Republican party in light of the aforementioned group's domination has meant that she is among the lesser-heard voices on conservative airwaves.

"I don't want to say it's completely in the minority, but it's certainly not as loud," she explained of her stance. "There's this feeling where if you're not a full populist and believe in the MAGA movement that you're not welcome."

McCain also told Newsweek that the current culture of the Republican party has made her reluctant to go back in front of the camera in the near future.

"I don't want to have to defend things that are indefensible," she said. "The sins of the Republican Party and the sins of President Trump are not the sins of Meghan. I'm still conservative. You know, obviously, that's never going to change.

"What happens in the future going forward is anyone's guess. Just simply because obviously if President Trump is the nominee [in 2024] I will not be voting for him or supporting him. And you know, I think that to go on TV, people want me to defend everything GOP...I just got really worn out about it."

McCain, whose father faced a number of verbal attacks from Trump, further told Newsweek that there "has to be consequences" for the real-estate mogul in relation to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an apparent attempt to disrupt the formal certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory in a joint session of Congress. The supporters' attack came directly after Trump told them at a nearby Washington, D.C. rally to walk to the Capitol and "fight like hell" to save their country, following his stream of misinformation about the 2020 election results.

While the former president has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection to the riot, the House select committee is investigating the events of January 6 and the related effort to prevent the certification of Biden's win.

"I would like to see real legal ramifications for what happened on January 6, and who's responsible," McCain said. "I understand why it's not the number one issue for American voters, because they're worried about the economy and Russia and security and safety in major cities. I understand all of that.

"But there still has to be consequences for this behavior and this kind of violence. My fear and my sort of anxiety in this space is just that, I feel like I have been told so many times that this is going to be the moment this is going to be the thing that finally, you know, gets him. This is the lawsuit, this is the whatever this is."

She added of Trump: "His legacy will be one of division and conflict and January 6. But my family, and I feel like I can speak for all of my six siblings and my mother, in the sense like, we do not give a f**k what a Trump thinks of my family. I never will."

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Meghan McCain Mulling Run for Office'This Fever of MAGA Has to Break' - Newsweek

For decades, it has been obvious that the UN system needs to be reformed to account for the realities of the twenty-first century. Yet recommendations to restructure global governance have been ignored by those with the power to carry them out, leaving us with a world of multiplying crises for which there are few solutions.

BAKU Just as the world was beginning to recover from one of the biggest crises in recent decades, another one has erupted in Europe. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic underscored our common humanity, Russias war on Ukraine has reminded us of how fragile, interconnected, and interdependent our world is. As the Chinese say, All is one under heaven.

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Intensifying great-power confrontations and deglobalization are jeopardizing world peace and security. New crises seem to be lurking around every corner, but appropriate solutions are nowhere to be seen not in the Far East, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, or Latin America. The popular mood has darkened, reinvigorating populism, nationalism, Islamophobia, and other atavistic trends that threaten the progressive achievements humanity has made since World War II.

The Ukraine crisis itself is a symptom of deeper structural problems in the international order. That order, led by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has failed to live up to the principles of good governance enshrined in the UN Charter.

New global orders tend to emerge from major wars. In the case of WWII, the victors created structures designed to preserve international peace and security. But while our increasingly integrated world has changed dramatically since the UNs founding, our organizing principles still reflect the mentality of the post-war and Cold War era. Within the current framework, a failure to respond to global challenges is a failure of the entire international community.

Can the system be reformed? Calls since the early 1990s to restructure the UN system the avatar for the broader international order have consistently fallen on deaf ears. Worse, Russia and China are now using their seats at the helm of the international order to push for a more multipolar system. Rather than working to reform the current framework, they are challenging its validity.

Humanitys collective achievements over the past seven decades are a testament to why we must work together to make the UN system more fair, inclusive, and attentive to peoples needs and aspirations. Indeed, that was the mission of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annans High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change in 2003.

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Consisting of 16 eminent figures from different parts of the world, and chaired by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, the panel analyzed contemporary threats to international peace and security; evaluated how well existing policies and institutions had done in addressing those threats; and offered recommendations aimed at strengthening the UN and enabling it to provide collective security for the twenty-first century.

The panels final report made clear that all of the UNs principal organs needed reform, including the Security Council, which the panel argued should be expanded. Unfortunately, the Security Councils veto-wielding permanent members simply ignored the panels recommendations, setting the stage for todays paralysis and dysfunction.

The Middle East is especially in need of a well-functioning, genuinely representative UN system. No region has suffered more from the unfair bipolar and unipolar dynamics of the past. We have been the altar on which the principles of the international order are routinely sacrificed. The same principles that led to the creation of the State of Israel also led to the Palestinians being deprived of their homeland and denied their basic rights to self-determination and statehood.

As the Middle East has gone from one war to another, from one catastrophe to another, and from one UN resolution to another, justice has continuously eluded it. Every time an Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern issue comes up, the hypocrisy of the great powers that lead the international order becomes crystal clear.

The leaders of those powers need to come to their senses. Reforming the existing order requires new thinking by all UN member states, including the Security Councils five permanent members. The international order can preserve peace and security only to the extent that it is equitable and capable of meeting the challenges that humanity faces. Short of that, geopolitical upheavals will continue to threaten world peace and security.

