USA - the demise of the US political system: How American Politics Became So Ineffective - "leading to the presentTrump debacle"

The campaign is under way to succeed the president, who is retiring after a single wretched term. Voters are angrier than ever—at politicians, at compromisers, at the establishment. Congress and the White House seem incapable of working together on anything, even when their interests align. With lawmaking at a standstill, the president’s use of executive orders and regulatory discretion has reached a level that Congress views as dictatorial—not that Congress can do anything about it, except file lawsuits that the divided Supreme Court, its three vacancies unfilled, has been unable to resolve.

Political disintegration plagues Congress, too. House Republicans barely managed to elect a speaker last year. Congress did agree in the fall on a budget framework intended to keep the government open through the election—a signal accomplishment, by today’s low standards—but by April, hard-line conservatives had revoked the deal, thereby humiliating the new speaker and potentially causing another shutdown crisis this fall. As of this writing, it’s not clear whether the hard-liners will push to the brink, but the bigger point is this: If they do, there is not much that party leaders can do about it.

And here is the still bigger point: The very term party leaders has become an anachronism. Although Capitol Hill and the campaign trail are miles apart, the breakdown in order in both places reflects the underlying reality that there no longer is any such thing as a party leader. There are only individual actors, pursuing their own political interests and ideological missions willy-nilly, like excited gas molecules in an overheated balloon.

Note EU-Digest: "this story dates back several years, but it certainly showed an ongoing crumbling of the US political system which has led to the situation the US is in today. But beware, this is not a question of returning to the status quo. It is a call for urgent change".

Read more at:How American Politics Became So Ineffective - The Atlantic

The Demise of Democracy: Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms

Dozens of historians of fascism and authoritarianism have signed a letter warning that democracy “is either withering or in full-scale collapse globally”, and urging ordinary people to take action.

Read more at: Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms | World news | The Guardian

USA: The Trump Regime Is Beginning to Topple

Over the course of his presidency, Donald Trump has indulged his authoritarian instincts—and now he’s meeting the common fate of autocrats whose people turn against them. What the United States is witnessing is less like the chaos of 1968, which further divided a nation, and more like the nonviolent movements that earned broad societal support in places such as Serbia, Ukraine, and Tunisia, 

Read more at :
The Trump Regime Is Beginning to Topple - The Atlantic

Britain-Brexit: Boris Johnson is heading for a landslide victory – and then disaster - by John Rentoul

There is only one question in British politics at the moment. Can a no-deal Brexit be stopped? Yes it can, and so Boris Johnson is set to become prime minister on a false prospectus.

According to YouGov, 74 per cent of Conservative Party members intend to elect him as leader – on a pledge to leave the EU, deal or no deal, on 31 October. That is a promise he cannot guarantee to deliver.

Johnson’s blithe assertion that the world is as he wants it to be has confused people. Surely it would be hard to stop a determined prime minister from taking Britain out of the EU without a deal? So it is worth setting out, again, how parliament can prevent such an outcome.
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It is possible, of course, that Johnson will agree some minor changes to Theresa May’s deal within nine weeks of becoming prime minister and secure the approval of the Commons for them, but it is hard to see where those extra votes would come from.

That’s why I think Johnson will win the leadership by a landslide, and then, as prime minister, collide with reality with – for him – disastrous results.

Read more at: Boris Johnson is heading for a landslide victory – and then disaster | The Independent

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CAPITALISM: OIL RICH COUNTRIES AND CAPITLISTIC COUNTRIES ARE WARNED BY UN CONTRACTED SCIENTIST OF IMMINENT CAPITALIST DEMISE

Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise

Read more at:
http://flip.it/J2.VCW

EU: the end of global Britain - thanks to populist nationalists and their leader Donald Trump

FOR THE COMPLETE REPORT GO TO:

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-end-of-global-britain

Jamaica: Shocked at demise of US democracy - by R.Oscar Lofters

For years, the United States has proclaimed itself the finest democracy in the world, a shining city on a hill, a nation that welcomed immigrants with open arms, a country supposedly of impeccable values and political civility.

Instead, of this glowing resume, the world is witnessing a steady flow of political sewage and despicable behaviour that even startles the Ku Klux Klan.

