foreignpolicy--2020-09-08--10 Ways Trump Is Becoming a Dictator, Election Edition

Even before U.S. President Donald Trump took the oath of office in 2017 , serious observers were worried about the fragility of the United States ’ democratic order and Trump ’ s all-too-obvious dictatorial proclivities .
It was partly his evident narcissism and contempt for the truth , but also his willingness to run roughshod over long-standing norms , his long record of fraud and shady business dealings , and his evident admiration for dictators in other countries .
Trump ’ s arrival helped make books such as How Democracies Die and On Tyranny bestsellers , while journalists and political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compiling lists of “ warning signs ” of creeping authoritarianism .
Looking back , I was too optimistic .
I was pretty sure Trump would be terrible at managing both domestic and foreign policy—and on that score I was correct—but I believed his age , short attention span , lack of knowledge , and other liabilities would limit his ability to consolidate power .
Unlike some optimists , I didn ’ t expect him to grow into the responsibilities of the office , but I believed the system of checks and balances built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in sufficiently to protect the core features of U.S. democracy .
How wrong I was .
I knew that would-be authoritarians rarely have a change of heart and become committed to personal accountability , the rule of law , or fair-minded elections .
What I failed to anticipate was that Trump ’ s authoritarian ambitions would get worse the longer he sat in the Oval Office , and that his ability to pursue them would increase once he had the chance to replace anyone with integrity and a genuine commitment to their oath @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunists , and power-hungry ideologues .
As I ’ ve noted before , Trump now has every incentive to do whatever he can to remain in power , if only to keep himself and his family out of jail and to avoid losing the ill-gotten gains of a lifetime of legally questionable business deals , not to mention the millions of dollars ’ worth of self-dealing he ’ s indulged in as president .
I ’ ve updated my original top 10 warning signs on two previous occasions—but with the election roughly two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment to do one more assessment .
Spoiler alert : If you cherish the core values of the U.S. Constitution ( however imperfectly we have achieved them ) , and you want to live in a country where the rule of law still applies and the voice of the people can still be heard clearly , you have ample reason to be worried .
Very worried .
This tactic has been a central feature of Trump ’ s presidency from the beginning , whether in the form of his constant tweets about “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to threaten the owners of media outlets he dislikes ( such as CNN or the Washington Post ) .
As he reportedly admitted to CBS reporter Lesley Stahl , Trump has attacked the press quite deliberately .
“ He said , ‘ You know why I do it ?
’ ” she later told PBS .
“ ‘ I do it to discredit you all and demean you all , so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.
’ ” Such efforts continue to this day .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an executive order that could eventually allow the government to oversee political speech on the Internet , a move that came the same week Twitter had marked two of his erroneous tweets with a “ fact-checking ” label .
But that ’ s not all .
The administration has also increased prosecutions involving journalists ’ use of classified information , searched their electronic devices , and monitored reporters ’ movements , and Trump ’ s reelection campaign has sued the New York Times , CNN , and other news organizations for libel .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ press as “ the Enemy of the People ” may have inspired followers to threaten news organizations on their own , and encouraged the arrests and attacks on journalists covering recent demonstrations in several U.S. cities .
As Chris Wallace of the normally pro-Trump network Fox News recently put it , “ President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history.
” Earlier reports that Trump ( or one of his sons ) was going to start his own media company proved unfounded .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ reassessments , the president hardly needs his own news company when he has Fox News almost entirely in his camp , when Fox anchor Sean Hannity is said to be a close personal advisor , and when the even more whackadoodle One America News Network is reliably in his corner .
Trump can also count on radio host Rush Limbaugh ( to whom he gave a Presidential Medal of Freedom last year ) to echo whatever new falsehood the president chooses to tweet ( such as telling his listeners the coronavirus was “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just a left-wing conspiracy to bring Trump down ) .
Who needs Pravda when you ’ ve got Limbaugh ?
3 .
Politicizing the civil service , military , National Guard , or the domestic security agencies .
The president may be commander in chief and head of the executive branch , but soldiers and civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution , not an individual .
Ignoring that principle , Trump has tried to get government officials to express their “ loyalty ” to him personally , and led cabinet meetings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fashion .
He replaced Attorney General Jeff Sessions with William Barr after Sessions showed a certain degree of integrity , and Barr ’ s extreme commitment to the principle of executive authority and resulting willingness to protect the president and even to lie on his behalf make former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ’ s loyalty to his brother John and former Attorney General John F. Mitchell ’ s fealty to former President Richard Nixon seem rather quaint .
In any case , it ’ s a pretty small step from believing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the executive branch to the view that he ’ s should be beyond the rule of law entirely .
Which would be just fine with Trump .
And recently these efforts have taken an even more serious turn .
Trump has been replacing experienced officials with unqualified loyalists—such as appointing former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as acting director of national intelligence—and pressuring the Navy to reverse a decision to reinstate the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt .
The use of tear gas and federal personnel to clear demonstrators from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could stage a photo-op , and the presence of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in his entourage ( a misjudgment for which Milley later apologized ) , is yet another case where Trump tried to turn nonpartisan institutions into part of his posse .
Finally , the recent campaign to curtail or remove independent inspectors general—at the departments of State , Defense , Health and Human Services , and Transportation , and in the intelligence services—smacks either of political payback ( e.g.
, @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who forwarded the whistleblower report alleging that Trump had attempted to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden by withholding U.S. aid ) or a desire to protect top officials from independent scrutiny .
Either way , it ’ s another sign that Trump thinks government agencies are working for him , and not for the U.S. taxpayer .
I don ’ t know if Trump is using the FBI , CIA , or other surveillance capabilities to spy on the Biden campaign or to monitor other political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government has conducted surveillance of people protesting the administration ’ s immigration policies , and Trump has threatened to declare the loose and leaderless antifa movement a terrorist organization , which could allow domestic security agencies to conduct more far-reaching surveillance on anti-Trump protests .
Trump and his allies are certainly not above using government institutions to advance the president ’ s personal political fortunes , and sometimes they ’ re not even coy about it .
Thus , Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told a local radio station that his baseless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activities in Ukraine would “ help Donald Trump win reelection.
” 5 .
Using state power to reward corporate backers and punish opponents .
At this point , it is hardly headline news to report that the Trump administration is deeply corrupt , and that Trump and his family have been using high office to enrich themselves in various ways .
At times these tangled relations are almost comical , as when the Trump Organization asked the Trump administration for a break on the lease payments it owes on the building containing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ examples are more serious , however : According to a recent Brookings Institution study , the administration ’ s response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic has been marred by inadequate oversight and clear signs of corruption .
“ There have been reports that 27 clients of Trump-connected lobbyists have received up to $ 10.5 billion of [ government coronavirus-related ] spending ; that beneficiaries have also included multiple entities linked to the family of Jared Kushner and other Trump associates and political allies ; that up to $ 273 million was awarded to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or operated by major donors to Trump ’ s election efforts ; that unnecessary blanket ethics waivers have been applied to potential administration conflicts of interest ; and that many other transactions meriting further investigation have occurred , ” according to the study .
Meanwhile , organizations that Trump regards as unfriendly run the risk of being singled out for harsh treatment .
Just last week , Barr decided to speed up an antitrust effort against Google , a move said to be “ in keeping with [ Barr ’ s ] willingness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in cases that are of keen interest to President Trump , who has accused Google of bias against him.
” A president ’ s ability to stack the Supreme Court depends on whether openings occur and whether the Senate is compliant .
Trump doesn ’ t have to worry about the Senate , which allowed him to appoint two new justices during his first term .
He hasn ’ t gone any further , but only because he hasn ’ t had another opportunity since the controversial appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are doing a fine job of packing the lower courts , including some candidates with decidedly dodgy qualifications .
And if you think this is just matter of abortion rights or gun control , think again .
If the 2020 election is a nail-biter , lower-court decisions on potential electoral irregularities could matter a lot .
Indeed , several recent decisions ( in Wisconsin , Texas , Florida , and Alabama ) have opened the door to precisely the type of voter suppression that would benefit Trump .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , checks and balances and the rule of law are no obstacle once the judiciary has been transformed from watchdog to lap dog .
7 .
Enforcing the law for only one side .
One could devote a whole column to this warning sign alone .
While railing against threats from immigrants , protesters , and the extremely dangerous , traitorous , menacing , yet sleepy Biden , Trump has largely turned a blind eye to far more serious criminals .
Although right-wing terrorist groups and white supremacists are responsible for far more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrorist groups , Trump has repeatedly signaled his sympathy for the former in various ways .
Most recently , he has defended right-wing vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse , who allegedly shot two people to death during an altercation in Kenosha , Wisconsin .
At the same time , Trump is happy to give clemency to his own criminal associates , such as convicted felon Roger Stone , and Barr ordered the Justice Department to drop charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn—who had already pleaded guilty to them—a highly unusual move that prompted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sign an open letter warning that Barr had once again “ assaulted the rule of law.
” Make no mistake : There are two legal systems in Trump ’ s America .