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Rethinking the Global Order by Turki bin Faisal al-Saud - Project Syndicate

Cosmogonicis a6DoF, seated/standing 8-minute experience. It is the first VR experience inspired by the famous Polish science-fiction writer, Stanisaw Lem a futurist who is well acquainted with how fictional worlds can often encroach upon reality.

In Cosmogonic, we travel into the memories of the title character, a once-great robot engineer, to visit the planet of Actinuria. Here, the Pallatinids, a society of giant robots, live under the cruel King Archithor. Fearing a conspiracy, he forces the citizens to wear suits of uranium armor, which cause an explosion if too many of them gather. But one of them, a bold, young inventor named Pyron, decides to use science and technology to inspire a revolution. This adaptation of a 1964 novel by Lem speaks perfectly to today's world, where populism and disinformation threaten democracy. It is a testament to the importance of knowledge and community in the universal drive to freedom.

In a statement, director Pawe Szarzyski said:

We were pleased to share this project with the world at the NewImages Festival, showcasing our culture and inspiration based on the works of Polish science-fiction writer, Stanisaw Lem. The intersections of technology, history, culture, and science are elements that we hold near and dear to our hearts. We believe that the NewImages Festival was the perfect destination to reveal the world's first VR experience, inspired by Stanisaw Lem.

Cosmogonicwas a part of Cannes XR at the March du Film at the Festival de Cannes.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT COSMOGONIC, PLEASE VISIT:

XR exhibition: the full line-up (2022)

ABOUT KINHOUSE STUDIO:

Kinhouse Studio is a Warsaw-based independent production company founded by two siblings, producer Marta Szarzyska and animator/director Pawe Szarzyski. Based on their experiences in the commercial and arthouse industries, both Marta and Pawe believe that power lies in collaboration. Kinhouse is committed to creating distinctive work and building connections across cultures. Most recently, the studio has produced the feature film SONGS ABOUT LOVE (2021) and the animated VR experience COSMOGONIC (2022).

SOURCE Statement Strategies Ltd.

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COSMOGONIC MADE ITS WORLD PREMIERE IN PARIS, FRANCE, AT THE 5TH NEWIMAGES FESTIVAL - PR Newswire

It used to be said of British politics that a persons allegiance could be determined by asking on which side they would have fought in the Battle of Naseby: King or Parliament, Cavalier or Roundhead, Charles or Cromwell, Tory or Labour, Conservative or Socialist, were projected onto the battle of lines at Naseby. Recent times have, however, rendered that question a much less accurate indicator of contemporary political identity. Roundheads and Cromwellians now appear with disconcerting regularity on the Right of British politics. As Critic contributor Marcus Walker recently commented:

We are pretty rapidly heading towards the point where we are going to need a new name for those trading under the label conservative but for whom the Crown, the Established Church, and all the other pillars of the nation are entirely expendable in their culture war.

If Naseby no longer works as an indicator of political allegiance for British conservatism, we might consider another historic conflict between constitutional order and revolutionary zeal. The new divide on the British Right is between those who would have worn redcoats and those who would have been found in blue in North America during the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783; between Loyalists and Tories, on one side, and Whigs and Rebels, on the other; between those who would have been loyal to George III (the monarch whose reputation Andrew Roberts recent book brilliantly restores and vindicates) and those who would have signed the Declaration of Independence.

Tories historically valued the unelected parts of the British constitution

For those who remained loyal to the Crown in 1776 around one third of the colonists the voices now raised on the Right against the monarchy, the settled Constitution and the Church of England would sound disturbingly familiar. It was the rebels who rejected the monarchy, spoke of a republic and assailed the established Church. By contrast, Daniel Leonard, a Massachusetts Loyalist, referring to Crown and Parliament, stated, An American Tory is a supporter of our excellent constitution. Similarly, Samuel Seabury, a Loyalist Church of England parson in New York, declared that the aim of a Loyalist and Tory was to transmit our present free and happy constitution untainted and uncorrupted to his posterity.

The idea that the British Constitution with its historic ability over centuries to evolve, provide stability, underpin security and prosperity, and secure liberty against both tyrant and mob should be overturned in a fit of pique because of bishops criticising an immigration policy or the heir to the throne voicing (entirely sensible) environmental concerns would strike the Loyalists of 1776 as an absurd embrace of the rebel cause.

Charles Inglis, another Loyalist cleric, rejoiced that the distinguishing glory of the British constitution was that it is a happy mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and thus so tempered and balanced, that each is kept within its proper bounds, and the good of the whole thereby promoted. In 1776, the Loyalists were particularly aware that liberties were better protected by the checks and balances of a mixed constitution than by invoking the abstraction that is the People. It is precisely the unelected parts of the British constitution monarchy, bishops in the House of Lords, judiciary that Tories have historically valued as wise and necessary means of checking a popular fervour which can all too easily threaten rights and liberties. Or, as Inglis put it, no real friend of British liberty would destroy the balance of our ancient constitution.

The Loyalists and Tories of 1776 were also aware of the significance of the Church of Englands role in promoting communal peace and protecting the gift of constitutional order. The quiet conformity of Anglicanism, promoting an ethic of love and charity with your neighbours, contrasted with what one Loyalist writer described as the black regiment, the Dissenting clergy (identified by their black preaching gowns, hence the term) who took so active a part in the Rebellion. The failure of Anglican parsons to promote the political agenda of the rebels, particularly in refusing to abandon the Prayer Books prayers for the monarch, often resulted in mobs driving them from church and home. The Prayer Books petition to be quietly governed was not what the rebels desired. Their preference was for clergy who, as another Loyalist stated, acted like votaries of Mars, the god of war.

