#global-elections

#global-elections

The last three months have been tumultuous in the district. The community was divided by a surprise move in January to add ethnic studies to the high school curriculum, a class that Chinese and Jewish families felt was discriminatory. When new board member Rowena Chiu said publicly she felt bullied by other "woke" school board members for questioning the class, all hell broke loose.

Last week- after the Wall Street Journal broke more news about the Trump family's dodgy crypto-business dealings and before the President shared a racist video of the Obamas depicted as dancing apes-the Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos decided that one of his smaller properties, the Washington Post, has proved such a drag on his two-hundred-and-thirty-billion-dollar fortune that prudence required that he obliterate much of its newsroom.

In the early 20th century, sociologist Max Weber noted that sweeping industrialization would transform how societies worked. As small, informal operations gave way to large, complex organizations with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, leaders would need to rely less on tradition and charisma, and more on organization and rationality. He also foresaw that jobs would need to be broken down into specialized tasks and governed by a system of hierarchy,

If Labour wins in what has been an over-50% solid red-voting area since the second world war, that will calm nerves on its febrile back (and front) benches. If Labour loses, heavy blame will fall on Keir Starmer for fixing the party's ruling NEC to bar Andy Burnham's selection, ensuring he couldn't challenge for the leadership without a Westminster seat.

O n January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol insurrection, many people were transfixed by what they saw in Washington. It was only a heroic effort by the police that kept the insurrectionists out of the House of Representatives, where elected members and staff took refuge behind chairs and under desks. In one sense, the riot, with its outlandish characters wearing costumes and face paint, felt like an absurd exclamation mark that punctuated the end of an erratic presidency.

Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen to receive our twice-weekly News & Politics newsletter. The Washington Roundtable is joined by Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about the pressures facing American democracy, the security of elections, and how these domestic tensions interact with the collapse of international norms.

The 11th-hour additions of Attorney General Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of the Office of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard come as the Trump administration pushes for more voter data from states and hunts for evidence to back up Trump's discredited voter fraud claims. The intrigue: It was not immediately clear what the cabinet secretaries intended to discuss, but organizers have added a new session to accommodate them.