One is for the president and his cronies , and the other is for suckers like you .
The same way it is in other autocracies .
When someone such as David Brooks of the New York Times writes a column telling you to prepare to participate in a massive campaign of civil disobedience following the November election , you know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And there ’ s nothing subtle about it : Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will do everything in his power to rig the election in his favor .
He has no choice : Unemployment is high , evictions are increasing , deficits are soaring , the trade deficits he promised to fix are still there , and his administration ’ s bungled response to the pandemic that Trump kept denying will have killed roughly 200,000 Americans by Election Day , even as many other countries have managed to turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ normal life .
Now there ’ s a record to run on !
Even with the built-in advantages of the Electoral College , Trump is facing a humiliating if much-deserved defeat .
As he does on the golf course , therefore , Trump is all too willing to cheat .
He has called for supporters to vote twice if they can .
He has tried to defund or disrupt the U.S .
Postal Service , making it less capable of handling a surge of mail-in ballots , while at the same time claiming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uses himself ) is rife with fraud .
He and his underlings have been reluctant to say publicly that he would leave office if defeated .
Uh-oh .
What to do you when you ’ re trailing in the polls , you have no idea how to get people back to work , and you can ’ t get the pandemic under control ?
Simple : Try to scare people about something else .
Just as Trump ran for office in 2016 offering wild-eyed and irresponsible claims about Muslims , Mexican “ rapists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this time around he ’ s working overtime to convince voters that the United States ’ cities are in flames and that angry mobs of nonwhite people are heading for the suburbs to seize homes and destroy their entire way of life .
When Trump ’ s inaugural address in January 2017 warned of “ American carnage , ” what we failed to realize that he was really telling us what he intended accomplish as president .
At the same time , he is trying to convince people that Biden is somehow both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t ) and at the same time a dangerous amalgam of Malcolm X , the Red Army Faction , and the Zodiac Killer .
It ’ s a transparent and desperate ploy—especially given that crime rates are still at historically low levels—but Trump ’ s lies have worked for him before .
To be clear : Violent protests are wrong , and the destruction of property should be condemned no matter who does it .
Biden gets this , of course , and has condemned violent extremism of all kinds in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t mind when his supporters threaten or engage in violence , and he hardly ever condemns them openly .
Instead , his only hope is to sow as much division and hatred as he can between now and Nov. 3 , in the hope that that might lead enough frightened people to cast a vote on his behalf or maybe to take to the streets if he loses .
And that ’ s what ’ s really frightening .
This warning sign is a classic authoritarian move , and it ’ s closely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his attacks on the media illustrate , it ’ s been a key part of Trump ’ s playbook throughout his political career .
In Trump ’ s world , one can not imagine legitimate differences between equally patriotic and responsible Americans , the sort of honest disagreements that democratic systems exist to accommodate and reconcile .
You are either with him , or you are evil , insane , crazy , nasty , a traitor , et cetera .
Of course , as many have noted , the most revealing windows into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accusations he routinely levels at others .
As his political fortunes sink , this tendency is getting worse too .
Case in point : His demagogic speech at Mount Rushmore on Independence Day .
Along with some standard Fourth of July boilerplate about the Founding Fathers and the War of Independence , Trump used the occasion to lambaste “ angry mobs ” defacing “ sacred memorials , ” accusing opponents of trying to “ unleash a wave of violent crime , ” representing “ totalitarianism ” and “ far-left fascism that demands absolute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or no basis in fact , and the speech made no attempt to bring the American people together in the face of the many challenges they are facing today .
But when your best hope is to convince enough voters that that other side is even worse than you are ( which would be saying something ) , then making up scary stories is what we have to expect .
This is where we are today .
After more than three and a half years in office , Trump continues to exhibit all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collapse .
On several of them he ’ s gotten worse over time .
There ’ s no reason whatsoever to believe that reelection would suddenly instill in this congenitally dishonest and self-centered narcissist a new commitment to the core principles of U.S. democracy .
On the contrary , it will only reinforce his belief that he can get away with just about anything .
How about a third term , suckers ?
Maybe Ivanka Trump can run in 2028 and we ’ ll rig that for her too .
Can you honestly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wouldn ’ t break if he thought it would be to his benefit and that he wouldn ’ t get stopped ?
Which members of today ’ s Republican Party would suddenly grow some vertebrae and try to stop him ?
I didn ’ t used to be an alarmist , but when a president and his administration break some laws with impunity , there is no reason to believe they won ’ t break bigger ones if they think they can get away with it .
But heed well what this really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of us—including those who might have voted for him—becomes vulnerable to whatever they want to do .
And that , ladies and gentlemen , is what is at stake come November .

Even before U.S. President Donald Trump took the oath of office in 2017, serious observers were worried about the fragility of the United States’ democratic order and Trump’s all-too-obvious dictatorial proclivities.
Even before U.S. President Donald Trump took the oath of office in 2017, serious observers were worried about the fragility of the United States’ democratic order and Trump’s all-too-obvious dictatorial proclivities.
It was partly his evident narcissism and contempt for the truth, but also his willingness to run roughshod over long-standing norms, his long record of fraud and shady business dealings, and his evident admiration for dictators in other countries. Trump’s arrival helped make books such as How Democracies Die and On Tyranny bestsellers, while journalists and political scientists (including yours truly) began compiling lists of “warning signs” of creeping authoritarianism.
Looking back, I was too optimistic. I was pretty sure Trump would be terrible at managing both domestic and foreign policy—and on that score I was correct—but I believed his age, short attention span, lack of knowledge, and other liabilities would limit his ability to consolidate power. Unlike some optimists, I didn’t expect him to grow into the responsibilities of the office, but I believed the system of checks and balances built into our constitutional order would rein him in sufficiently to protect the core features of U.S. democracy. How wrong I was.
I knew that would-be authoritarians rarely have a change of heart and become committed to personal accountability, the rule of law, or fair-minded elections. What I failed to anticipate was that Trump’s authoritarian ambitions would get worse the longer he sat in the Oval Office, and that his ability to pursue them would increase once he had the chance to replace anyone with integrity and a genuine commitment to their oath to defend the Constitution with lackeys, opportunists, and power-hungry ideologues.
As I’ve noted before, Trump now has every incentive to do whatever he can to remain in power, if only to keep himself and his family out of jail and to avoid losing the ill-gotten gains of a lifetime of legally questionable business deals, not to mention the millions of dollars’ worth of self-dealing he’s indulged in as president. I’ve updated my original top 10 warning signs on two previous occasions—but with the election roughly two months away, it seemed an appropriate moment to do one more assessment.
Spoiler alert: If you cherish the core values of the U.S. Constitution (however imperfectly we have achieved them), and you want to live in a country where the rule of law still applies and the voice of the people can still be heard clearly, you have ample reason to be worried. Very worried.
Here’s the list.
1. Systematic efforts to intimidate the media.
This tactic has been a central feature of Trump’s presidency from the beginning, whether in the form of his constant tweets about “fake news” and his none-too-veiled attempts to threaten the owners of media outlets he dislikes (such as CNN or the Washington Post). As he reportedly admitted to CBS reporter Lesley Stahl, Trump has attacked the press quite deliberately. “He said, ‘You know why I do it?’” she later told PBS. “‘I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’”
Such efforts continue to this day. In May, for example, Trump signed an executive order that could eventually allow the government to oversee political speech on the Internet, a move that came the same week Twitter had marked two of his erroneous tweets with a “fact-checking” label. But that’s not all.
The administration has also increased prosecutions involving journalists’ use of classified information, searched their electronic devices, and monitored reporters’ movements, and Trump’s reelection campaign has sued the New York Times, CNN, and other news organizations for libel. Trump’s repeated descriptions of the press as “the Enemy of the People” may have inspired followers to threaten news organizations on their own, and encouraged the arrests and attacks on journalists covering recent demonstrations in several U.S. cities. As Chris Wallace of the normally pro-Trump network Fox News recently put it, “President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history.”
2. Building an official pro-Trump media network.
Earlier reports that Trump (or one of his sons) was going to start his own media company proved unfounded. But as I noted in my earlier reassessments, the president hardly needs his own news company when he has Fox News almost entirely in his camp, when Fox anchor Sean Hannity is said to be a close personal advisor, and when the even more whackadoodle One America News Network is reliably in his corner. Trump can also count on radio host Rush Limbaugh (to whom he gave a Presidential Medal of Freedom last year) to echo whatever new falsehood the president chooses to tweet (such as telling his listeners the coronavirus was “the common cold, folks” and just a left-wing conspiracy to bring Trump down). Who needs Pravda when you’ve got Limbaugh?