The rebels encouraged an apocalyptic vision of purifying conflict

As the Loyalists defended the settled constitutional order and the communal peace it secured, the rebels were urging Liberty or Death! and Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God. While the rebels encouraged an apocalyptic vision of purifying conflict between the forces of liberty and imagined tyranny, Loyalists such as Seabury were warning against the horrid carnage of a civil war. Leonard likewise lamented that whenever the sword of civil war is unsheathed, devastation will pass through our land like a whirlwind. For the Loyalists and Tories of 1776, constitutional order and communal peace were precious goods to be protected, too easily sacrificed in the pursuit of ideological abstractions.

It is clear that for some on the Right of British politics, Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has a much greater attraction than peace, order and good government under the Crown, defended by the Loyalists and Tories in the Revolutionary War (and, indeed, by their descendants in the War of 1812). However, the brittle mixture of populism and libertarianism which shaped the American Republic represents a very different understanding than that to which a traditional Toryism should be committed.

The Tory vision of ordered liberty, under the Crown, governed by Parliament, underpinned by shared communal duties and obligations stands in stark contrast to Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is less prone to ugly populism, more humane and civilised in its moderation of libertarian demands. Closely related to this, because it has encouraged a much more modest and cautious conservative politics, it is a polity less vulnerable to what American historian Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style which has routinely inflamed emotions and banished reason from American politics.

Heeding the wisdom of the Loyalists of 1776 would be a means of encouraging both a traditional Tory vision of the British constitution and a renewal of the moderation and caution which has traditionally defined British conservatism. It would be a rejection of US-style culture wars, with their apocalyptic tones zealously promoted by enthusiasts on both Left or Right, and a grateful reaffirmation of the strengths of the British constitutional order. It would, in other words, recognise that the Loyalists were right: that the peace, order, and good government secured under the Crown, through Parliament, and underpinned by our shared duties and communal obligations, offers an ordered liberty more meaningful than the claims of 1776.

Samuel Seabury, one of the Loyalists quoted here, has achieved some fame through his appearance in the popular musical Hamilton. The words sung by the character of Seabury in the musical serve as a good reminder of why British conservatives should, rather than following the rebels of 1776, listen to the Loyalists: Heed not the rabble who scream revolution, They have not your interests at heartChaos and bloodshed are not a solution, Dont let them lead you astray.

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The good sense of King George | Laudable Practice - The Critic

Opening the major event in Strasbourg, Youth Action Week which marks the 50th anniversary of the Council of Europes youth sector, Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejinovi Buri called on young people to remain engaged in revitalising democracy and in addressing the emerging threats to human rights, democracy and the rule of law, including in the context of the ongoing military aggression of Russia against Ukraine.

This week will see the emergence of ideas and examples that will be a source of inspiration, both in the Council of Europe and in all the countries of our continent, said Marija Pejinovi Buri to some 450 participants of the Youth Action Week, noting that their recommendations proposed as a result of the week will be heard, as they come at the important moment, marked by the return of the populism and nationalism on our continent.

They threaten to silence your voice, she warned, stressing that the most extreme example of such tendencies is the brutal, illegal and ongoing aggression of Russia against Ukraine. The consequences are shocking: rape, murder and torture, so many crimes that we had hoped never to see again in Europe, the Secretary General said. Many young people remained in the country and witnessed these horrors, which will stay with them forever. Others have fled their homes and communities in search of safety in neighbouring countries. Our thoughts are with them all. The Secretary General added that several young Ukrainian activists are participating in the Youth Action Week and mentioned other ways the Council of Europe works with Ukrainian youth organisations and authorities, and adjusts its activities to the evolving situation.

For half a century, the Council of Europe has been leading the development of participative and inclusive youth policies, youth work and youth research in Europe. Much has been done; the importance of these achievements for Europe has been reiterated by the Secretary General, as well as by other speakers at the opening session: Ambassador Breifne OReilly, Permanent Representative of Ireland and Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers; Spyros Papadatos, President of the Advisory Council on Youth and Vronique Bertholle, Deputy Mayor of the City of Strasbourg. Actively promoting participatory democracy and engagement with young people is one of the priorities of the Irish Presidency, which supports the event.

Among the milestones of the Council of Europes work with and for youth since 1972 are the establishment of two European Youth Centres, in Strasbourg and Budapest; setting up of the European Youth Foundation to provide financial and educational support to young peoples projects; the creation of a unique co-management system bringing together governments, Council of Europe and young people to make sure the voice of young people are taken into account in policy-making at the national and international levels. The campaigns All Different All Equal and the No Hate Speech Campaign were initiated by young people and reached out to them in all member states. The Council of Europe will continue its work with young people, governments and other actors in its member states, under the Youth sector strategy 2030, the Committee of Ministers Recommendation on protecting youth civil society and young people, and in other frameworks, stressed the speakers.

The Youth Action Week is a flagship event of the youth campaign to revitalise democracy Democracy Here, Democracy Now. Throughout the week, young people are debating such urgent issues as the right to vote, non-discrimination, gender equality, the role of education in building democracy, the threat of hate speech, minority youth, disruptive youth participation, digital citizenship, as well as peace and the resilience in the face of armed conflict.

