Israel’s Election Is Unlikely to Change Its Policies and Global Isolation

 

Steven Erlanger 

To Israelis, the two leading contenders after the election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff, offer sharply different personalities, styles and even paths to the future.

But to the rest of the world, they don’t seem substantially different in their approach to Israel’s security or in their opposition to a Palestinian state.

If neither can form a government, Mr. Netanyahu could remain as a caretaker prime minister for weeks or months to come. In this period of instability, there is concern, analysts say, that settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will increase and that Mr. Netanyahu will push President Trump to start bombing Iran again.

If Mr. Eisenkot manages to emerge as prime minister, Israel’s overall foreign policy is not expected to shift much. The tone may be more accommodating on the margins, but few expect Israel to embrace a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestine or abandon its active conflicts with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic in Iran.

All that means Israel will still find itself increasingly isolated internationally.

The vote sends a message to the world that the current government’s approach to the region, which has prompted an international backlash, “is not just a Bibi problem,” said Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a former American diplomat now at the Atlantic Council, referring to Mr. Netanyahu. “It represents today’s Israel writ large.”

Image

Mr. Netanyahu speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month. Israel has faced increasing isolation internationally over its prosecution of wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Israel’s reputation in the world has suffered over the past few years. Sympathy and support after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, have been gradually undermined by the extensive Israeli bombing campaign in southern Lebanon and especially Gaza, as well as the rising settler violence in the West Bank. The war against Iran, which Israel encouraged President Trump to join, has been deeply unpopular in much of the world, including the United States, driving up energy prices and inflation.

Natan Sachs, an expert on Israeli politics at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based research group, said Israel has “now entered a very dangerous phase in its official relations with other countries.” He cited a general increase in anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and antisemitic sentiment in the West and recent European moves to impose sanctions on Israeli products and businesses in the West Bank, which could also damage the economy.

In the United States, Israel faces an erosion of trust. Support for Israel has been waning among Democrats, who appear to be in a strong position to at least take the House of Representatives in elections next week. Changing that relationship “will be even more difficult if Bibi Netanyahu is still in charge of Israel and there is absolutely no hope of Israeli politics or policies changing,” said Rachel Brandenburg, Washington director of the Israel Policy Forum, a research institution that supports a two-state solution.

Several European nations, including Britain and France, have been in watch-and-see mode with the election, holding off implementing the sanctions announced last month. Their hope, if limited, was that an Eisenkot government would crack down on settler violence, stop claiming more territory in the West Bank and cooperate with governments trying to promote a peaceful settlement with Palestinians.

“There is a deep animus between most European leaders and Netanyahu that has built up for at least a decade,” said Robin Niblett, former director of the Chatham House research group and now the warden of New College, Oxford. “That makes Europe’s ability to contribute to peace in the region that much more risky even to attempt politically.”

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Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians as they stormed an olive grove during the annual harvest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank this month.Credit...Ammar Awad/Reuters

Mr. Eisenkot is also tough on security issues, he added, but would “try to find a way to cooperate for stability and peace instead of making the Europeans the enemy.” Even that effort, Mr. Niblett said, “would give more space for Europe to support Israel.”

Officially, the European Union was polite after the vote, praising Israel’s “vibrant democracy” and high turnout in a statement. It said the bloc looked forward to engaging the next government “on the basis of our longstanding relationship and commitment to democratic principles and common values,” based “on a frank and open dialogue.”

But the election has only increased uncertainty. Israelis could face political deadlock for months, and if no one can form a stable government, they could be headed back to the polls.

Few expect much give from Mr. Netanyahu in the interim. That means he is unlikely to compromise on Gaza or to restrain illegal settler activity in the West Bank, especially since it would likely anger the far-right partners in his coalition. Wounded by the election, Mr. Netanyahu may also want to prove that he alone, alongside Mr. Trump, can “finish the job” in Iran.

“He will probably feel more confident and empowered to present himself as Mr. Security, and the impact will spill over Israel’s borders,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East program at Chatham House.

“The ticking clock of a war with Iran is speeding up and seems all but inevitable,” she added. “It won’t accomplish anything, but it could convince all the parties it’s time to make a deal.”

Image

Women in an apartment damaged by an airstrike during the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran in March.Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

“Europeans should prepare for volatile weeks ahead under Netanyahu’s far-right caretaker government,” said Beth Oppenheim, who studies the Middle East and North Africa for the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He will have greater incentive to escalate, whether with Iran after the U.S. midterms on Nov. 3, or in the West Bank or Gaza.”