3. Politicizing the civil service, military, National Guard, or the domestic security agencies.
The president may be commander in chief and head of the executive branch, but soldiers and civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution, not an individual. Ignoring that principle, Trump has tried to get government officials to express their “loyalty” to him personally, and led cabinet meetings where appointees sing his praises in cringeworthy fashion. He replaced Attorney General Jeff Sessions with William Barr after Sessions showed a certain degree of integrity, and Barr’s extreme commitment to the principle of executive authority and resulting willingness to protect the president and even to lie on his behalf make former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s loyalty to his brother John and former Attorney General John F. Mitchell’s fealty to former President Richard Nixon seem rather quaint. In any case, it’s a pretty small step from believing in a president’s total authority over the executive branch to the view that he’s should be beyond the rule of law entirely. Which would be just fine with Trump.
And recently these efforts have taken an even more serious turn. Trump has been replacing experienced officials with unqualified loyalists—such as appointing former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as acting director of national intelligence—and pressuring the Navy to reverse a decision to reinstate the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The use of tear gas and federal personnel to clear demonstrators from Lafayette Square in Washington so that Trump could stage a photo-op, and the presence of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in his entourage (a misjudgment for which Milley later apologized), is yet another case where Trump tried to turn nonpartisan institutions into part of his posse.
Finally, the recent campaign to curtail or remove independent inspectors general—at the departments of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Transportation, and in the intelligence services—smacks either of political payback (e.g., in the case of the inspector general who forwarded the whistleblower report alleging that Trump had attempted to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden by withholding U.S. aid) or a desire to protect top officials from independent scrutiny. Either way, it’s another sign that Trump thinks government agencies are working for him, and not for the U.S. taxpayer.
4, Using government surveillance against domestic political opponents.
I don’t know if Trump is using the FBI, CIA, or other surveillance capabilities to spy on the Biden campaign or to monitor other political opponents. But we do know that the federal government has conducted surveillance of people protesting the administration’s immigration policies, and Trump has threatened to declare the loose and leaderless antifa movement a terrorist organization, which could allow domestic security agencies to conduct more far-reaching surveillance on anti-Trump protests. Trump and his allies are certainly not above using government institutions to advance the president’s personal political fortunes, and sometimes they’re not even coy about it. Thus, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told a local radio station that his baseless Senate investigation into Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine would “help Donald Trump win reelection.”
5. Using state power to reward corporate backers and punish opponents.
At this point, it is hardly headline news to report that the Trump administration is deeply corrupt, and that Trump and his family have been using high office to enrich themselves in various ways. At times these tangled relations are almost comical, as when the Trump Organization asked the Trump administration for a break on the lease payments it owes on the building containing the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Other examples are more serious, however: According to a recent Brookings Institution study, the administration’s response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic has been marred by inadequate oversight and clear signs of corruption. “There have been reports that 27 clients of Trump-connected lobbyists have received up to $10.5 billion of [government coronavirus-related] spending; that beneficiaries have also included multiple entities linked to the family of Jared Kushner and other Trump associates and political allies; that up to $273 million was awarded to more than 100 companies that are owned or operated by major donors to Trump’s election efforts; that unnecessary blanket ethics waivers have been applied to potential administration conflicts of interest; and that many other transactions meriting further investigation have occurred,” according to the study.
Meanwhile, organizations that Trump regards as unfriendly run the risk of being singled out for harsh treatment. Just last week, Barr decided to speed up an antitrust effort against Google, a move said to be “in keeping with [Barr’s] willingness to override the recommendations of career lawyers in cases that are of keen interest to President Trump, who has accused Google of bias against him.”
6. Stacking the Supreme Court.
A president’s ability to stack the Supreme Court depends on whether openings occur and whether the Senate is compliant. Trump doesn’t have to worry about the Senate, which allowed him to appoint two new justices during his first term. He hasn’t gone any further, but only because he hasn’t had another opportunity since the controversial appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In the meantime, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are doing a fine job of packing the lower courts, including some candidates with decidedly dodgy qualifications. And if you think this is just matter of abortion rights or gun control, think again. If the 2020 election is a nail-biter, lower-court decisions on potential electoral irregularities could matter a lot. Indeed, several recent decisions (in Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, and Alabama) have opened the door to precisely the type of voter suppression that would benefit Trump. As other democratically elected autocrats know full well, checks and balances and the rule of law are no obstacle once the judiciary has been transformed from watchdog to lap dog.
7. Enforcing the law for only one side.
One could devote a whole column to this warning sign alone. While railing against threats from immigrants, protesters, and the extremely dangerous, traitorous, menacing, yet sleepy Biden, Trump has largely turned a blind eye to far more serious criminals. Although right-wing terrorist groups and white supremacists are responsible for far more U.S. deaths than left-wing protesters or foreign terrorist groups, Trump has repeatedly signaled his sympathy for the former in various ways. Most recently, he has defended right-wing vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, who allegedly shot two people to death during an altercation in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
At the same time, Trump is happy to give clemency to his own criminal associates, such as convicted felon Roger Stone, and Barr ordered the Justice Department to drop charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn—who had already pleaded guilty to them—a highly unusual move that prompted 2,000 former Department of Justice employees to sign an open letter warning that Barr had once again “assaulted the rule of law.”
Make no mistake: There are two legal systems in Trump’s America. One is for the president and his cronies, and the other is for suckers like you. The same way it is in other autocracies.
8. Really rigging the system.
When someone such as David Brooks of the New York Times writes a column telling you to prepare to participate in a massive campaign of civil disobedience following the November election, you know that we’re in serious trouble. And there’s nothing subtle about it: Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will do everything in his power to rig the election in his favor. He has no choice: Unemployment is high, evictions are increasing, deficits are soaring, the trade deficits he promised to fix are still there, and his administration’s bungled response to the pandemic that Trump kept denying will have killed roughly 200,000 Americans by Election Day, even as many other countries have managed to turn the corner and move back closer to normal life. Now there’s a record to run on!
Even with the built-in advantages of the Electoral College, Trump is facing a humiliating if much-deserved defeat. As he does on the golf course, therefore, Trump is all too willing to cheat. He has called for supporters to vote twice if they can. He has tried to defund or disrupt the U.S. Postal Service, making it less capable of handling a surge of mail-in ballots, while at the same time claiming falsely that mail-in voting (which he uses himself) is rife with fraud. He and his underlings have been reluctant to say publicly that he would leave office if defeated. Uh-oh.
9. Fearmongering.
What to do you when you’re trailing in the polls, you have no idea how to get people back to work, and you can’t get the pandemic under control? Simple: Try to scare people about something else. Just as Trump ran for office in 2016 offering wild-eyed and irresponsible claims about Muslims, Mexican “rapists,” and other foreign dangers, this time around he’s working overtime to convince voters that the United States’ cities are in flames and that angry mobs of nonwhite people are heading for the suburbs to seize homes and destroy their entire way of life. When Trump’s inaugural address in January 2017 warned of “American carnage,” what we failed to realize that he was really telling us what he intended accomplish as president.
At the same time, he is trying to convince people that Biden is somehow both too tired to be president (he isn’t) and at the same time a dangerous amalgam of Malcolm X, the Red Army Faction, and the Zodiac Killer. It’s a transparent and desperate ploy—especially given that crime rates are still at historically low levels—but Trump’s lies have worked for him before.
To be clear: Violent protests are wrong, and the destruction of property should be condemned no matter who does it. Biden gets this, of course, and has condemned violent extremism of all kinds in no uncertain terms. Trump doesn’t mind when his supporters threaten or engage in violence, and he hardly ever condemns them openly. Instead, his only hope is to sow as much division and hatred as he can between now and Nov. 3, in the hope that that might lead enough frightened people to cast a vote on his behalf or maybe to take to the streets if he loses. And that’s what’s really frightening.
10. Demonizing the opposition.
This warning sign is a classic authoritarian move, and it’s closely related to No. 9. As his attacks on the media illustrate, it’s been a key part of Trump’s playbook throughout his political career. In Trump’s world, one cannot imagine legitimate differences between equally patriotic and responsible Americans, the sort of honest disagreements that democratic systems exist to accommodate and reconcile. You are either with him, or you are evil, insane, crazy, nasty, a traitor, et cetera. Of course, as many have noted, the most revealing windows into Trump’s own character are the accusations he routinely levels at others.
As his political fortunes sink, this tendency is getting worse too. Case in point: His demagogic speech at Mount Rushmore on Independence Day. Along with some standard Fourth of July boilerplate about the Founding Fathers and the War of Independence, Trump used the occasion to lambaste “angry mobs” defacing “sacred memorials,” accusing opponents of trying to “unleash a wave of violent crime,” representing “totalitarianism” and “far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.” His wild accusations had little or no basis in fact, and the speech made no attempt to bring the American people together in the face of the many challenges they are facing today. But when your best hope is to convince enough voters that that other side is even worse than you are (which would be saying something), then making up scary stories is what we have to expect.
This is where we are today. After more than three and a half years in office, Trump continues to exhibit all 10 of my warning signs of democratic collapse. On several of them he’s gotten worse over time. There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that reelection would suddenly instill in this congenitally dishonest and self-centered narcissist a new commitment to the core principles of U.S. democracy. On the contrary, it will only reinforce his belief that he can get away with just about anything. How about a third term, suckers? Maybe Ivanka Trump can run in 2028 and we’ll rig that for her too. Can you honestly think of any law or norm he wouldn’t break if he thought it would be to his benefit and that he wouldn’t get stopped? Which members of today’s Republican Party would suddenly grow some vertebrae and try to stop him?