Speech by the Secretary General

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Young people should stand up against populism, nationalism and extremism that risk silencing their voices, says Secretary General - Council of Europe

I suppose many people will have asked themselves whether there is not a contradiction of sorts in a society which appears to prohibit state legislatures from infringing the right of all citizens to keep and bear firearms on the one hand but upholds a right for the same state legislatures to prohibit all abortions, even for juvenile rape victims, on the other hand.

If all human life, from embryonic to centenarian, is sacred and requires protection, is it rational to allow hot-headed young men to buy, keep and carry multiple automatic weapons capable of inflicting slaughter of the innocents of whatever age?

And yet in a few short days the US Supreme Court has interpreted the US constitution in exactly those ways. Reversing Roe v Wade has the effect of putting every state in the US in the same position as Ireland. It is for state legislators to decide on the circumstances, if any, in which any pregnant woman is legally permitted to terminate her pregnancy as it is in Ireland.

Of course, Ireland and the US are coming to this issue from very different places we had as a people by referendum enacted the 8th Amendment to forestall any court decision such as Roe v Wade or any legislative decision to legalise any kind of abortion. The US, by contrast, had a Supreme Court decision enshrining as a constitutional right a womans right to choose, so as to prevent conservative states from outlawing or radically restricting the same right to choose.

The US 2nd Amendment provides as follows: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In the Heller case in 1986, the late Justice Scalia delivered the majority opinion and in a very detailed historical analysis argued that the wording of the amendment did not imply that the citizens right to keep bear arms was in some way conditional on their potential use in a state militia. He viewed the right as part of the Bill of Rights in the US constitution and that it derived from the right of individual self defence rather than idea of membership of an organised militia.

The recent mass shooting of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, is but a grotesque example of where Americas gun culture has bought its citizens. There have been 1.5 million gun-deaths in the US in the period 1968 to 2017, which as the BBC pointed out recently is more than the entire death toll of American soldiers in battles and wars since the declaration of independence in 1776.

In 2020, there were 45,000 gun-deaths, a 43 per cent increase since 2010. Of them nearly 25,000 were suicides while nearly 20,000 were classed as homicides. Of the 7.5 million new first-time gunowners in 2019 to 2021, half were women and 40 per cent were black or Hispanic. What do they fear?

The American conservative right alliance which supports abortion bans but opposes assault rifle bans is growing in power. It opposes socialised medicine as a stepping stone to communism or Nazi-ism. It supports political action committees which spend vast sums of money raised from the wealthy to drive tax cuts and influence election outcomes.

As I wrote here some months ago, the Republicans are likely to win control of both Houses of Congress this autumn. Trump could easily emerge as their candidate for 2024 unless Floridas governor, Ron DeSantis, can head him off. The re-election of Biden or Kamala Harris seems very unlikely now. The Trump-packed Supreme Court may well target gay marriage in the coming months, if Justice Clarence Thomas is to be believed. His spouse was active in Trumps stolen election conspiracy.

The January 6th Committee has produced compelling evidence of the seditious plot by Trump and his cronies to quash the result of the 2020 election. But Teflon Trump supporters simply dont care. They are adept at targeting the people they dont like while shielding their own madmen from scrutiny or penalty.

Just wait for Trump to come up with a joint Trump-Putin solution for Ukraine. Trumps silence on the Putins savage war has been deafening.

Trumps erstwhile British acolyte, Boris Johnson is using Ukraine to throw shapes on the international stage. But how long will his party allow him to sit figuratively at the wheel of a badly dented political Land Rover, a vehicular throwback to the glory days of Churchill and empire?

Economic out-workings of Ukraine war have the potential to radicalise and polarise opinion in the western democracies. There is little room for complacency or optimism as long as Rupert Murdoch broadcasts Tucker Carlsons toxic views into the homes of middle-America.

The fruits of populism are showing signs of ripening, falling and rotting

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Michael McDowell: The fruits of populism are ripening, falling and rotting - The Irish Times

MANILA Just weeks after appointing A-list technocrats to his cabinet, President-elect Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr is showing his populist stripes.

The Filipino leader, who will officially be sworn in by the end of this month, has made the unprecedented move of appointing himself as incoming agriculture secretary, thus concurrently serving in key top positions in the next government.

The surprising move comes amid soaring inflation, as millions of Filipinos grapple with record-high energy and food costs.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, inflation hit 4.9% in April, the fastest pace in more than three years and way higher than the 2-4% inflation target band set by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for 2022.

The Department of Energy, meanwhile, has warned of a continuous increase in gasoline prices for the foreseeable future, driven by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The incoming presidents critics claim he lacks the expertise and understanding of pricing mechanisms to transform the Philippines agricultural sector.

Others sense that the namesake son of a former Filipino dictator is merely engaging in pie-in-the-sky populism, particularly in regard to his promise to slash the price of staple foods by more than half.

In particular, he has claimed he will cut rice prices by more than half to 20 pesos (US$0.3704) per kilo.

To do this, Marcos has said there must be a regular and thorough inventory of rice harvests held by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the National Food Authority (NFA), both of which will procure rice harvests from local farmers at higher and more competitive prices. According to Marcos, this will prevent rice cartels from controlling the supply.

Marcos likely realizes that well-targeted agricultural policies and programs will be key to maintaining his popularity and political stability after his recent landslide election win.