The world has been bombarded with the vitriol of the Republican presidential nominee, who declares that the Democratic presidential nominee is a liar, a fraud and a traitor who should be locked up.

On the other hand, the Democratic nominee has labelled the Republican nominee a liar, a fraud, a hypocrite unprepared for the presidency of the United States.

The world is aghast at the unravelling of political sobriety and the cloud of nastiness to which we have been exposed.

The civility and political decency of a great country have now been transformed into a dump.

Read more: Shocked at demise of US democracy | Letters | Jamaica Gleaner

US Politcs: The Fall of the Heritage Foundation and the Death of Republican Ideas - by Molly Ball

During the 1980 election, an up-and-coming Washington think tank called the Heritage Foundation undertook a massive task: to examine the federal government from top to bottom and produce a detailed, practical conservative policy vision.

The result, called Mandate for Leadership, epitomized the intellectual ambition of the then-rising conservative movement. Its 20 volumes, totaling more than 3,000 pages, included such proposals as income-tax cuts, inner-city “enterprise zones,” a presidential line-item veto, and a new Air Force bomber.

Despite the publication's academic prose and mind-boggling level of detail, it caused a sensation.

A condensed version -- still more than 1,000 pages -- became a paperback bestseller in Washington. The newly elected Ronald Reagan passed out copies at his first Cabinet meeting, and it quickly became his administration’s blueprint. By the end of Reagan’s first year in office, 60 percent of the Mandate’s 2,000 ideas were being implemented, and the Republican Party’s status as a hotbed of intellectual energy was ratified. It was a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who would declare in 1981, “Of a sudden, the GOP has become a party of ideas.”

The story of the conservative movement that has come to dominate the Republican Party over the last four decades is inextricably intertwined with the story of the Heritage Foundation. In that time, it became more than just another think tank. It came to occupy a place of special privilege -- a quasi-official arm of GOP administrations and Congresses; a sponsor of scholarship and supplier of legislation; a policy base for the party when out of power. Heritage has shaped American public policy in major ways, from Reagan’s missile-defense initiative to Clinton’s welfare reform: Both originated as Heritage proposals. So, too, did the idea of a universal health-care system based on a mandate that individuals buy insurance. 

Though Heritage subsequently abandoned it, the individual mandate famously became the basis of health-care reforms proposed by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.

ehind the scenes, GOP staffers complained that the organization they once looked to for intellectual ammunition had become a thorn in their side. Brian Walsh’s first Washington internship was with Heritage in 1996. He rose in Republican politics to serve as communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In a scathing op-ed for U.S. News headlined “Conservatives Eat Their Own for Profit,” Walsh accused Heritage of taking extreme stands to generate fundraising dollars. 

“In our great democracy, you affect public policy by offering a vision, influencing a majority of public opinion and winning elections, not by burning down the House, attacking your allies, and falling on your sword,” he wrote.

 

Heritage officials dismiss these gripes as the eternal price of disruptive thinking. “Exposing folks, it certainly makes them angry,” DeMint observed to Politico. “Heritage and Heritage Action has gotten in the way of business as usual. And it’s made people mad.”

But there is more at stake in Heritage’s transformation from august policy shop to political hit squad than the reputation of a D.C. think tank or even the careers of a few squishy GOP politicians. It is the intellectual project of the conservative movement itself. Without Heritage, the GOP’s intellectual backbone is severely weakened, and the party’s chance to retake its place as a substantive voice in American policy is in jeopardy.

Today, prominent Republicans publicly worry they're becoming the "stupid party." In its prime, Heritage rose to rival the power and capacity of the liberal academic establishment, giving conservatives a reputation as serious thinkers. “There was a time when leftist intellectuals dismissed conservatives as the party without intellect. Heritage undid that,” Edwards said. “The Republican Party for a while had the high ground. Everyone said that’s where the ideas are, that’s where the intellectual ferment is. When your intellectual ferment is nothing more than a political platform, that [reputation] is undercut. That hurts the conservative movement in general.”

Read more: The Fall of the Heritage Foundation and the Death of Republican Ideas - Molly Ball - The Atlantic