I didn’t used to be an alarmist, but when a president and his administration break some laws with impunity, there is no reason to believe they won’t break bigger ones if they think they can get away with it. But heed well what this really means. At that point, every one of us—including those who might have voted for him—becomes vulnerable to whatever they want to do. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is at stake come November.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-08--America’s Political Immune System Is Overreacting to China

On July 23 , Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed a final sentence on the policy of constructive engagement with China : “ We must not continue [ the policy ] and we must not return to it.
” He made that announcement at the presidential library of Richard Nixon , the U.S. president who kicked off the policy nearly five decades ago .
The sentence came as no surprise .
The policy of engagement with China had been called into question even before President Donald Trump took office .
Since 2010 , the ascendance of China as the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in conjunction with its bursting nationalist and sometimes revisionist policy rhetoric , has fed into an emerging narrative that China represents a formidable and threatening adversary .
As early as mid-2015 , David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University noted that the bilateral relationship was at a tipping point with the erosion of some “ critical underlying supports for predominantly positive U.S.-China ties.
” The bipartisan approach crumbled under the Trump administration , which defines China as a revisionist and strategic competitor , and a central challenge to U.S. primacy .
Gone are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ cooperative partnership.
” Liberals , dismayed by the failure of decades of engagement to mold China in America ’ s likeness , are also convinced that American policy toward China is due for a “ reckoning.
” Decades of engagement policy , instead of ushering in the desired change in China ’ s domestic and foreign policy , are now seen as having produced a China that is not only richer and more powerful , but also more repressive and aggressive .
The COVID-19 pandemic has only solidified the support for disengagement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the origin of the pandemic , its mishandling of the initial outbreak , and disruption of the global supply chain have led politicians and pundits alike to use the pandemic to demand a “ hard decoupling ” from China .
An antagonism once confined largely to economic and technological issues has now spilled over into areas like public health and personal exchanges .
Meanwhile , China ’ s actions in or rhetoric toward Hong Kong , Taiwan , Xinjiang , and South China Sea have escalated tensions further , as has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era the Trump administration ’ s call for disengagement was mainly echoed by the policy community , now it appears to have gained growing public support .
A recent Pew survey suggests that roughly two-thirds of American adults have an unfavorable view of China , up nearly 20 percentage points since 2017 .
While many of the concerns about China ’ s rise are valid and legitimate , fear of a Chinese juggernaut makes some critical errors .
It takes China ’ s rise a given , underestimates the strength and resilience of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and ignores significant the gains of engagement with China .
Fallacy 1 : It takes China ’ s Rise as a Given China ’ s rise is not inevitable .
The domestic challenges at home are vast , and growing .
My forthcoming book Toxic Politics examines how an environmental health crisis represents one of the most formidable obstacles to China ’ s international ascendance .
Air pollution alone might have cost China as much as 18 percent of its GDP in 2013 .
Environmental health concerns also hamper China ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is essential for global financial hub building ; you can offer mega-deals to Silicon Valley stars , but they ’ d still rather live in California than Beijing .
The ensuing economic slowdown increases the likelihood China will slip into the middle-income trap .
In James Fallows ’ words , “ Environmental sustainability in all forms is China ’ s biggest emergency , in every sense : for its people , for its government , for its effect on the world.
” The magnitude of the environmental health crisis underscores the mounting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resources required to fulfill its global ambitions .
In 2012 , a popular Chinese social media post joked that China is already a superpower in the following areas : pollution , corruption , toxic food , dropout students , stability-maintenance expenses , number of government officials , number of petitioners , and emigration .
On top of that , it is unlikely that China ’ s power engines have already been corroded by an unprecedented demographic crisis , characterized by extremely low fertility levels , a rapidly aging society , a shrinking working-age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men .
Preoccupied with domestic issues , China is significantly constrained in pursuing its dream of regaining international greatness .
Quality control problems , for example , have hampered China ’ s “ mask diplomacy ” —sending PPE and other medical supplies to other countries—and undermined its efforts to recast its image as a leader in the fight against COVID-19 .
In the same vein , concerns about Beijing using Belt and Road Initiative—China ’ s most significant 21st century foreign policy initiative – as a backdoor way to outsource pollution , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to potential loss of faith in the “ Chinese-style connectivity.
” Indeed , when Pompeo was talking about the threat China posed to the free world , he probably forgot that since 1989 , Chinese leaders have been obsessively worried about China itself becoming the target of “ peaceful evolution ” or “ color revolution , ” a reference to regime change abetted by the United States .
The government ’ s obsession with sociopolitical stability explains why since 2010 China ’ s spending on domestic security , including policing and surveillance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And a political system that increasingly equates stability with loyalty to a single man , Xi , is highly subject to flawed decision making , disruption , and shocks .
In identifying the CCP regime as the archrival of the United States , Secretary Pompeo makes a distinction between it and the “ dynamic , freedom-loving ” Chinese people .
His belief that CCP does not represent the Chinese people might in part derived from his 1989 experience , where there was a genuine gap between Eastern European people and the ruling communist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extremely strong support CCP receives from the Chinese society .
Indeed , even after factoring in the possibility that people may hide their actual feelings out of fear of government retribution , high level of support of the regime in China was identified by various opinion surveys , including a Pew Global Research in 2014 , which found 92 percent of Chinese respondents had confidence in Xi .
The disengagement thesis also unwittingly uses the Soviet empire to draw an analogy with China .
True , the CCP is “ repeating some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made , ” but the resilience of China ’ s authoritarian state far surpasses that of the former Soviet Union , which it has already outlasted .
Economic historians remind us that even at its peak , the Soviet economy produced considerably less than half of the U.S. GDP .
In 2019 , however , China ’ s GDP already amounted to two-thirds of the size of the U.S. economy .
The GDP gap continues to shrink in China ’ s favor .
In the second quarter of this year , China registered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the same period a year ago .
Furthermore , Beijing has not lost its ability to respond to a crisis by mobilizing resources and bureaucratic capacities for high priority .
The CCP ’ s commitment to ensuring its survival has been clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic .
The outbreak caused the most severe social-political crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown .
Instead of allowing the crisis to become China ’ s “ Chernobyl moment , ” however , the CCP turned to a combination of traditional vehicles of the party-state and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and QR codes ) to contain the spread of the virus relatively quickly .
By early April , it was clear that Xi had emerged as a winner in the fight against the outbreak .
A series of national online surveys of urban residents in China , conducted by the UCSD China Data Lab , suggested that the pandemic has beefed up government legitimacy .
On a scale of 1 to 10 , the average level of social trust in the central government increased from 8.23 in June 2019 to 8.87 in May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ agreed ” or “ strongly agreed ” that they prefer living under China ’ s political system as compared to others increased , too , from 70 percent in June 2019 to 83 percent in May 2020 .
Xi might be a “ true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology , ” as Secretary Pompeo said , referring to Marxism , but the Party nowadays increasingly relies on nationalism instead of communism alone as a pillar of its legitimacy .
The failure of the United States to effectively handle the outbreak and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nationalism and anti-Americanism to an all-time high in China .
Social media outlets in the country are saturated with comments and posts that portray the United States as a diminishing and hostile power .
Social injustice , political polarization , and policy paralysis are undermining the United States ’ role as a beacon of democracy for China .
According to the same UCSD study , Chinese public ’ s views toward the United States in May 2020 were significantly more negative than those in June 2019 .
A large percentage of the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ educated , now dislike and despise the United States .
There is no natural constituency waiting to turn against the Party with the right prompts .
Don ’ t get me wrong .
I am not suggesting that the Chinese political system is superior to Western liberal democracies .
The Chinese system , like the Soviet one , is fundamentally flawed and full of inherent contradictions .
But as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reminded us , the system started to crumble only after Gorbachev took away the fear and terror it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Xi is anybody but Gorbachev , and there is no indication that the Chinese regime will collapse anytime soon .
That is why we need to keep the competition peaceful and manageable .
But decoupling policy not only risks a new Cold War , but also increases the chances of an actual war that results from an accidently sparked conflict involving the two militaries .
The United States may still win a future cold ( or even hot ) war with China , but the cost would be way too high to justify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fallacy 3 : It Ignores the Significant Gains of Five Decades of Engagement U.S. engagement with China has done more than the advocates of a disengagement policy are willing to acknowledge in shaping China ’ s domestic and foreign policy .
In Toxic Politics , I explain how the United States , through its diplomatic mission in China , played a critical role in elevating the control of PM2.5 emissions onto the policy agenda and indirectly pressuring the Chinese government to take decisive action to improve air quality The state commitment to pollution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China to adopt a more cooperative approach toward international efforts to tackling climate change .
U.S. engagement with China has also been crucial in expanding U.S.-China cooperation over public health .