As to agriculture, I think that the problem is severe enough that I have decided to take on the portfolio of Secretary of Agriculture, at least for now and at least until we can reorganize the Department of Agriculture in the way that will make it ready for the next years to come, Marcos told a news conference days before his inauguration.

We need to change many things. There are offices that are no longer useful, or need retooling post-pandemic since things are being done differently now, added the new president-elect while vowing to enhance the countrys food security and overhaul the agriculture sector.

To be sure, the Philippines agricultural sector is in deep crisis. Despite having one of the most fertile agricultural lands in the world, the country has repeatedly faced food shortages in recent decades.

Despite a deep economic recession in 2020, the Southeast Asian country remained the worlds largest rice importer, according to the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Services.

A year earlier, the Philippines imported 2.9 million metric tons of rice, with imports nearly quadrupling in the last three years. Nearly 80% of the Philippines rice imports are sourced from Vietnam, underscoring the formers precarious situation.

Meanwhile, the average age of farmers in the Philippines is around 58 years old, which portends a long-term labor shortage in the critical sector.

The Philippines food security crisis is the upshot of a failed land reform program, a lack of investment in rural infrastructure and agriculture financing, and a proliferation of import cartels and predatory middlemen who have crushed various agricultural industries.

Things came to head in 2018, when the government confronted a simultaneous increase in the price of rice, a rapid depletion in food reserves and weevil infestations that devastated crops.

In the third quarter of that year, the price of milled rice jumped to 46 pesos (US$9) per kilo, pushing millions of Filipinos close to or over the poverty line.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Dutertes administration was thus forced to revisit its policy of quantitative restrictions (QRs), which ensured only a few suppliers secured import licenses from the National Food Authority (NFA) to protect domestic producers.

In 2019, the Philippines passed a landmark Rice Tariffication Law, which liberalized rice importations in order to reduce the price of staple food in the country.

The move was particularly controversial, with several senators and civil society groups warning of further damage to the countrys already fragile agriculture sector.

Meanwhile, the price of staple foods such as rice has not significantly declined, with the ongoing shocks to global energy and food markets triggering fast-rising inflation in the Philippines.

On the campaign trail, Marcos Jr zeroed in on the sad state of the countrys agriculture sector as a central theme of his candidacy. He vowed to halve the price of staple foods such as rice by amending the Rice Tariffication Law and strengthening food production at home.

Our farmers are pitiful because even without being ravaged by typhoons and calamities, they are already in a catastrophe because they are even being charged for water for irrigation, Marcos said during an interview in April.

After winning the presidency, Marcos Jr sought to reassure jittery markets by appointing seasoned technocrats to key positions in his cabinet, including at the department of finance, national economic and development authority and the BSP.

All the while, though, the new Filipino leader has refused to budge on his various populist pledges, which analysts and observers note hell be able to more readily implement as acting agriculture secretary.

From the very beginning, I have always said that agriculture is going to be a critical and foundational part of our economic development or economic transformation as we anticipate the post-pandemic economy, Marcos Jr told the media earlier this month.

He alleged neighboring Vietnam and Thailand were planning on forming rice export cartels, which if true would further exacerbate the Philippines food insecurity.

You may have noted that Thailand and Vietnam, for example, one of our main sources of imported rice, have decided to ban their rice exports at least for now. So we have to compensate for that by increasing production here in the Philippines, he said.

Marcos Jr has already promised to overhaul the Department of Agriculture by reorganizing its attached agencies such as the National Food Authority (NFA), the Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) and the Kadiwa program.

Marcos Jr has emphasized the need to overhaul the countrys agricultural sector as a critical and foundational part of the Philippines post-pandemic recovery and long-term economic transformation.

Yet there are few, if any, indications so far that the new Filipino leader is willing to address entrenched structural problems, including price-distorting food import cartels, predatory intermediaries and, perhaps most importantly, the lack of land reform, which continues to keep countless Filipino farmers in abject poverty.

Some critics fear that Marcos Jr, who has been accused of corruption and tax evasion, seeks direct control over the 71 billion peso ($1.4 billion) agricultural trust fund, which they note was previously misappropriated by his ex-dictator fathers cronies.

Leading legislators and experts, meanwhile, have openly questioned the feasibility of Marcos Jrs populist pledges including his ambitious food price pledge.

Impossible. You kill the livelihood of 3.6 million rice farmers, said leading economist and congressman Joey Salceda, who warned of potentially disastrous repercussions of the new presidents promise to halve the price of basic commodities such as rice.

Rolando Dy, executive director of the Center for Food and Agribusiness at the University of Asia and the Pacific, similarly dismissed the pledge as impossible, while calling on the new Filipino president to instead focus on appointing competent officials.

He has to rely on good advisers. He has to appoint competent undersecretaries for operations and high-value crops, Dy said.

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Marcos bids to be man of the Filipino farmer - Asia Times

A review of Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).

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American liberal democracy is in serious disarray. Nothing better both symbolizes and exemplifies that disarray than the fact that Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, has become an armed camp. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House are defended by a variety of police forces, high-tech nonscalable fences, anti-ram car barriers and bollards, search points, x-ray screeners, and virtually every other security device known to man. It is all a necessary reaction to the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob seeking to overturn the election. With a large number of armed Americans in the grip of conspiracy theories and continuing to regard the Biden administration as an illegitimate tyranny, the possibility of recurring violence cannot be discounted.