Seen coldly, the election was a clear repudiation of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, with a majority of Israelis voting for opposition parties.

But Mr. Eisenkot appears likely to need the support of Arab parties to govern, which some members of his coalition have rejected. And Mr. Netanyahu, by questioning their loyalty, has cleverly split the opposition between Jewish and Arab parties, despite a historically large turnout among Arab voters eager to reject him and his far-right partners.

That risks disenfranchising Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up some 21 percent of the population, and worsening Israel’s reputation as a democracy.

Given the high turnout of Arab voters, said Ms. Brandenburg, “if you then go ahead and say, ‘Oh, we have to go into new elections again because they don’t count,’ that’s not a good look for Israeli politics and Israeli government and frankly, Israel as a democracy.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES 

 

  

MAGA Finally Gets What It Deserves

 

David French

There is one number that stands out above all others as I think through the meaning of the midterms: 13.

As I type this, Democrats are on track to achieve a 13-point margin in the total popular vote for the House of Representatives. If you put that in presidential terms, our nation hasn’t seen a margin like that since 1984, when Ronald Reagan swept the popular vote and won 49 states.

If you compare that margin to previous midterms, the American people haven’t spoken that clearly since 1974, the first midterm after Watergate.

That’s not the only important number, of course. There’s 81, the projected Democratic margin in the House. There’s 56, the possible number of Democratic senators (if Mississippi and Alaska go blue). And there’s 26, the potential percentage of the statewide swing (from Trump plus-14 in 2024 to Talarico plus-12 in 2026) that turned Texas blue.

I’m going to say that again — that turned Texas blue.

The Democrats hadn’t won a statewide race there since 1994, and then James Talarico led an epic rout. Republicans lost every single significant statewide race. Even the Republican State Supreme Court justices lost their races.

Over the last quarter-century of tight races and extreme partisan polarization, we’ve grown used to election analysis that requires poring over exit polls, agonizing over messaging mistakes, and parsing the impact of different issues and scandals.

Perhaps the paradigmatic example is the 2016 presidential election.

Did Donald Trump win because Antonin Scalia died and Republicans held their nose and voted for him to save Scalia’s seat? Maybe. Did Trump also win because the James Comey letter reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation chased the “Access Hollywood” tape out of the headlines? Possibly.

Or did Hillary Clinton lose because she didn’t spend enough time in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania? Perhaps. Or did she lose simply because 2016 was a change election, and she represented the establishment? That could be, too.

But that kind of analysis is completely inappropriate in an election this decisive. In the aftermath of a wipeout of biblical proportions, it’s better to begin our analysis with one of my favorite biblical passages: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Or, put another way, it’s as if we pulled away the algae from Trump’s filthy Reflecting Pool, and found an inscription that read, “My name is Trump, king of kings: Look on my renovations, ye Mighty, and despair!”

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That’s right: It’s the Ozymandias election.

It is difficult to overstate the sheer arrogance of Trump and his remaining MAGA base. They treated the rest of the people of this country as if they were of no consequence.

Actually, it’s worse than that. They treated the rest of the country as if they were enemies.

To the voters who longed for peace, he gave them a unilateral, undeclared war.

To the families seeking relief from high prices, he gave tariffs.

To the voters alarmed about corruption in Washington, he made the swamp so corrupt that barons of the Gilded Age are regretting that they were born in the wrong era.

To the new Hispanic Republican voters who helped Trump win and transformed the Republican coalition, he gave brutal racial profiling and pogroms in the streets of Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other cities.

To voters who were weary of intolerance and cancel culture, he delivered a wave of censorship unseen since Woodrow Wilson imprisoned his political opponents by the hundreds.

To voters who wanted stability in the world, he gave fractured alliances and embraced Vladimir Putin, the world’s deadliest and most dangerous dictator.

And then, when dissenting Americans — including dissenting conservatives — condemned these outrages and cried out for relief, they were treated with contempt and rage.

The cancel culture of the MAGA right inflicted immense cruelty on its enemies, and MAGA relished their pain.

It would be a grave mistake to lay the blame for all this pride and arrogance on Trump alone. Last month I wrote that every institution eventually takes on the character of its leader, and so it is with Trump’s Republican Party.

The cult of Trump was so comprehensive, so all-consuming, that it became virtually impossible to succeed anywhere, at any level of Republican politics, without explicitly swearing fealty to Trump — and not just once but again and again, whenever you were asked to do so.