Shared health concerns challenged both countries to work together to address a wide array of global health issues , including HIV/AIDs , pandemic flu , and health-related development assistance .
During the H7N9 outbreak , disease control agencies in both countries collaborated closely to share epidemiological data and conduct joint research on the virus .
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the first time to address a disease outbreak in a third country .
Constructive engagement also provided incentives to Beijing to sign multilateral agreements it had previously been reluctant to join .
It acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1992 , signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996 , and joined the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( ICCPR ) in 1998 .
During the financial crisis of 2007-2008 , Beijing China echoed Washington ’ s call for a large , coordinated fiscal stimulus .
Equally important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pro-America mentality in the Chinese government and the public , at least until the new nationalist surge only recently .
Previously , Chinese leaders might denounce U.S. values or system , but that did not prevent them from sending their children to American colleges .
The national infatuation of American education explains why China until 2019 remained the largest source of international students in the United States .
A disengagement policy risks alienating liberal-minded Chinese elite who could be important potential allies in the United States competition with China .
To make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change favored by the United States , a disengagement policy will only drive 1.4 billion people to live in “ angry isolation , ” a scenario that President Richard Nixon wanted to avoid in the late 1960s .
The purpose here is not to call for a return to Obama-era engagement , which is neither feasible ( because of the changing political landscape ) nor necessary ( because of the loopholes in the policy itself ) .
Rather , it suggests the need to “ reboot ” the policy to meet new challenges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A more balanced and flexible alternative to the hard-nosed zero-sum approach toward China is a “ contingent and comprehensive engagement ” strategy .
The new strategy recognizes the limits in any U.S. power to force changes on China , but does not allow disputes or disenchantment with the country to prevent them from working closely with it in areas where there is a convergence of interests or overlapping responsibilities .
Indeed , even in areas of frontier science where their national interests diverge , such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alignment ” on the need to coordinate and prevent abuse .
U.S. engagement in such areas does not prevent change in U.S. policy to respond to challenges from China in other arenas , but would make policy alterations more effective by evincing an American sincerity and commitment that current U.S. overtures have lacked and giving China a continuing stake in the bilateral relationship .
To balance competition and cooperation , the United States should certainly still respond firmly and decisively on issues where its national interest is directly under threat , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sea .
In doing so , America should avoid any temptation to imitate China ’ s nondemocratic methods or overreact to its influence in ways that undercut its true advantage .
In his famous “ X ” Article , George Kennan stressed the need to sustain the unique advantages of the United States in dealing with the Soviet threat .
According to him , an effective anti-Soviet strategy hinged upon the degree to which the United States could create the impression of a country “ which knows what it wants , which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power , and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time.
” Instead of pursuing a “ whole of society approach ” against Beijing ’ s “ whole of government ” approach—which is reminiscent of the Red Scare era of the 1950s—we should invest more in rebuilding our ailing democracy and infrastructure .
Talking about forging cooperative relationships with China at a moment when bashing Beijing is at a fever pitch might seem ill-timed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ providing antidotes to the increasingly poisonous atmosphere of a “ new red scare , ” have fueled a cytokine storm that overproduces anti-China immune cells in the U.S. body politic when exposed to looming China challenges .
But to avoid being intoxicated by the dangerous air of self-approbation and self-complacency in Washington , the United States—more than ever—must practice empathy , humility , and broad , balanced thinking .

On July 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed a final sentence on the policy of constructive engagement with China: “We must not continue [the policy] and we must not return to it.” He made that announcement at the presidential library of Richard Nixon, the U.S. president who kicked off the policy nearly five decades ago.
On July 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed a final sentence on the policy of constructive engagement with China: “We must not continue [the policy] and we must not return to it.” He made that announcement at the presidential library of Richard Nixon, the U.S. president who kicked off the policy nearly five decades ago.
The sentence came as no surprise. The policy of engagement with China had been called into question even before President Donald Trump took office. Since 2010, the ascendance of China as the world’s second largest economic power, in conjunction with its bursting nationalist and sometimes revisionist policy rhetoric, has fed into an emerging narrative that China represents a formidable and threatening adversary. As early as mid-2015, David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University noted that the bilateral relationship was at a tipping point with the erosion of some “critical underlying supports for predominantly positive U.S.-China ties.”
The bipartisan approach crumbled under the Trump administration, which defines China as a revisionist and strategic competitor, and a central challenge to U.S. primacy. Gone are the days of “strategic partnership” or “cooperative partnership.” Liberals, dismayed by the failure of decades of engagement to mold China in America’s likeness, are also convinced that American policy toward China is due for a “reckoning.” Decades of engagement policy, instead of ushering in the desired change in China’s domestic and foreign policy, are now seen as having produced a China that is not only richer and more powerful, but also more repressive and aggressive.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only solidified the support for disengagement with China. The perception of China as the origin of the pandemic, its mishandling of the initial outbreak, and disruption of the global supply chain have led politicians and pundits alike to use the pandemic to demand a “hard decoupling” from China. An antagonism once confined largely to economic and technological issues has now spilled over into areas like public health and personal exchanges. Meanwhile, China’s actions in or rhetoric toward Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and South China Sea have escalated tensions further, as has the American response. If in the pre-pandemic era the Trump administration’s call for disengagement was mainly echoed by the policy community, now it appears to have gained growing public support. A recent Pew survey suggests that roughly two-thirds of American adults have an unfavorable view of China, up nearly 20 percentage points since 2017.
While many of the concerns about China’s rise are valid and legitimate, fear of a Chinese juggernaut makes some critical errors. It takes China’s rise a given, underestimates the strength and resilience of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and ignores the significant gains of engagement with China.
Fallacy 1: It takes China’s Rise as a Given
China’s rise is not inevitable. The domestic challenges at home are vast, and growing. My forthcoming book Toxic Politics examines how an environmental health crisis represents one of the most formidable obstacles to China’s international ascendance. Air pollution alone might have cost China as much as 18 percent of its GDP in 2013. Environmental health concerns also hamper China’s efforts to recruit and retain the talent that is essential for global financial hub building; you can offer mega-deals to Silicon Valley stars, but they’d still rather live in California than Beijing. The ensuing economic slowdown increases the likelihood China will slip into the middle-income trap. In James Fallows’ words, “Environmental sustainability in all forms is China’s biggest emergency, in every sense: for its people, for its government, for its effect on the world.”
The magnitude of the environmental health crisis underscores the mounting domestic challenge to Beijing in mobilizing the resources required to fulfill its global ambitions. In 2012, a popular Chinese social media post joked that China is already a superpower in the following areas: pollution, corruption, toxic food, dropout students, stability-maintenance expenses, number of government officials, number of petitioners, and emigration. On top of that, China’s power engines have already been corroded by an unprecedented demographic crisis, characterized by extremely low fertility levels, a rapidly aging society, a shrinking working-age population, and a huge surplus of men.
Preoccupied with domestic issues, China is significantly constrained in pursuing its dream of regaining international greatness. Quality control problems, for example, have hampered China’s “mask diplomacy”—sending PPE and other medical supplies to other countries—and undermined its efforts to recast its image as a leader in the fight against COVID-19. In the same vein, concerns about Beijing using Belt and Road Initiative—China’s most significant 21st century foreign policy initiative – as a backdoor way to outsource pollution, when coupled with the COVID-19 outbreak, have led to potential loss of faith in the “Chinese-style connectivity.”
Indeed, when Pompeo was talking about the threat China posed to the free world, he probably forgot that since 1989, Chinese leaders have been obsessively worried about China itself becoming the target of “peaceful evolution” or “color revolution,” a reference to regime change abetted by the United States. The government’s obsession with sociopolitical stability explains why since 2010 China’s spending on domestic security, including policing and surveillance, has consistently outstripped military spending. And a political system that increasingly equates stability with loyalty to a single man, Xi, is highly subject to flawed decision making, disruption, and shocks.
Fallacy 2: It underestimates CCP Strength and Resilience
In identifying the CCP regime as the archrival of the United States, Secretary Pompeo makes a distinction between it and the “dynamic, freedom-loving” Chinese people. His belief that CCP does not represent the Chinese people might in part derived from his 1989 experience, where there was a genuine gap between Eastern European people and the ruling communist parties. He fails to recognize the extremely strong support CCP receives from the Chinese society. Indeed, even after factoring in the possibility that people may hide their actual feelings out of fear of government retribution, high level of support of the regime in China was identified by various opinion surveys, including a Pew Global Research in 2014, which found 92 percent of Chinese respondents had confidence in Xi.