The picture is further darkened by the impending congressional elections, in which any number of election deniersthose who cling to the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trumpare on the ballot for positions overseeing elections themselves. And looming large in the background, of course, is the specter of Trump returning to the presidency in 2024, a development that could well spell the end of Americas two-and-a-half-century experiment in constitutional self-government.

It is within this foreboding climate that Francis Fukuyama has written a slender volume, Liberalism and Its Discontents, a defense of liberalism against the severe threat it faces not only in America but around the world. If the institutions of liberal democracy are under assault, so too are the ideas behind those institutions, and it is those ideas with which Fukuyama grapples.

The problem, as Fukuyama sees it, does not arise from deficiencies within liberal doctrine itself but, rather, from the way in which liberalism has evolved in recent decades, with certain sound liberal ideas pushed to extremes. These distortions have led to challenges that come from both left and right, authoritarian populism on one side, and authoritarian progressivism on the other. But the twinned threats are not symmetrical. The one coming from the right is more immediate and political; the one on the left is primarily cultural and therefore slower-acting.

One of the distortions of liberalism travels under the name of neoliberalism. Deregulation and privatization pursued by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s had salutary effects on economic growth. But what began as a valid insight into the superior efficiency of markets, writes Fukuyama, evolved into something of a religion, in which state intervention was opposed as a matter of principle. Abroad, this led to disaster. For example, when the neoliberal Washington Consensus was applied to the former Soviet Union, where no rule-of-law infrastructure was in place, large chunks of the Soviet economy were gobbled up by clever oligarchs whose malign influence continues to the present day.

Here at home, deregulation of the financial sector led to the crisis of 2008, which brought hardship to millions of Americans. Something similar can be said about free trade and open-door immigration, both of which promisedand probably deliveredimproved aggregate economic welfare but had deleterious second-order effects. There were adverse distributional consequences, which took the form of deindustrialization, and a social backlash, which is one of the factors underpinning the political crisis that confronts the United States today.

If neoliberalism pushed liberal premises in an untoward direction, a similar process was underway on the left, where liberalism, in Fukuyamas telling, evolved into modern identity politics, versions of which then began to undermine the premises of liberalism itself. Identity politics has become kind of a bugaboo among conservatives of all stripes. But Fukuyama is simultaneously sympathetic and critical. When it came to various groupswomen, African Americans, homosexualsliberalism has historically fallen short of its universal promises. Understood in this fashion, Fukuyama writes, identity politics seeks to complete the liberal project, and achieve what was hoped to be a color-blind society.

The trouble is that identity politics itself veered into an extreme doctrine. Fukuyama traces the path from Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher of the New Left, to critical theory, which took aim at the very concept of individualism as a Western invention, a product of a blinkered Eurocentrism that fails to take into account the fact that real world societies are organized into involuntary groups in which people are categorized according to characteristics like race or gender over which they have no control. But Fukuyama offers a compelling defense of liberalism from this charge, demonstrating how individualism is hardly a white or European characteristic. And even to the extent that liberal individualism may be a historically contingent by-product of Western civilization, at the same time, it has proven to be highly attractive to people of varied cultures once they are exposed to the freedom it brings.

In one of the most incisive sections of his book, a chapter entitled Are There Alternatives, Fukuyama takes note of the many legitimate criticisms made of liberal societies:

They are self-indulgently consumerist; they dont provide a strong sense of community or common purpose; they are too permissive and disrespect deeply held religious values; they are too diverse; they are not diverse enough; they are too lackadaisical about achieving genuine social justice; they tolerate too much inequality; they are dominated by manipulative elites and dont respond to the wishes of ordinary people.

The question that must always be posed, however, in response to such criticisms is, compared to what? The principal alternatives to liberalism in the 20th centurycommunism and fascismboth had some rather glaring disadvantages: draconian repression, genocide, and expansionist aggression. What else is on offer these days? Fukuyama takes up the contemporary alternatives to liberalism put forward by both right and left.

On the right, various postliberal theorists share the conviction that liberal society is a moral wasteland and that the free market, liberalisms economic component, only compounds the problem, relentlessly dissolving bonds of family, religion, and tradition, undermining civilization itself. Fukuyama readily concedes that liberal societies provide no strong common moral horizon around which community can be built, pointing out that this is a feature and not a bug of liberalism. The question he poses is, even if it were desirable, whether there is a realistic way to roll back the secularism of contemporary liberal societies and reimpose a thicker moral order. In an increasingly secular and diverse society such as Americas, he argues, restoring a shared moral horizon defined by religious beliefwhether imposed by persuasion or coercionis a practical non-starter.

From the left, Fukuyama considers the possibility of a vast intensification of existing trends in which [c]onsiderations of race, gender, gender preference, and other identity categories would be injected into every sphere of everyday life, and would become the primary considerations for hiring, promotion, access to health, education, and other sectors. But Fukuyama, pointing to strong limits on the electorates acceptance of this cultural agenda, judges it unlikely that anything like it will be realized.

Liberalism and Its Discontents is Fukuyamas 10th book. Within the confines of a review, it is difficult to do justice to the wide scope of an argument that, drawing on philosophy, history, and economics, traverses a mere 178 pages. It is a volume that further cements Fukuyamas well-deserved reputation as one of Americas most thoughtful and perspicacious students of political, social, and intellectual life.