There was no better way to pledge loyalty to Trump than by acting like Trump.

That’s why a loathsome politician like Vivek Ramaswamy runs an ad exploiting the rape of a child. That’s why an equally loathsome politician like JD Vance spreads gross lies about immigrants far and wide even as innocent people suffer from the pain and shame that he caused.

That’s why grotesque racists like Bo French felt that they had a home in the Republican Party. After all, if the president can condemn entire groups of immigrants based on their countries of origin, then why can’t every other Republican who wants to broadcast his own bigotry do so? That’s why hundreds of thousands of Texas primary voters could look at Ken Paxton — and all of his adultery and corruption — and say, “Yep. That’s exactly the man we need in the Senate.”

If a MAGA voter is bewildered today, perhaps he should stop making a meme calling his opponents “fake and gay,” delete the post declaring that Indian Americans worship demons, turn off the podcast that’s shrieking at him that every person who votes Democratic is a heretic, and take a very long and thoughtful look in the mirror.

A guy can dream.

Donald Trump is to blame, but no one — absolutely no one — made you imitate him.

One thing that struck me when I traveled down to Texas to report on the Talarico-Paxton race was the combination of anger and fear emanating from Paxton’s Republican opponents.

They weren’t just angry at Paxton for challenging and beating the longtime incumbent, John Cornyn. They were furious at Paxton’s supporters, the people who’d insulted them, mocked them and hounded them out of Republican politics. They wouldn’t go on the record with their support for Talarico, but it was easy to see where they stood.

Midterm wipeouts don’t have to be fatal to parties (though they can signal a party’s demise). The Republicans almost held the White House in 1976, just two years after the 1974 election I mentioned earlier nearly wiped out the Nixon-era G.O.P. Bill Clinton was re-elected two years after the Republican revolution of 1994, and Barack Obama won after the Tea Party movement erupted in 2010.

But in those previous elections, the parties that experienced serious losses in the midterms were ultimately led by responsible adults who could react and respond to voters’ concerns, adjust policies and tactics, and revitalize their parties’ fortunes.

But Donald Trump is not Bill Clinton. He’s not Barack Obama. He’s not even Gerald Ford, who had the dignity and integrity to salvage the Republican brand after Watergate.

At least when Ford was trying to rebuild the Republican Party, the “crook” wasn’t still in the White House. In 2027, the Republicans will be trying to pick up the pieces with a crook in control of the Oval Office and his own cult of personality.

Trump is an erratic, egomaniac tinpot tyrant in decline who will blame everyone but himself for the loss. In fact, that’s already started. In a Truth Social post Tuesday night, he said that Fox News “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

There you have it. The problem with the 2026 midterms was that Fox News wasn’t sycophantic enough.

And there’s another thing — as a practical matter, every faction of the Republican Party has a reason to blame a different faction for its defeat. The circular firing squad has started, and every part of it has plenty of ammunition.

Free-trade Republicans are blaming the tariffs. America first Republicans are blaming the Iran war. (In an X post on Wednesday morning, Vance wrote, “The reason we lost is the war.”) Hispanic Republicans can blame ICE. South Asian Republicans can blame Bo French. Anti-woke Republicans can blame Trump’s crackdown on free speech.

They would all be correct, at least to some degree. They made the conscious decision to follow, defend and pledge allegiance to an unstable, hateful man, and now — at long last — they’re experiencing the inevitable consequences of their inexcusable moral compromises.

The next few days and weeks will be filled with conversation and debate over what the Democrats should do next. The easiest possible advice is to focus like a laser on the voters’ overwhelming concerns — corruption and the cost of living — but it’s now quite possible that our nation could be looking at a generational realignment.

That’s a conversation for another day. For now, we can sum up everything that happened in the midterms in three words, words that the MAGA movement has scorned for 10 years: Character is destiny.

THE NEW YORK TIMES 

 

 

Captain Groovy and His Bubblegum Army - 1968

 

Captain Groovy and his bubblegum army
Are coming to take you away

 

Television - Marquee Moon (in memoriam Richard Lloyd)

 

 

West End Blues - Louis Armstrong

 

Don’t Be Fooled. This Is What Trump Wanted.

 

Michelle Cottle

Talk about a thumping. After months of struggling to overcome brutal political fundamentals, most Republicans awoke Wednesday to the fresh pain of getting kicked to the curb by the American people, along with a fat dollop of dread about what comes next.