The disengagement thesis also unwittingly uses the Soviet empire to draw an analogy with China. True, the CCP is “repeating some of the same mistakes that the Soviet Union made,” but the resilience of China’s authoritarian state far surpasses that of the former Soviet Union, which it has already outlasted. Economic historians remind us that even at its peak, the Soviet economy produced considerably less than half of the U.S. GDP. In 2019, however, China’s GDP already amounted to two-thirds of the size of the U.S. economy. The GDP gap continues to shrink in China’s favor. In the second quarter of this year, China registered an economic growth of 3.2 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
Furthermore, Beijing has not lost its ability to respond to a crisis by mobilizing resources and bureaucratic capacities for high priority. The CCP’s commitment to ensuring its survival has been clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak caused the most severe social-political crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Instead of allowing the crisis to become China’s “Chernobyl moment,” however, the CCP turned to a combination of traditional vehicles of the party-state and high-tech means (e.g., big data and QR codes) to contain the spread of the virus relatively quickly.
By early April, it was clear that Xi had emerged as a winner in the fight against the outbreak. A series of national online surveys of urban residents in China, conducted by the UCSD China Data Lab, suggested that the pandemic has beefed up government legitimacy. On a scale of 1 to 10, the average level of social trust in the central government increased from 8.23 in June 2019 to 8.87 in May 2020. The percentage of respondents who “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they prefer living under China’s political system as compared to others increased, too, from 70 percent in June 2019 to 83 percent in May 2020.
Xi might be a “true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology,” as Secretary Pompeo said, referring to Marxism, but the Party nowadays increasingly relies on nationalism instead of communism alone as a pillar of its legitimacy. The failure of the United States to effectively handle the outbreak and its “bullying” approach have pushed nationalism and anti-Americanism to an all-time high in China. Social media outlets in the country are saturated with comments and posts that portray the United States as a diminishing and hostile power. Social injustice, political polarization, and policy paralysis are undermining the United States’ role as a beacon of democracy for China. According to the same UCSD study, Chinese public’s views toward the United States in May 2020 were significantly more negative than those in June 2019. A large percentage of the public, including those who are young and educated, now dislike and despise the United States. There is no natural constituency waiting to turn against the Party with the right prompts.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the Chinese political system is superior to Western liberal democracies. The Chinese system, like the Soviet one, is fundamentally flawed and full of inherent contradictions. But as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reminded us, the system started to crumble only after Gorbachev took away the fear and terror it depends on to survive. However, Xi is anybody but Gorbachev, and there is no indication that the Chinese regime will collapse anytime soon. That is why we need to keep the competition peaceful and manageable. But decoupling policy not only risks a new Cold War, but also increases the chances of an actual war that results from an accidently sparked conflict involving the two militaries. The United States may still win a future cold (or even hot) war with China, but the cost would be way too high to justify considering it a viable policy option.
Fallacy 3: It Ignores the Significant Gains of Five Decades of Engagement
U.S. engagement with China has done more than the advocates of a disengagement policy are willing to acknowledge in shaping China’s domestic and foreign policy. In Toxic Politics, I explain how the United States, through its diplomatic mission in China, played a critical role in elevating the control of PM2.5 emissions onto the policy agenda and indirectly pressuring the Chinese government to take decisive action to improve air quality. The state commitment to pollution control, in turn, has enabled China to adopt a more cooperative approach toward international efforts to tackling climate change.
U.S. engagement with China has also been crucial in expanding U.S.-China cooperation over public health. Shared health concerns challenged both countries to work together to address a wide array of global health issues, including HIV/AIDs, pandemic flu, and health-related development assistance. During the H7N9 outbreak, disease control agencies in both countries collaborated closely to share epidemiological data and conduct joint research on the virus. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the two countries worked together for the first time to address a disease outbreak in a third country.
Constructive engagement also provided incentives to Beijing to sign multilateral agreements it had previously been reluctant to join. It acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1992, signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, and joined the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1998. During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Beijing China echoed Washington’s call for a large, coordinated fiscal stimulus.
Equally important, U.S. engagement with China had created a pro-America mentality in the Chinese government and the public, at least until the new nationalist surge only recently. Previously, Chinese leaders might denounce U.S. values or system, but that did not prevent them from sending their children to American colleges. The national infatuation of American education explains why China until 2019 remained the largest source of international students in the United States. A disengagement policy risks alienating liberal-minded Chinese elite who could be important potential allies in the United States competition with China. To make matters even worse, rather than inducing change favored by the United States, a disengagement policy will only drive 1.4 billion people to live in “angry isolation,” a scenario that President Richard Nixon wanted to avoid in the late 1960s.
An Alternative Approach: Contingent and Comprehensive Engagement
The purpose here is not to call for a return to Obama-era engagement, which is neither feasible (because of the changing political landscape) nor necessary (because of the loopholes in the policy itself). Rather, it suggests the need to “reboot” the policy to meet new challenges that never were envisaged by its founders. A more balanced and flexible alternative to the hard-nosed zero-sum approach toward China is a “contingent and comprehensive engagement” strategy.
The new strategy recognizes the limits in any U.S. power to force changes on China, but does not allow disputes or disenchantment with the country to prevent them from working closely with it in areas where there is a convergence of interests or overlapping responsibilities. Indeed, even in areas of frontier science where their national interests diverge, such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, the two countries are still in “near-perfect alignment” on the need to coordinate and prevent abuse. U.S. engagement in such areas does not prevent change in U.S. policy to respond to challenges from China in other arenas, but would make policy alterations more effective by evincing an American sincerity and commitment that current U.S. overtures have lacked and giving China a continuing stake in the bilateral relationship.
To balance competition and cooperation, the United States should certainly still respond firmly and decisively on issues where its national interest is directly under threat, such as intellectual property rights or the South China Sea. In doing so, America should avoid any temptation to imitate China’s nondemocratic methods or overreact to its influence in ways that undercut its true advantage.
In his famous “X” Article, George Kennan stressed the need to sustain the unique advantages of the United States in dealing with the Soviet threat. According to him, an effective anti-Soviet strategy hinged upon the degree to which the United States could create the impression of a country “which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problem of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time.” Instead of pursuing a “whole of society approach” against Beijing’s “whole of government” approach—which is reminiscent of the Red Scare era of the 1950s—we should invest more in rebuilding our ailing democracy and infrastructure.
Talking about forging cooperative relationships with China at a moment when bashing Beijing is at a fever pitch might seem ill-timed. U.S. foreign policymakers, rather than providing antidotes to the increasingly poisonous atmosphere of a “new red scare,” have fueled a cytokine storm that overproduces anti-China immune cells in the U.S. body politic when exposed to looming China challenges. But to avoid being intoxicated by the dangerous air of self-approbation and self-complacency in Washington, the United States—more than ever—must practice empathy, humility, and broad, balanced thinking.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-08--‘Mulan’ Has a Message: Serve China and Forget About the Uighurs

‘ Mulan ’ Has a Message : Serve China and Forget About the Uighurs All art is political .
Strangely , Disney ’ s live-action Mulan is more obviously so than most .
Mulan makes the current nationalist mythology of a Han-dominated China the foundation of its story .
That would be bad enough .
But parts of it were also filmed at the location of current and ongoing mass human rights abuses , including cultural genocide , against ethnic minorities .
The credits of Mulan specifically thank the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party ’ s Xinjiang Uighur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Public Security Bureau in the city of Turpan and other state entities there .
The Public Security Bureau is one of the main forces administering the internment camps , enforcing the surveillance and interrogation of even nominally “ free ” Uighurs , forcing people into slave labor , demanding that Uighurs host Han guests employed by the government to spy on them , and sterilizing Uighur women .
The Publicity Department—a term that used to be more honestly translated as the Propaganda Department—justifies these atrocities .
Most of these policies were well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the West—by the time the film was shot , partly in Xinjiang , in 2018 .
That should be the only thing that needs to be written .
But there ’ s more .
Even before the film—which was not previously known to have been filmed in Xinjiang—arrived , it had blundered right into politics .
Two of the film ’ s stars , Liu Yifei ( Mulan ) and Donnie Yen ( Commander Tung ) , have voiced their support of the Hong Kong police against the city ’ s pro-democracy protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boycott the film .
Its arrival on Disney+ the weekend that Hong Kongers were supposed to have an election , now delayed as the city instead cracks down on dissidents and democrats , adds more symbolic weight .
But the rotten heart of Mulan as a film , rather than its production process , is the accidental regurgitation of China ’ s current nationalist myths as part of a messy , confused , and boring film .
The title card fades into a location said to be the “ Silk Road , Northwest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Xinjiang—here set up by the narrative frame as an inalienable part of China that Mulan must defend for her father , her family , and her emperor .
That ’ s not the historical reality—or even the reality of the original poem the stories are based on , which depicts Mulan as the servant of a khan of the Northern Wei dynasty , not an all-powerful Chinese emperor .
A smattering of lines hint at something darker without imparting any complexity , as the villain Bori Khan makes passing reference to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is that his father was a leader of the now colonized “ Northwest China ” before the reigning emperor killed him .
Bori Khan “ unites the tribes ” and is served by black-clad elite guards who are heavily coded as Middle Eastern assassins , bringing a splash of Islamophobia into the mix .
Neither the subtitles nor any of the other characters acknowledge this , for all that the dramatic difference in clothing and landscape mark “ Northwest China ” as other .
It looks nothing like the lush rice paddies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s childhood .
It isn ’ t stated in so many words , but the imagery is such that when she takes up the sword to fight , she does so to suppress revolt in recently conquered border possessions and defend her empire ’ s economic dominance of the Silk Road .
None of this feels intentional .
The film was put together by a team of Western scriptwriters who seem to have done very little homework , resulting in a jumbled mess whose absorption of China ’ s nationalist myths is largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in China , it ’ s likely that scripts also had to pass the censors ’ approval , resulting in cuts that reinforced this .
As a film , Mulan has no confidence in the multiple filmic languages and genres that it draws on .
It isn ’ t that historical inaccuracy or deviation from established wuxia tropes is paramount so much as that this doesn ’ t feel like a knowing subversion or a stylistic choice motivated by a strong artistic vision ; it just feels incompetent .
The filmmakers have said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fairy-tale China , drawing from different eras and regions .
I worried that this would reinforce that imperialist narrative of a unified and culturally homogenous China .
But they were not fluent enough in their use of culture and symbolism to create that .
The seams of the patchwork are too obvious .
Instead we have a Mulan whose childhood and home village is exuberant , colorful , and Hakka , but who visits an imperial city that looks sterile and staid and from a completely different culture .
When she paints on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ robes , it comes across not as a girl feeling inadequate to or alienated by the ideas of womanhood defined by her own culture , but as her having the ritualized femininity of the imperial court imposed upon her .
When she loosens her hair to fight , it lacks any of the symbolism that long hair carried—for both sexes—to a Chinese audience and instead comes across as a desperate attempt to make the heroine look feminine to a Western audience .
Even from a conventional storytelling perspective , Mulan is a bewildering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scene to scene with very little logic or thematic coherence , mechanically working through a list of supposed wrongs half-remembered from mainland Chinese disdain for the animated Mulan more than two decades ago .
Thus the supposedly American humor of the original cartoon is gone , and almost every line is intoned with abject seriousness .
In keeping with other versions of the tale of Mulan , she now starts her story already proficient in martial arts , having been trained by her father like a son , which leaves her far less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a journey of self-discovery , Mulan is now consistently motivated by the all-consuming virtue of “ devotion to family.
” Gone is all the intriguing queerness of the original Disney film , in which another transgression of gender norms—Mulan and her three male companions dressing as palace women to sneak into the emperor ’ s palace—saves China .
Mulan isn ’ t someone grappling with her gender identity and the expectations of femininity , she is a woman temporarily pretending to be a man so that she can use her superpowers .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ original Disney Mulan is gone ; now he must be a martial monarch , played by a dubbed and nearly unrecognizable Jet Li .
Of course , there ’ s plenty of room for different interpretations of the Mulan story , and there always has been .
The tale of a woman who joins the army in her father ’ s place has taken on a huge variety of meanings .
There is a version where Mulan ’ s grandfather is a powerful sage and she ’ s the incarnation of a sacred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being infertile .
There is a version where Mulan fights bandits in the hills and another where she kills herself on the grave of her father , the only man she could be loyal to , after being forced to marry the emperor .
But the film isn ’ t interested in actually being in conversation with that vast tradition .
Occasionally it borrows a name , such as Gong Li ’ s shapeshifting witch , who shares the name of another cross-dressing woman warrior in the Romance of the Tang and Sui @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these borrowings .
Instead it defaults to a series of clichés the screenwriters seem to think represent Chinese culture ; po-faced duty , filial piety , magic fights .
And yet it arrives at the most depressing and narrow version of the story possible : Service to the emperor will absolve you of all your deviant faults .
Perhaps that was the lesson Disney chose to heed when they made their location decisions .

All art is political. Strangely, Disney’s live-action Mulan is more obviously so than most.
Mulan makes the current nationalist mythology of a Han-dominated China the foundation of its story. That would be bad enough. But parts of it were also filmed at the location of current and ongoing mass human rights abuses, including cultural genocide, against ethnic minorities.
The credits of Mulan specifically thank the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Committee, as well as the Public Security Bureau in the city of Turpan and other state entities there. The Public Security Bureau is one of the main forces administering the internment camps, enforcing the surveillance and interrogation of even nominally “free” Uighurs, forcing people into slave labor, demanding that Uighurs host Han guests employed by the government to spy on them, and sterilizing Uighur women. The Publicity Department—a term that used to be more honestly translated as the Propaganda Department—justifies these atrocities. Most of these policies were well in place—and some of them known in the West—by the time the film was shot, partly in Xinjiang, in 2018.
That should be the only thing that needs to be written. But there’s more.
Even before the film—which was not previously known to have been filmed in Xinjiang—arrived, it had blundered right into politics. Two of the film’s stars, Liu Yifei (Mulan) and Donnie Yen (Commander Tung), have voiced their support of the Hong Kong police against the city’s pro-democracy protests, thus sparking an online movement to boycott the film. Its arrival on Disney+ the weekend that Hong Kongers were supposed to have an election, now delayed as the city instead cracks down on dissidents and democrats, adds more symbolic weight.
But the rotten heart of Mulan as a film, rather than its production process, is the accidental regurgitation of China’s current nationalist myths as part of a messy, confused, and boring film. The title card fades into a location said to be the “Silk Road, Northwest China.” This is, of course, Xinjiang—here set up by the narrative frame as an inalienable part of China that Mulan must defend for her father, her family, and her emperor. That’s not the historical reality—or even the reality of the original poem the stories are based on, which depicts Mulan as the servant of a khan of the Northern Wei dynasty, not an all-powerful Chinese emperor.
A smattering of lines hint at something darker without imparting any complexity, as the villain Bori Khan makes passing reference to his conquered homeland. The implication, perhaps, is that his father was a leader of the now colonized “Northwest China” before the reigning emperor killed him. Bori Khan “unites the tribes” and is served by black-clad elite guards who are heavily coded as Middle Eastern assassins, bringing a splash of Islamophobia into the mix.
Neither the subtitles nor any of the other characters acknowledge this, for all that the dramatic difference in clothing and landscape mark “Northwest China” as other. It looks nothing like the lush rice paddies and colorful Hakka tulou of Mulan’s childhood. It isn’t stated in so many words, but the imagery is such that when she takes up the sword to fight, she does so to suppress revolt in recently conquered border possessions and defend her empire’s economic dominance of the Silk Road.
None of this feels intentional. The film was put together by a team of Western scriptwriters who seem to have done very little homework, resulting in a jumbled mess whose absorption of China’s nationalist myths is largely unconscious. Given the realities of filming in China, it’s likely that scripts also had to pass the censors’ approval, resulting in cuts that reinforced this. As a film, Mulan has no confidence in the multiple filmic languages and genres that it draws on. It isn’t that historical inaccuracy or deviation from established wuxia tropes is paramount so much as that this doesn’t feel like a knowing subversion or a stylistic choice motivated by a strong artistic vision; it just feels incompetent.
The filmmakers have said that they were aiming to create a fairy-tale China, drawing from different eras and regions. I worried that this would reinforce that imperialist narrative of a unified and culturally homogenous China. But they were not fluent enough in their use of culture and symbolism to create that. The seams of the patchwork are too obvious.
Instead we have a Mulan whose childhood and home village is exuberant, colorful, and Hakka, but who visits an imperial city that looks sterile and staid and from a completely different culture. When she paints on makeup and is swaddled in bright silk robes, it comes across not as a girl feeling inadequate to or alienated by the ideas of womanhood defined by her own culture, but as her having the ritualized femininity of the imperial court imposed upon her. When she loosens her hair to fight, it lacks any of the symbolism that long hair carried—for both sexes—to a Chinese audience and instead comes across as a desperate attempt to make the heroine look feminine to a Western audience.
Even from a conventional storytelling perspective, Mulan is a bewildering, choppy mess. It cuts from scene to scene with very little logic or thematic coherence, mechanically working through a list of supposed wrongs half-remembered from mainland Chinese disdain for the animated Mulan more than two decades ago.
Thus the supposedly American humor of the original cartoon is gone, and almost every line is intoned with abject seriousness. In keeping with other versions of the tale of Mulan, she now starts her story already proficient in martial arts, having been trained by her father like a son, which leaves her far less space for personal growth. Instead of a journey of self-discovery, Mulan is now consistently motivated by the all-consuming virtue of “devotion to family.”
Gone is all the intriguing queerness of the original Disney film, in which another transgression of gender norms—Mulan and her three male companions dressing as palace women to sneak into the emperor’s palace—saves China. Mulan isn’t someone grappling with her gender identity and the expectations of femininity, she is a woman temporarily pretending to be a man so that she can use her superpowers. The emperor’s quiet dignity in the original Disney Mulan is gone; now he must be a martial monarch, played by a dubbed and nearly unrecognizable Jet Li.
Of course, there’s plenty of room for different interpretations of the Mulan story, and there always has been. The tale of a woman who joins the army in her father’s place has taken on a huge variety of meanings. There is a version where Mulan’s grandfather is a powerful sage and she’s the incarnation of a sacred mountain who took pity on her parents being infertile. There is a version where Mulan fights bandits in the hills and another where she kills herself on the grave of her father, the only man she could be loyal to, after being forced to marry the emperor.
But the film isn’t interested in actually being in conversation with that vast tradition. Occasionally it borrows a name, such as Gong Li’s shapeshifting witch, who shares the name of another cross-dressing woman warrior in the Romance of the Tang and Sui.
But it draws no meaning from these borrowings. Instead it defaults to a series of clichés the screenwriters seem to think represent Chinese culture; po-faced duty, filial piety, magic fights. And yet it arrives at the most depressing and narrow version of the story possible: Service to the emperor will absolve you of all your deviant faults. Perhaps that was the lesson Disney chose to heed when they made their location decisions.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-08--The Pandemic Is Showing What the EU Is Good For

The Pandemic Is Showing What the EU Is Good For COVID-19 is testing plenty of aspects of the conventional wisdoms , including that the United States always bounces back from an economic crisis faster than old Europe .
From the oil shock-induced stagnation in the 1970s , to the blasting of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the new millennium , to the 2008-2009 financial crisis , that axiom has always been true .
But this time may be different .
After a moment of hesitation early in the pandemic , European countries took decisive action starting in mid-March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vast furlough schemes to preserve their economies until reopening could begin .
The European Union even decided to take on nearly $ 890 billion in debt to assist its hardest-hit members .
And with European consumption creeping back up , the recovery is underway .
In July , EU retail trade volumes were even marginally up year-on-year .
And Google data shows that visits to shops and restaurants are now close to pre-pandemic levels .
In the United States , however , massive fiscal spending by Washington has not prevented a chaotic health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ losses are translating into company foreclosures .
And next to income losses , the heft of the second wave of infection has pushed many Americans to keep their consumption low as they adapt their behavior to avoid catching the coronavirus .
In fact , U.S. data shows that mobility is still well below baseline .
Rising case numbers in France , Spain , and Greece have sparked fears that the European recovery may be short-lived , with a Europe-wide resurgence of COVID-19 poised to undo its economic progress .
But there are three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave is not truly coming in Europe .
First , a look at the aggregate EU numbers for new COVID-19 cases reveals a sheer difference in scale .
EU-wide daily new cases are now in the 45 per million range .
That is still below the March and April crests of around 60 per million , and it ’ s far , far below the approximately 200 per million levels that the United States saw in late July .
Second , the increase is concentrated in a few countries .
The situation in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exceeded late March peaks and are by far the highest in Europe on a per-capita basis—even higher than in the United States .
And the trajectory of the pandemic in Croatia , Greece , Poland , and Romania resembles that of several U.S. states in the South and West .
Having been largely spared from the worst of COVID-19 in the spring , these countries reopened too quickly .
But for the rest of Europe , the pandemic still seems under control .
In Italy , Germany , the Nordic countries , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up only slightly despite increased testing .
In Belgium , the Netherlands , and Denmark cases did rise over the past few weeks as vacationers returned home at the end of the summer .
But in all three countries , the second wave is now already receding as everyone gets back to their desk .
There seems to be little community spread .
And where there are regional clusters , such as Antwerp in Belgium , partial local lockdowns have been successful .
In France , new case numbers have exceeded first-wave levels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lagging slightly , since its holidays ended only in August and the country has embraced a very aggressive testing strategy .
France ’ s test positivity rate is still below the 5 percent threshold set by the World Health Organization ( WHO ) for the pandemic being under control .
And mobility is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels , suggesting that the French are not adapting their behavior .
But third and most important for the recovery , the worst-hit countries are by and large on Europe ’ s geographic and economic periphery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the United States hit some of the country ’ s economic powerhouses .
Together , California , Florida , and Texas , the hot spots of the U.S. second wave , account for around 30 percent of national GDP .
The share of EU-27 GDP of countries hardest hit by the second wave is less than that , around 20 percent .
Although the U.S. states hit by the second wave largely avoided full-scale closings , the true economic damage came from residents voluntarily changing their behavior to avoid catching the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retail and recreation spots—the motors of consumption—are still around 12 percent below February levels across the United States—and in California , Florida , and Texas , they are down 22 percent on average over the past week .
Worryingly , there is little sign of improvement since early July .
The U.S. economy is stuck in first gear .
Sure , Europe won ’ t have a V-shaped economic recovery .
But economically devastating national shutdowns , including widespread border closures , are not in the cards .
And most importantly , Europeans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In turn , in this crisis , Europe may for once recover quicker than the United States .
This should give Europeans a much-needed self-confidence boost on the global stage as they slowly find their own voice in a world dominated by the Chinese-American stand-off .
But , perhaps most importantly , this might also be the first crisis that reinforces European citizens ’ confidence in the institutions that define them—from the welfare state to the European Union .

COVID-19 is testing plenty of aspects of the conventional wisdoms, including that the United States always bounces back from an economic crisis faster than old Europe. From the oil shock-induced stagnation in the 1970s, to the blasting of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the new millennium, to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, that axiom has always been true. But this time may be different.
COVID-19 is testing plenty of aspects of the conventional wisdoms, including that the United States always bounces back from an economic crisis faster than old Europe. From the oil shock-induced stagnation in the 1970s, to the blasting of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the new millennium, to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, that axiom has always been true. But this time may be different.
After a moment of hesitation early in the pandemic, European countries took decisive action starting in mid-March to contain the virus and set up vast furlough schemes to preserve their economies until reopening could begin. The European Union even decided to take on nearly $890 billion in debt to assist its hardest-hit members. And with European consumption creeping back up, the recovery is underway. In July, EU retail trade volumes were even marginally up year-on-year. And Google data shows that visits to shops and restaurants are now close to pre-pandemic levels.
In the United States, however, massive fiscal spending by Washington has not prevented a chaotic health response from wrecking the economy. Job losses are translating into company foreclosures. And next to income losses, the heft of the second wave of infection has pushed many Americans to keep their consumption low as they adapt their behavior to avoid catching the coronavirus. In fact, U.S. data shows that mobility is still well below baseline.
Rising case numbers in France, Spain, and Greece have sparked fears that the European recovery may be short-lived, with a Europe-wide resurgence of COVID-19 poised to undo its economic progress. But there are three reasons to believe that a U.S.-sized second wave is not truly coming in Europe.
First, a look at the aggregate EU numbers for new COVID-19 cases reveals a sheer difference in scale. EU-wide daily new cases are now in the 45 per million range. That is still below the March and April crests of around 60 per million, and it’s far, far below the approximately 200 per million levels that the United States saw in late July.
Second, the increase is concentrated in a few countries. The situation in Spain is serious: New cases recently exceeded late March peaks and are by far the highest in Europe on a per-capita basis—even higher than in the United States. And the trajectory of the pandemic in Croatia, Greece, Poland, and Romania resembles that of several U.S. states in the South and West. Having been largely spared from the worst of COVID-19 in the spring, these countries reopened too quickly.
But for the rest of Europe, the pandemic still seems under control. In Italy, Germany, the Nordic countries, and most of the Baltics cases have ticked up only slightly despite increased testing. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark cases did rise over the past few weeks as vacationers returned home at the end of the summer. But in all three countries, the second wave is now already receding as everyone gets back to their desk. There seems to be little community spread. And where there are regional clusters, such as Antwerp in Belgium, partial local lockdowns have been successful. In France, new case numbers have exceeded first-wave levels. But there again, France is lagging slightly, since its holidays ended only in August and the country has embraced a very aggressive testing strategy. France’s test positivity rate is still below the 5 percent threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the pandemic being under control. And mobility is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that the French are not adapting their behavior.
But third and most important for the recovery, the worst-hit countries are by and large on Europe’s geographic and economic periphery. By contrast, the second wave in the United States hit some of the country’s economic powerhouses. Together, California, Florida, and Texas, the hot spots of the U.S. second wave, account for around 30 percent of national GDP. The share of EU-27 GDP of countries hardest hit by the second wave is less than that, around 20 percent.
Although the U.S. states hit by the second wave largely avoided full-scale closings, the true economic damage came from residents voluntarily changing their behavior to avoid catching the virus. Mobility data shows that visits to retail and recreation spots—the motors of consumption—are still around 12 percent below February levels across the United States—and in California, Florida, and Texas, they are down 22 percent on average over the past week. Worryingly, there is little sign of improvement since early July. The U.S. economy is stuck in first gear.
Sure, Europe won’t have a V-shaped economic recovery. But economically devastating national shutdowns, including widespread border closures, are not in the cards. And most importantly, Europeans feel confident enough to keep spending. In turn, in this crisis, Europe may for once recover quicker than the United States. This should give Europeans a much-needed self-confidence boost on the global stage as they slowly find their own voice in a world dominated by the Chinese-American stand-off. But, perhaps most importantly, this might also be the first crisis that reinforces European citizens’ confidence in the institutions that define them—from the welfare state to the European Union.