Even as Fukuyama points to liberalisms resilience, it would be foolish to charge him with complacency about the possibility of either the left- or right-wing alternative to liberalism reaching fruition. After all, he has written this volume out of a sense of urgency about the perils in which liberalism finds itself. But even with liberalisms resilience in mind, it is important to consider the extraordinary character of the current moment. Things that would have been thought impossiblelike the election of a malevolent carnival barker as president of the United States, like a coup attempt by that same president, or like a major war in Europehave already occurred. This is a moment of maximum fluidity. There are no guarantees that American liberal democracy will continue to be liberal and democratic. It is all too probable that more unimaginable shocks lie in the future.

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Defending Liberalism From the Right and Left - Lawfare

The rise of right-wing populism has been a feature of European politics over the last fifteen years. Drawing on a new report, Daphne Halikiopoulou and Tim Vlandas explain what we have learned about the appeal of right-wing populist parties, and what other parties can do to counter their success.

Following a varied and more subdued performance in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis spurred an increase in right-wing populist party support across Europe. Worryingly, these developments have taken place at the expense of the mainstream: while the average electoral score of right-wing populist parties has been steadily increasing over time, support for both the mainstream left and right has declined (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The rise of right-wing populist parties has come at the expense of both the mainstream left and right

This right-wing populist momentum sweeping Europe has three key features. First, there has been the successful electoral performance of parties pledging to restore national sovereignty and implement policies that consistently prioritise natives over immigrants. Many right-wing populist parties have improved their electoral performance over time, although there remain important cross-national variations (Figure 2).

The French Rassemblement National (RN), the Austrian Party for Freedom (FP), and the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) have all increasingly managed to mobilise voters beyond their support core groups, significantly increasing their support in their domestic electoral arenas. At the same time, countries previously identified as outliers because of the absence of an electorally successful right-wing populist party are no longer exceptional such as Portugal with the rise of Chega and Spain with the rise of Vox.

Figure 2: Cumulative share of right-wing populist party votes received in most recent election

Second, there has been an increasing entrenchment of these parties in their respective political systems through access to office. A substantial number of right-wing populist parties have either governed recently or served as formal cooperation partners in right-wing minority governments. Examples include the Lega in Italy, the FP in Austria, Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary, the Danish Peoples Party (DF), and the National Alliance (NA) in Latvia. The so-called cordon sanitaire the policy of marginalising extreme parties has broken down even in countries where it has been traditionally effective, such as Estonia and Sweden.

Third, right-wing populist parties have increasingly gained the ability to influence the policy agenda of other parties. Parties such as the Rassemblement National, the Sweden Democrats and UKIP have successfully competed in their domestic systems, permeating mainstream ground and influencing the agendas of other parties. As a result, mainstream parties on the right and, in some instances, on the left have often adopted accommodative strategies mainly regarding immigration.

Understanding the rise of right-wing populist parties

What explains this phenomenon? Researchers and pundits alike tend to emphasise the political climate of right-wing populist normalisation and systemic entrenchment, where issues owned by these parties are salient: immigration, nationalism and cultural grievances. The importance of cultural values in shaping voting behaviour has led to an emerging consensus that the increasing success of right-wing populist parties may be best understood as a cultural backlash.

Figure 3: The demand, supply and policy levels

A sole focus on culture, however, overlooks three key issues at the demand, supply and policy levels, as illustrated in Figure 3 above. First, the predictive power of economic concerns over immigration and the critical distinction between galvanising a core constituency on the one hand and mobilising more broadly beyond this core constituency on the other. Second, the strategies right-wing populist parties themselves are pursuing to capitalise on multiple insecurities, including both cultural and economic. And third, the role of social policies in mitigating those insecurities that drive right-wing populist party support.

People

To address these issues, in a new report we examine the interplay between what we call the three Ps: people, parties and policies. With respect to people, a key question is how cultural and economic grievances affect individuals probability of voting for a right-wing populist party. Similarly, how are these grievances distributed among the right-wing populist party electorate?

We argue that the assumption that immigration is by default a cultural issue is at best problematic. Both cultural and economic concerns over immigration increase the likelihood of voting for right-wing populist party (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Predicted right-wing populist party vote for different levels of cultural and economic concerns over immigration

However, while cultural concerns are often a stronger predictor of right-wing populist voting behaviour, this does not automatically mean that they matter more for the success of right-wing populist parties in substantive terms because people with economic concerns are often a numerically larger group. The main issue to pay attention to here is size: as shown in Figure 5, many right-wing populist party voters do not have exclusively cultural concerns over immigration.

Figure 5: Distribution of immigration concerns

This suggests we must distinguish between core and peripheral voter groups. Voters primarily concerned with the cultural impact of immigration are core right-wing populist party voters. Although they might be highly likely to vote for right-wing populist parties, they also tend to be a numerically small group. By contrast, voters that are primarily concerned with the economic impact of immigration are peripheral voters. They are also highly likely to vote for right-wing populist parties, but in addition they are a numerically larger group. Since the interests and preferences of these two groups can differ, successful right-wing populist parties tend to be those that are able to attract both groups.

Figure 6: Hypothetical representation of difference between predictive power and substantive importance

What determines right-wing populist party success is therefore the ability to mobilise a coalition of interests between core and peripheral voters. As the hypothetical example in Figure 6 shows, it is possible that right-wing populist parties galvanise voters with cultural concerns over immigration, while at the same time their success is dependent on their ability to mobilise economically concerned voters more broadly.

Parties

What strategies do right-wing populist parties adopt to capitalise on their core and peripheral electorates? While we examine the success of parties that tend to be defined as right-wing populist, we are also sceptical about the analytical utility of the term populism to explain the rise of this phenomenon. Instead, we emphasise the importance of nationalism as a mobilisation tool that has facilitated right-wing populist party success. Right-wing populist parties have increasingly emphasised the national way of life (Figure 7).

Right-wing populist parties in Western Europe employ a civic nationalist normalisation strategy that allows them to offer nationalist solutions to all types of insecurities that drive voting behaviour. This strategy has two features: it presents culture as a value issue and justifies exclusion on ideological grounds; and focuses on social welfare and welfare chauvinism.

Figure 7: Value policy priorities of RWPPs in Western and Eastern Europe

Eastern European right-wing populist parties, on the other hand, remain largely ethnic nationalist, focusing on ascriptive criteria of national belonging and mobilising voters on socially conservative positions and a rejection of minority rights. Eastern European right-wing populist parties are also more likely to emphasise negative attitudes towards multiculturalism (Figure 7).

Policies

What type of policies can mitigate the economic risks driving different social groups to support right-wing populist parties? European democracies have operated in a context of falling economic growth rates over recent decades, with recurrent economic crises in the 1970s, early 1990s and from 2008 onwards.

Many advanced economies have in time recovered, but growth has often not returned to the level of previous decades and achieving low inflation has been a policy priority. Many governments have liberalised and activated their labour markets (Figure 8) often at the expense of a growing group of so-called labour market outsiders in precarious contracts.

Figure 8: Rising expenditures and liberalised labour markets in the context of falling growth and increased needs

In addition, accumulating debt is leading to a climate of permanent austerity while constraining the necessary physical and social investments that could underpin future growth. While economic developments obviously affect the life chances and insecurities of individuals, as well as the risks that they face, the degree of redistribution and the social insurance provided by developed welfare states shapes their prevalence and political consequences.

Welfare state policies moderate a range of economic risks individuals face. Our analysis illustrates that this reduces the likelihood of supporting right-wing populist parties among insecure individuals for example, the unemployed, pensioners, low-income workers and employees on temporary contracts.

Our key point here is that political actors have agency and can shape political outcomes: to understand why some individuals vote for right-wing populist parties, we should not only focus on their risk-driven grievances, but also on policies that may moderate these risks. This is consistent with a larger political economy literature documenting the protective effects of welfare state policies on insecurity and inequality.

What to do about it?

While this is a broad phenomenon, there is no single success formula for right-wing populist parties. Our analysis identifies regional patterns and different voter bases and grievances driving right-wing populist party success across Europe. Progressive strategies addressing those necessarily face different obstacles depending on the context. For instance, the Western European centre-left has a better chance of focusing on welfare expansion as an issue they own than many counterparts in Eastern Europe who have lost the ownership of those issues to right-wing populist parties that promote distorted nationalist and chauvinist versions of similar ideas.

Centre-left parties should not be fooled into thinking they can simply copy the right-wing populist party playbook by going fully populist and embracing restrictive immigration policies and questions of national identity. Instead, they should appeal to the economic insecurities that many peripheral right-wing populist party voters are concerned about, focusing on an issue the centre-left owns such as equality. After all, centre-left voters tend to be pro-immigration and a nationalist turn will likely alienate them.

Figure 9: Distribution of immigration concerns as a percentage of centre-left electorates

Successful centre-left strategies must attempt to galvanise the centre-lefts core voter base, addressing the (economic) grievances that concern much larger parts of the whole electorate. Therefore more energy should be invested into thinking about new social investment strategies, growth regimes and/or a universal basic income, rather than focusing purely on the cultural concerns of a small part of the electorate.

For more information, see the authors accompanying report

Note: This article gives the views of theauthors, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Presidenza della Repubblica (Public Domain)

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Understanding right-wing populism and what to do about it - London School of Economics

Slovenias parliament has voted into office a new, center-left government, replacing a right-wing one that had pushed the moderate European Union nation toward populism

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- Slovenias parliament on Wednesday formally voted into office a new, center-left government, replacing a right-wing one that had pushed the moderate European Union nation toward populism.

Lawmakers voted 53-28 for the Cabinet of Robert Golob, head of the liberal-green Freedom Movement party and a former business executive who only recently entered politics.

Golob's Freedom Movement won April 24 elections in Slovenia, defeating the right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa and his Slovenian Democratic Party. Golob has formed an alliance with two left-leaning parties.

The new government is a combination of experienced politicians and experts, Golob told parliament earlier on Wednesday.

Im pleased we have such a good team and I look forward to the weeks, months, years and terms in office ahead, as I know this team will deliver good results," he said.

Golob has said the government would promote social equality, green energy transformation and reform. Slovenias citizens will be proud of their new government, he promised.

I think you can already feel it in the last few weeks that the mood is more relaxed, that tensions have eased, he added.

Golob was referring to political tensions under previous PM Jansa, who has faced accusations of fostering divisions and curbing democratic freedoms. A close ally of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Jansa has denied the allegations.

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Center-left government takes over from populists in Slovenia - ABC News