But not President Trump. I suspect he greeted the morning with a tingle of anticipation, if not outright excitement, for what lies ahead: two years of nonstop, bare-knuckle brawling with a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. In other words, Mr. Trump’s idea of heaven.

Yes, the president is a sore loser, as Jan. 6 illuminated in blood and chaos. He got busy early in this election rigging the playing field in his team’s favor, then spent the final months of it pleading with followers to pretend he was on the ballot.

But he wasn’t really on the ballot, meaning he can now tell himself this electoral humiliation had nothing to do with him. And he has never given two flips about the fortunes of the broader G.O.P. So, in his mind, Republicans’ belly flopping without him probably just confirms his singular importance.

Mr. Trump cares only about developments that affect him directly. As such, he might feel a whisper of unease about his lap-dog Republicans ceding control to crusading Democrats with subpoena power and two years of pent-up rage. After all, one of his go-to campaign pitches to Republican voters this year was that, if the blue team won the midterms, Democrats would immediately revive their unfair persecution of him. Maybe even impeach him a third time!

But, deep down, a Democratic win was surely what he was rooting for all along.

Conflict is Mr. Trump’s jam. The nastier the better. For all his self-aggrandizing talk about building stuff, his true talents lie in combat and destruction. He long ago shattered the spine of the G.O.P., so humiliating its members now is a minor thrill at best. But facing off against Democratic majorities in both chambers still buzzing from their electoral win? Now that is something to live for.

Expect Mr. Trump’s relations with Congress next year to make the partisan hostilities of his first term look like a meditation retreat. The incoming chairmen of the House Judiciary and the Oversight Committees have likely been protein loading and drawing up subpoena lists for months in preparation for their coming investigations into Trump & Company. At least, I sure hope so.

Not that Mr. Trump has ever cared much about congressional authority. Which means we can look forward to rampant stonewalling of Democrats’ requests for documents and witnesses. If at least a couple of administration officials aren’t held in contempt of Congress by the end of next year, it won’t be for lack of trying.

For Mr. Trump, this pandemonium is doubtless much more fun than the thankless tedium of trying to govern. The guy has never been much for policy, unless you count whipping up fear of immigrants and imposing a tariff scheme that seems to have been drawn up on the back of a napkin. And his second-term “accomplishments” thus far have been about as popular as a root canal without sedation.

True to form, Mr. Trump has responded to his failures by whining about the public’s refusal to appreciate everything he has done for them. Pre-election, members of his administration pleaded with voters to just be a little patient, to allow more time for the positive results of the administration’s policies to manifest. Maybe buy their spoiled kids fewer toys in the meantime.

That’s all over now. Going forward, Mr. Trump can simply redirect the blame for all of his incompetence onto Democratic lawmakers. High gas prices? A disastrous war in Iran? More expensive health care coverage? Rural hospitals shuttering? Pfft. If only the radical Communist extremist Democratic majorities would let Mr. Trump work his magic, all those problems and more would have been resolved by now.

Will his blame shifting work? Maybe with the Trump Kool-Aid drinkers. But it is the natural condition of the president to be blamed for most of what goes down on his watch, and a growing portion of the electorate has grown wise to his game.

There has been some speculation about whether, saddled with divided government, Mr. Trump will make an effort to cut a few bipartisan deals. Perhaps pursue populist tax changes or reduce prescription drug costs or … you know, something.

It is indeed pleasant to imagine that the president cares enough about, if not the welfare of Americans, at least his own legacy to get serious about helping people other than his rich cronies and grifter family. I wouldn’t hold my breath. Mr. Trump has never displayed much interest in or patience for working out knotty bipartisan deals. Rather than waste time on policy negotiations, he seems more likely to sit around binge watching Fox News and noodling over how to annoy his Democratic nemeses with yet another monstrous monument to himself.

The closing years of a presidency can be a drag. Especially if, like Mr. Trump, you have done a lousy job. The electorate is tired of you. Your congressional team is increasingly focused on the future beyond you. Worse, people expect you to own the problems you once railed against, along with the failed policies you have rammed through. Where is the joy in that?

Instead, Mr. Trump can now spend his waning days in office wallowing in perpetual combat and chaos. That has always been his happy place, no matter the cost for the rest of us.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Anal Stage of US Politics

 

 

JEFFREY ST, CLAIR 

Donald Trump seems to have reached that transcendent state of personal satori, where he is liberated from all inhibitions, political and psychological. His true persona has been unleashed out on the road, at one pit-stop rally after another.

Trump seems not to care–perhaps he doesn’t even notice–that the once-packed auditoriums have dwindled to the point where giant curtains don’t cover the sections of empty seats. The rousing receptions have been groans and baffled silences, as he rambles on and on about his own peculiar obsessions. He riffs on Nicki Minaj’s ass and Arnold Palmer’s penis. He brags over and over again about being the only president to have taken and passed (without missing a question) “a very difficult” cognitive test, three times! Even though his recent performances would suggest otherwise.

He drops strange hints about his declining health. He showed up to one rally with a bruise on his left eye, leaving some to wonder whether Meiania belted him or Natalie smacked him with her portable printer.

He indulges in his lusty fantasies on the musculature of the male anatomy, using a sitting US senator as a case study. He spins sadistic stories of violence, murder and torture. He enjoys the theater of cruelty, though not Artuad’s kind. He often sounds like he’s narrating a slasher film. Here is Trump entertaining his followers with a debased description of the murder of Iryna Zarutska for no discernible reason other than his own titillation: 

He was a big, strong guy and he stood up and violently slashed her neck. Almost cut her head right off. Slashed it violently and viciously. For those people who are able to handle that kind of stuff, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Very rarely do you see it run beyond the actual, almost-hit. If you did, you wouldn’t see anything like it, probably. In many cases, you wouldn’t be the same. Her head was barely attached. And she looked up in that final second of her life, and she said, to herself, ‘Oh god. What happened to me, oh God.’ And she knew she was dead. She knew it. She literally probably lived seconds. Or just a second. She knew what happened. The slash was inches deep. She knew she was in trouble. She walked onto the train because she didn’t wanna…I don’t know what. You could see how scared she was.

Trump boasts endlessly about his own wealth and openly expresses his envy of those wealthier than he is and his disdain for the poor. He ridicules his own supporters and thinks he can get away with it. He tells them their own financial problems are delusions. At one stop, Trump invited his MAGA followers to Mar-a-Lago, with this stipulation: “You could even come to Mar-a-Lago. You’ll be my guest. The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert. I’m not even sure you could buy that! No, don’t go there. It’s not a good place if you’re price-conscious.”

At another stop, he doubled down on his statement that he couldn’t care less about higher gas prices, saying: “I can just see the fake headlines: ‘President Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump.’ That’ll be the headline. I said I don’t give a damn. I’m gonna say it: We’re making a freaking fortune.’”

America’s truckers, who once convoyed for Trump, aren’t making a fortune. In fact, they’ve been smacked hard by his tariffs and the spike in diesel prices from his imbecilic decision to go to war with Iran. At least 221 trucking companies have filed for bankruptcy this year alone, the most in decades. Smaller companies are, of course, the most vulnerable to financial ruin and are being gobbled up by big conglomerates like JB Hunt.

Trump’s speeches–rants, really–have become more and more profane. It’s like listening to less f-word-fueled private recordings of LBJ or Nixon, except delivered in public before audiences of evangelicals and Christian Nationalists. This is Trump unbound, unconstrained by the grammatical demands of paragraphs or even sentences. Free association is now the name of his rhetorical game and the thoughts and anecdotes unroll in no particular order, skipping from one not necessarily parallel universe to another.

More and more of Trump’s speeches have devolved into mere glossolalia (aka, grunts, groans, belches, wheezes and episodes of gurgling aphasia), which will be interpreted by the most devoted members of his cult as him speaking in the Divine Tongue. But most, I suspect, will see it as evidence of a mind unraveling in real time.

Trump seems to have embraced his own weirdness, a weirdness that has gone pathological. He is the Buffoon-in-Chief and his presidency is our national opéra bouffe with a soundtrack by Lee Greenwood and the Village People.

What is the point of his ravings? Often there is none, except his own gratification. His jokes have no punchlines. His stories fade off without endings. His anecdotes have no discernible political messages. He seems bored. Bored by the road. Bored by his crowds. Bored by his job. Several times he’s told his sparser and sparser audiences he doesn’t want to be there talking to them. They’re not really his kind of people. The kind of people that like ballrooms and are members of golf clubs. He repeatedly interrupts his rants to complain, “Why am I here? I don’t need this.” But of course he needs this. Blind adulation is what he drinks instead of blood.

After all, this losing campaign isn’t really about him, even though it really is all about him. Sure, he’ll seize credit for any unlikely victories. But he won’t take any blame for the losses that seem sure to come.

Everything has gone to hell and he seems to know it, despite Natalie only feeding him (highly edited) good news. His tariffs have backfired economically. His war on Iran is a debacle. He can’t stop the Ukraine war despite his vow to end it on day one. He has been diplomatically outplayed by Xi, Putin, Zelensky and the Prime Minister of Canada. Netanyahu calls and Trump comes and sits. His military has taken it on the chin from Iran and, embarrassingly, the Houthis. Internationally, few fear him anymore, and none respect him. He has alienated his base. His flacks in the White House are scheming behind his back. Women reporters just shrug off his verbal assaults and attempts to humiliate them. Much of the American public now views him not just with disdain but with disgust.

In the end, Trump replaced neoliberalism with neo-narcissism. His economic strategy is unabashed self-enrichment for him and his cronies. Though look out if you were a crony who made out better than he did. Trump has no friends, only collaborators and co-conspirators. He’s never really trusted anyone, not even his sons and accountants. He trusts NDAs, not the people whom he forces to sign them.

So, he celebrates his own malfeasance. Trump wallows in the aroma of his own mess. In the Anal Stage of US politics, it’s a thin line between self-love and self-loathing. One oozes seamlessly into the other.

Trump’s personal wealth has swelled by $3.3 billion since retaking office. He may be America’s first self-dealing president. He’s turned the White House into his own gift shop. Contra Obama, it looks less like a Cheesecake Factory than Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Interior design as an infantilism.

He’s suggested he will issue sweeping pardons (thank Biden for the precedent) for even the lowest-ranking members of his staff, effectively indemnifying them from prosecution for any crimes or tramplings of the Constitution he tells them to commit. And then he will, of course, force them to sign NDAs to prevent them from ever disclosing what crimes and who ordered them.

Trump doesn’t think he’ll need to pardon himself, though he may do so anyway, just because no one else has had the nerve to, not even Nixon, who was trained by Roy Cohn. It would be another first. And Trump likes firsts, the more unscrupulous, the better.

Trump believes the Supreme Court has given him the green light to do whatever he wants without legal consequences. And he may be right. He can trade on inside information. He can manipulate the markets to his advantage. He can cheat on his taxes. He can shake down white-collar criminals for pardons.  He can accept jumbo jetliners from a foreign government with ties to terrorists. He can reward purchasers of his memecoins with private meetings, even foreign nationals with dealings before the federal government. He can build monuments to himself and deface those of his predecessors. He can target his enemies with revenge prosecutions. All without, he believes, legal consequences. The disruptor agenda of 2015 has shriveled away. All that’s left is the cashing in.

The last vestige of populism that Trump exudes–and he more than exudes it–is his free-wheeling bigotry and the license he gives his followers to hate the same people he does.  As Tolstoy said of Napoleon after his Russian debacle, “He lost the power to think a decent thought.”

COUNTERPUNCH 

  

 

Bitch Queens - Especially Danny

 

They got the good old needs

They got the hunger and they wanna feed They've got their eyes on the prize indeed And that invisible voice calling to breed

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3 people | 3 pessoas

 

Momoko Gill - When Palestine is free

Have we come to see We're only free when Palestine is free Long as we may breathe We turn to heal the rhythm to the sea No more rest in peace

Como Flávio Bolsonaro fugiu do Brasil? “Levarei isso para o túmulo”, diz ele ao NYT

"O jato que o levou a Miami foi providenciado por uma autoridade da Casa Branca, e sua entrada nos Estados Unidos foi autorizada diretamente pelo presidente Donald Trump, segundo autoridades americanas. Ainda há muitos pontos obscuros sobre a viagem, que também levou Bolsonaro pelo Equador e pela Argentina, onde um dos principais assessores do presidente argentino o encontrou em um aeroporto.

No entanto, em sua primeira entrevista desde que fugiu na semana passada, Bolsonaro afirmou que realizou toda essa impressionante e secreta viagem inteiramente por conta própria.

“Fui só eu”, disse ele ao The New York Times na tarde de quarta-feira. “Não houve ajuda absolutamente de ninguém, de nenhum governo.”"

leia entrevista de FLAVIO BOLSONARO
para ANA IONOVA

Como Flávio Bolsonaro fugiu do Brasil? “Levarei isso para o túmulo”, diz ele ao NYT

Trainspotting

 

details round the house | detalhes pela casa

 

 

Depois das eleições...

AMORIM

 

Amaro Freitas - Ayeye

 

 

LONDON

 

Miau Miau Miau

    QUINHO

 

Alicia de Larrocha - Granados: 12 Danzas españolas, Op. 37: 5. Andaluza

 

How the streets and social media drove Lula to a historic comeback in Brazil

"

“Some undecided voters we interviewed said Bolsonaro was a playboy who sided with big business, while at the same time spontaneously saying that, if he won, there would be a dictatorship in which people would lose rights,” said Rocha."

read report by Tiago Roggero & Tom Phillips

How the streets and social media drove Lula to a historic comeback in Brazil | Brazil | The Guardian

Primeiro a gente atinge a meta

CRISVECTOR

 

The Guardian view on Lula’s comeback: a victory for Brazil and the world, as well as a Trump rebuff | Editorial | The Guardian

 

 "After the Bolsonaro clan, the next biggest loser from the results of the Brazilian election is Donald Trump. Lula’s win broke a run of seven rightwing presidential wins across Latin America, a regional advance for which Mr Trump had claimed credit. While rightwing leaders in Chile, Paraguay and Peru congratulated Lula on his victory, the White House remained silent. The US president has only himself to blame: he tried to use tariffs to pressure Brazil over the elder Bolsonaro’s prosecution and its courts’ enforcement actions against American tech companies. Mr Trump’s meddling handed Lula a winning argument for Brazil’s sovereignty."

The Guardian view on Lula’s comeback: a victory for Brazil and the world, as well as a Trump rebuff | Editorial | The Guardian

Serbia’s Student List preparing for talks on forming government despite no clear leader

 

"She added that the aim was to “rebuild society from the ground up: full disclosure of all contracts and financial flows; depoliticising and strengthening the judiciary; renewing the education and healthcare systems”, and that state capture should “never again” be possible. "

read more

Serbia’s Student List preparing for talks on forming government despite no clear leader | World news | The Guardian

Carlos Lyra - Canção que Morre no Ar (Carlos Lyra/Ronaldo Bôscoli)

 

Morre no ar
Um resto de canção
Um rosto tão sereno
Tão quieto de paixão
Brinca no ar
Um sempre mesmo adeus
Meus olhos são teus olhos
Para nós

 

Dave Van Ronk - Mack The Knife (Weill-Brecht)

 

Now on the sidewalk, ooh, Sunday morning, uh huh
Lies a body just oozin' life, eek!
And someone's sneaking 'round the corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

E vai rolar a festa!

MIGUEL PAIVA

KLEBER

GILMAR

JORGE O MAU

FERNANDES

LUTE

 

Brazil: how did Lula beat far-right Bolsonaro?

Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won a historic fourth term as president, defeating the far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in a dramatic comeback. Lula is the first candidate to win a runoff election after losing in the first round – taking victory with 51.79% of the vote to his rival’s 48.21%. His win bucks a regional trend, after the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro had spearheaded a radical populist movement. But with Flávio Bolsonaro refusing to concede defeat, what’s next for Brazil? Michael Safi speaks to Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips

Brazil: how did Lula beat far-right Bolsonaro? | The Latest | Brazil | The Guardian

Flávio prometeu ser o candidato da mudança. Começou mudando-se de país

 

  Flávio Bolsonaro prometeu ser o candidato da mudança. Em dois dias, cumpriu a promessa e de mudou-se de país. Cruzou a fronteira, pegou um voo particular e se pirulitou, segundo seus aliados, para os Estados Unidos, com a ajuda do governo Donald Trump.

Lá, ele vai estar confortável e longe da Justiça brasileira, onde é alvo de dois inquéritos sobre crimes como corrupção, lavagem de dinheiro e evasão de divisas. Somará forças ao irmão Eduardo (foragido das autoridades daqui após ser condenado por interferir no julgamento do pai por tentativa de golpe) no ataque ao governo reeleito e ao Supremo Tribunal Federal.

E não estará desassistido. Daniel Vorcaro, dono do Banco Master, havia transferido a seu pedido ao menos R$ 70 milhões para um fundo nos EUA sob a justificativa de financiar o filme Dark Horse (a PF investiga se não foi para o próprio bolso da família). Isso sem considerar as contas e negócios que tinha com seu amigo Willer Tomaz — volto a este assunto mais adiante.

 Mostra, com sua decisão, um padrão da sua família. Que, diante da Justiça, foge. E, da imprensa, mente. "Nunca pensei em sair do país." A frase foi dita por ele ontem, em vídeo nas redes, após ser intimado pela Polícia Federal a entregar seus passaportes, comum e diplomático, por determinação de Alexandre de Moraes. Diante do histórico recente do senador, a pergunta é inevitável: quem acreditou?

Afinal, ele também havia dito que aceitaria o resultado das urnas. Em 2 de agosto, no programa Canal Livre, da BandNews, garantiu: "Eu vou aceitar, vou concorrer com essas regras". E, em sabatina na TV Globo no dia 16 de outubro, reforçou: "Independentemente de qual for o resultado, vou respeitar."

Respeitou até abrir a boca. Logo após o TSE confirmar a reeleição de Lula, por 51,8% a 48,2%, Flávio disse que não aceitaria o que as urnas lhe disseram, dando como desculpa a extensão no horário de votação. Anunciou que pediria a anulação do pleito. Só omitiu que o pedido para que as urnas permanecessem abertas até às 19h partiu do PT e do seu partido, o PL. Dados do TSE mostram que apenas 35 mil votos foram registrados após as 17h. Lula venceu por mais de 4,4 milhões.

Nesta segunda, ele refugou diante do ridículo: em vez de anulação, vai pedir a cassação da chapa Lula-Alckmin por abuso de poder político e econômico. E uma frase que resume o espírito da coisa: "Não fui eu que perdi, foi o sistema que ganhou". É o manual de quem não sabe perder: a culpa é do juiz, do gramado, da bola, do gandula. Nunca do time.

O pano de fundo da fuga é a PF, que aponta que Flávio e o advogado Willer Tomaz dividiam uma conta no Santander. Tomaz, alvo de busca em agosto por suspeita de lavar dinheiro desviado de aposentadorias do INSS, teve o passaporte cancelado na sexta. Como está fora do país, a medida só terá efeito quando (e se) voltar. Flávio chamou a decisão de "aberração" e de tentativa de intimidá-lo. As defesas dele e de Tomaz negam as acusações.

Faz parte do jogo criticar a decisão de Moraes, discutindo se a apreensão dos documentos teria sido desnecessária. Mas a saída do senador acaba justificando o pedido da PF chancelado pelo ministro do STF.
Continua após a publicidade

Jair disse que não daria um golpe, tentou um golpe, e agora está preso por causa disso. Disse que não tentaria fugir, e fez um teste drive de fuga na Embaixada da Hungria, em 2024, bolou um plano de fuga para a Argentina e, como esquecer, sua icônica tentativa de derreter a sua tornozeleira eletrônica. O que mostra que dois de seus filhos foram mais bem sucedidos que ele em fugir. Não é isso, afinal, o que todo pai quer?

Em política, palavra empenhada é patrimônio. Flávio torrou a sua em poucas horas ao dar as declarações grávidas de golpismo e ao escafeder-se. Se não voltar ao Brasil para responder ao que pesa contra ele, com o medo do que virá com o fim de sua imunidade parlamentar, o senador abre mão de ser líder da oposição. Mas dada as evidências que pesam contra ele, uma saída do país provavelmente já estava nos planos. A solicitação dos passaportes por Moraes apenas a adiantou.

Com dois irmãos nos EUA, dois no Congresso sem a mesma capacidade de articulação e o pai preso, o clã Bolsonaro perde força. Lembrando que Michelle carrega o sobrenome, mas nunca foi considerada pelo marido e enteados como parte do núcleo político. A fuga de Flávio pode representar a primeira grande chance de renovação no comando da direita e da extrema direita brasileiras.

Por outro lado, caso se confirme a participação do governo Donald Trump no plano de fuga, podemos imaginar que a grande mudança trazida por Flávio será, afinal, mais interferência política e econômica dos Estados Unidos ao Brasil.
 

UOL 

A incrivel historia de um rato de esgoto que sonhava em ser presidente do Brasil

GALVAO

 

The Guardian view on Serbia’s student revolution: from principled protest to power

  

"After sustaining their protests and turning them into a political movement, the students resoundingly defeated Aleksandar Vučić’s autocratic government in a snap legislative poll called by the president himself. Their victory constitutes one of the most remarkable election outcomes in recent European history "

read more

The Guardian view on Serbia’s student revolution: from principled protest to power | Editorial | The Guardian

Run The Jewels - goonies vs. E.T.

Baby, if I had another chance,
I would give another chance to you (ooh)
If I make another wish, I would wish for a wish for you (ooh)
But the brass on the magic lamp's damn near rubbed through (through)
It's been wish after wish after wish after wish

And the chances are that none are comin' true