Новости за 30.12.2020

In his 2011 book, The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama says, “The problem of creating modern political institutions has been described as the problem of ‘Getting to Denmark.’” He goes on to explain, “Denmark is a mythical place that is known to have good political and economic institutions: it is stable, democratic, peaceful, prosperous, inclusive, and has extremely low levels of political corruption.” He notes that international development experts hold up Denmark as a model for what... Читать дальше...

Even before the 2020 election cycle, centrist Democrats had a habit of portraying leftists and progressives as unflinching ideologues imposing purity tests on their fellow party members. Counter-examples, of course, have abounded. And now there’s a particularly good one in the Georgia runoff election ending January 5.

Ahmet Altan, one of Turkey’s most skillful historical novelists, lives in solitary confinement in a cell four meters long, at Silivri Prison, Europe’s largest penal facility. In I’ll Never See This World Again, his fifteenth book, and the first he wrote from prison, Altan recalled the passing comment of a judge who held the author’s fate in his hands: “If only you had stuck to writing novels and kept your nose out of political affairs.”

Never in living memory has late December been so welcome; 2020, the year that lasted centuries, is nearly done. A lot of us didn’t make it. But for all the anxiety that mounted throughout the summer and fall as the presidential election drew nigh, Trump’s attempts to bring about the worst-case scenario—a stolen election or descent into civil war—appear to have failed. The creaking, gerrymandered, lobbyist-leased massage table that we call American democracy has survived another season. Fresh calamities notwithstanding... Читать дальше...

The pandemic has devastated wide swaths of the U.S. economy, causing more than 22 million job losses and about 25 percent of small businesses to close, many of them for good. But some companies have thrived amid this catastrophe—indeed, thrived because of it. Instacart, the grocery delivery service, is booming, with sales up 500 percent year-over-year and the company cruising to a $17.7 billion valuation. Their workforce—of mostly low-paid contract workers—has swelled to 500,000 people while... Читать дальше...

President Trump says he wants most Americans to receive $2,000 checks from the federal government. So does the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which voted Monday to bump up the total from $600 per individual, as allocated by the $900 billion pandemic stimulus bill that Trump grudgingly signed on Sunday. Even some Senate Republicans are on board, like Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Florida’s Marco Rubio; David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two Georgia senators facing a tight runoff election next week, reversed their prior opposition. Читать дальше...