As someone who has spent their adult life fighting for a safe and stable environment, this is a sad and frightening day. America’s disastrous choice shows how limited our ability to learn and to make self-protective choices is. As the fundamental biophysical basis of our society is undermined, it seems we only become more short-termist, self-centred, and easily fooled
Author: Milan
In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford.
Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.
View all posts by Milan
“On the morning of January 20, 2021, Trump fled DC. Why shouldn’t Biden, in a final rebuke for the man and his movement, return the favour? Johnson wasn’t the first president to skip his successor’s inauguration; that honour belongs to no less a statesman than John Adams, who passed on Thomas Jefferson’s. If there were ever a moment to object to politics as usual, Trump’s return is it.
Of course, that won’t happen. Democrats call themselves the party of democracy, but really, they’re the party of decorum, more invested in politesse than power, learning all the wrong lessons from the past eight years. They’re attached to normalcy as an end in itself, even when the times are anything but normal. If all that sounds familiar, it should. Unthinking adherence to precedent is Biden’s signature. After their resounding defeat in November, Democrats across the party’s ideological spectrum are eager to turn the page. But whether they like it or not, Biden doesn’t just remain their leader. He’s their avatar.”
https://thewalrus.ca/trump-triumphs-or-how-joe-blew-it/
Canadian doc says WHO headquarters ‘stressed, devastated’ as Trump orders U.S. exit
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/canadian-doc-says-who-headquarters-stressed-devastated-as-trump-orders-us-exit/
Yes – sad day
“The country’s vaunted constitutional checks are failing. Trump violated the cardinal rule of democracy when he attempted to overturn the results of an election and block a peaceful transfer of power. Yet neither Congress nor the judiciary held him accountable, and the Republican Party—coup attempt notwithstanding—renominated him for president. Trump ran an openly authoritarian campaign in 2024, pledging to prosecute his rivals, punish critical media, and deploy the army to repress protest. He won, and thanks to an extraordinary Supreme Court decision, he will enjoy broad presidential immunity during his second term.
Democracy survived Trump’s first term because he had no experience, plan, or team. He did not control the Republican Party when he took office in 2017, and most Republican leaders were still committed to democratic rules of the game. Trump governed with establishment Republicans and technocrats, and they largely constrained him. None of those things are true anymore. This time, Trump has made it clear that he intends to govern with loyalists. He now dominates the Republican Party, which, purged of its anti-Trump forces, now acquiesces to his authoritarian behavior.
U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration, in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for liberal democracy: full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties.
The breakdown of democracy in the United States will not give rise to a classic dictatorship in which elections are a sham and the opposition is locked up, exiled, or killed. Even in a worst-case scenario, Trump will not be able to rewrite the Constitution or overturn the constitutional order. He will be constrained by independent judges, federalism, the country’s professionalized military, and high barriers to constitutional reform. There will be elections in 2028, and Republicans could lose them.
But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey. Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose, as they did in Malaysia in 2018 and in Poland in 2023. But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair.”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump