Made in the Small Moments - Greg Laurie Devotion - August 31, 2024

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One of my pet peeves is to observe and chronicle how the 200-year idea of “liberal democracy” is disappearing before our very eyes due to the various new social conditions arising from technological…

Donald Trump can’t catch a break.  Only a month removed from an attempt on his life and the woeful debate performance that forced President Joe Biden off the Democratic ticket, new polling suggests…

The repercussions of the July 28 election in Venezuela continue to grow, as President Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to release the ballots from the election to certify the vote count announced by Venezuela’s…

LONDON —  Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the World Health Organization and partners to wipe out the disease. But polio is one of the world's…

Foreign Affairs European Allies Are Doing America’s Dirty Jobs What is happening in Europe is coming to America. Credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images One of my pet peeves is to observe and chronicle how the 200-year idea of “liberal democracy” is disappearing before our very eyes due to the various new social conditions arising from technological innovations. I have written about it several times, but we have added one more data point to the idea that “free speech” as a concept is functionally dead or dying in the Euro-Atlantic. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on trumped-up charges that his platform “facilitated” human trafficking and pedophilic activity.  I say “trumped-up” because we have seen previous instances of actual sexual grooming and other such criminal deviance on social media platforms before (and even currently), but none of their founders have been arrested. No, the real reason is that Telegram, like X, or previously RarBG, or Pirate Bay, is committed to an old-school, mid-’90s throwback idea of zero censorship and total freedom of speech—a callback to a time when the internet was imagined to be the ultimate high-tech frontier of Utopia. That dream is dead: Durov refused the Europeans’ demands to crack his app, and is now facing the consequences. Tucker Carlson conducted an interview with Durov a while back, and tweeted it out again following the arrest.  Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away. Pavel Durov sits in a French jail tonight, a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies. Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world. Carlson would know. His own life is now on the line: consider that the Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks. This is an easy way to tamp down on any dissenting voices, such as those of Carlson or Elon Musk; if carried out, the effect would be chilling. That’s the aim. The same goes for the anti-X crusade in Brazil and Europe. X is ostensibly the only platform to provide zero censorship, and thus alternative viewpoints. The Telegram arrest is just a practice run.  Consider two questions.  First, if, as the online saying goes, “America innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates,” then what explains one side of the American political spectrum imitating European-style repression on innovation and freedom of speech? And, second, if there are people who are megarich, worth more than the annual GDP of mid-sized states, and they see huge international institutions trying to harm them, then what’s stopping them from banding together to oppose the very idea of international institutions—in short, from bringing back feudalism? The second question is more relevant, given that, as David Sacks said, “Using allied countries to circumvent First Amendment protections is the new Rendition.” The answers might soon look less than hypothetical. Free speech has never been the historical norm of human governmental organization. Even John Milton’s career took an unfortunate turn after writing Areopagitica, when he became the lead censor for Oliver Cromwell. Every single technological innovation that leads to freedom of expression inevitably leads to more repression and political-theological conflict. The printing press and the wars of the Reformation led to a reactionary backlash. The industrial revolution and telegraphs and rail lines led to the age of power imbalance and then imperialism. Social media and the Arab Spring led to, well, what everyone can see in the Middle East. In short, the idea that free speech can remain neutral, without power behind it, is fallacious; the power will inevitably find enemies. There’s no balance in the world unless provided by a great power. Might is still right. Europe and America are now not even nominally defending free speech and dissent against concentrated power.  Which brings us back to the next hypothetical. If there are phenomenally rich men in the West, who could quite literally buy half of some continents and create armies if they wished, what is stopping them from banding together to bring about neofeudalism? Or simply toppling some governments and taking over? What might the backlash to the backlash look like? The answer will almost certainly be not very nice. If the cycle is from the tech revolution to a dark-age crackdown to global theological conflict to a new social and security architecture, we are perhaps at the second stage. And whatever it is that is happening in Europe is perhaps coming to America sooner than we’d like to think.  The post European Allies Are Doing America’s Dirty Jobs appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The Slump The numbers are in and the numbers are grim. Donald Trump can’t catch a break.  Only a month removed from an attempt on his life and the woeful debate performance that forced President Joe Biden off the Democratic ticket, new polling suggests the Trump bump has faded and the Harris waltz is on. Three thousand five hundred registered voters polled by Reuters/Ipsos across an eight-day timeframe made one thing abundantly clear this week—what once looked like an easy climb to the White House has, in the strangest of fashion, become arguably Trump’s toughest challenge yet. Not only is he down by four percent among registered voters (he was down only one percent in July), Harris is suddenly torching Trump in key demographics (women and Hispanics). Harris, who led Trump by nine points among women and six points among Hispanics in July is now up 13 with both demos in August. More troubling, Trump’s lead among voters without a college degree, a demographic he relied on in his 2016 victory, has been slashed by half, from 14 points down to seven.  And Harris has surprisingly—at least for Democrats—brought a fresh air to the race. In March, Reuters found that 61 percent of Democrats were voting for Biden as a means to “stop Trump.” Today’s polling found that a majority of Democrats now say they are voting for Harris, not against Trump. The Vice President’s ascendancy to the top of the ticket has allowed shy Biden supporters to become vocal Harris voters. And it’s not just Reuters confirming the swing. Data firm Target Smart told CBS News on Wednesday that “among young black women, registration is up more than 175%” across 13 states since Harris entered the race.  “I more than triple-checked it,” said Target Smart’s Tom Bonier. “It’s incredibly unusual to see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this. I mean, to remind people, 175 percent is almost a tripling of registration rates among this specific group. You just don’t see that sort of thing happen in elections normally.” And if things couldn’t get worse for Trump, Fox News dropped its latest poll Wednesday finding Harris has “closed the gap with Trump in the Sun Belt states.”  “Harris is up by one percentage point in Arizona and by two points in Georgia and Nevada,” noted Fox, whose polling division found one bright spot for Trump, arguing the former president was “up one point in North Carolina.”  Not so fast. Just as Fox News was giving Trump a narrow lead in North Carolina, the Cook Political Report was moving the state from Trump’s camp to a toss-up. A state that Trump led comfortably by a seven-point margin in July’s aggregated polling is now Kamala’s to lose. Even Nate Silver on Thursday afternoon couldn’t overshadow what polls in state after state show—that the numbers have swung, in unison, toward Harris.  Worse yet are the numbers for Trump’s greatest fighters—the Arizonan Senate candidate Kari Lake and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.  In Arizona, Fox News finds Lake down 15 points and without a paddle. Phoenix-based pollster HighGround Public Affairs has Democratic challenger Ruben Gallego up 11. Despite a border plagued by drug and human trafficking, the Democrat Gallego is looking at a landslide while Republicans and their tough-on-the-border message are “hemorrhaging support” with Trump and Lake at the top of the ticket.  “The playbook she used in 2022 is not working in 2024,” said Phoenix pollster Paul Bentz in response to the numbers.  In North Carolina too, MAGA’s favorite son appears headed for a substantial loss. Though Trump and Harris are running neck to neck in the Sun Belt state, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is viewed unfavorably by more than half of the state’s voters, and polling aggregate FiveThirtyEight finds Robinson reliably losing the governor’s mansion by a wide margin. And it’s not just the polling numbers that will have Trump heated over the Labor Day weekend.  His social media app Truth Social is a digital graveyard, so much so that the former president has begun posting campaign ads and statements to his ? account. The stock price of Truth Social ($DJT) sank below $20 a share on Thursday, its lowest since going public and a far distant cry from its eye-watering $94 price tag in October of 2022.  Amidst all of it, there was Trump on Wednesday resharing QAnon posts calling for military tribunals and “The Storm.” And although his allies in Congress and his political aides have publicly asked Trump to steer clear of personal attacks on Harris, Trump lobbed one of his most violent ones yet yesterday, suggesting that both Harris and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only achieved their positions of political power via sexual favors.  Then, there was the incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.  What had at first appeared to be Trump’s finest moment of the week—a lockstep salute honoring the fallen U.S. service members who were killed during Biden’s botched withdrawal of Afghanistan—ended up being marred by controversy and made headline news for all the wrong reasons.  “An ANC [Arlington National Cemetery] employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” read a tersely-worded statement by the U.S. Army on Thursday about the Trump campaign allegedly violating restrictions on using footage from the cemetery.  “This was unfortunate” continued the letter which claims Trump staffers “unfairly attacked” a worker who attempted to stop staffers from taking images that could be used in political ads. The Trump team later released a controversial video of his appearance on the former president’s TikTok account. (The clip has since raked up more than nine million views.) A spokesperson for the U.S. Army reiterated in the statement that the Trump camp had been previously made aware of “federal laws that clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.” Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, whose job security has been the source of speculation as Trump struggles on the trail, posted a video Thursday of Trump at Arlington. LaCivita doubled down: “Hope this triggers the hacks at SecArmy.” So has been the trials and tribulations of Donald Trump these last few weeks as head into the final barrel roll. The bounce he hoped to win from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (sort-of) exit from the race remains questionable as the independent presidential candidate has been unsuccessful in removing his name from several all-critical battleground states he promised to abandon.  “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to get onto NC’s ballot,” read the headline from NC Newsline. “Now he can’t get off.” And it’s not just North Carolina where Bobby can’t get off the ballot. In a cruel twist of irony for everyone involved, Kennedy looks set to remain on the ballots of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as well.  Trump still has the time and opportunity to turn things around but it’s difficult to deny the aspects of the 2024 race which now appear clear—if he is to win it, again, it will be Trump the underdog. The post The Slump appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs The Growing Rift in the Latin American Left Nicaragua’s Ortega attacks Petro in Colombia and Lula in Brazil. Credit: image via Shutterstock The repercussions of the July 28 election in Venezuela continue to grow, as President Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to release the ballots from the election to certify the vote count announced by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has driven a wedge into relations in what was once a relatively closely aligned bloc of left-wing Latin American nations. Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua and a close ally of Maduro in Venezuela, on Monday sharply criticized Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for their continued insistence that Venezuela release proof of Maduro’s victory in July. “If you want my respect, you will respect me, Lula. If you want the respect of the [Venezuelan] people, you will respect the victory of President Nicolás Maduro, instead of being dragged around,” Ortega said. “Petro? What can I say with regard to Petro? Poor Petro… Petro, I see as competing with Lula to see who will be the leader to represent the Yankees in Latin America.” Petro responded with a broadside of his own the next day. “Daniel Ortega has said we are being ‘dragged around’ just because we want a peaceful and democratic negotiated solution in Venezuela,” he wrote in a post on X. “At least I do not drag through the dirt the human rights of my country’s people, much less those of my brothers in arms and my companions in the fight against dictatorship.” Ortega’s angry outburst follows a joint effort by the two countries to gingerly renegotiate their relationship with Maduro. While Ortega, Petro, and Lula—along with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico—have traditionally supported Maduro against the more right-wing governments of the region and what they perceive as the hostile interests of the United States, Maduro’s doubtful reelection and his increasingly harsh repression of the Venezuelan populace have precipitated a rift between the authoritarian left of Maduro and Ortega and the more democratic left of Lula and Petro. In many ways, it is not surprising that the Brazilian and Colombian leaders would wish to distance themselves from the increasingly violent and unstable Venezuela. Both countries have suffered serious disruptions from fleeing Venezuelan refugees, whom Maduro refuses to allow to be deported back into the country. Moreover, linking domestic left-wing political movements with the situation in Venezuela is a losing proposition.  Petro in particular is in a precarious place. He is already considerably unpopular in Colombia, where conservatives consider him a traitor and appeaser for negotiating with the guerrilla narcoterrorists that infest the Colombian selva. This is a golden opportunity for him to burnish his democratic credentials and unchain himself from a sinking and regionally unpopular government. The same rationale goes double for relations with Nicaragua’s Ortega, who has gone on a campaign of brutal retaliation and suppression in the past several years. The Catholic Church has been a particular focus of Ortega’s ire, after it supported protests against his government in 2018. Since then, 20 percent of the nation’s priests have been killed, imprisoned, or exiled—including nearly a score just this month. Hundreds more of Ortega’s political opponents were jailed leading up to and subsequent to the 2021 national elections, which—like the recent Venezuelan elections—were of doubtful legitimacy. Ortega’s attack on the two South American leaders suggests that what was once a relatively robust coalition of left-wing governments in Latin America may be fracturing for good. Maduro now can only count on the support of Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico and Bolivia. Colombia and Brazil, Venezuela’s most important neighbors, may soon join Gabriel Boric’s Chile as left-wing critics of Maduro. Mexico’s position regarding Venezuela deserves closer attention. Immediately after the election, López Obrador joined Petro and Lula in calling on Maduro to release the ballots from the election. He quickly changed his tune, however, and endorsed Maduro, arguing that he sees no reason not to trust Venezuela’s National Electoral Council. This is a potentially concerning approach, given the president’s current efforts to dramatically rewrite Mexico’s constitution in ways that favor his own political party, including ending the independence of Mexico’s own National Electoral Institute. Continued convergence between Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela should be considered a warning sign for the continued health of the Mexican political system. An authoritarian Mexico, even if it were far less harsh than the current Venezuelan or Nicaraguan governments, would be a major blow to American interests and to our ability to control our southern border. On the other hand, the new distance opening up between Venezuela on the one hand and Colombia and Brazil on the other may provide new opportunities for amicable cooperation with the U.S. Left-wing Latin American governments are often hostile towards the U.S. for its long history of intervention in the region. But, with the specter of worldwide communism long gone, the U.S. should work for positive-sum engagement with democratic left-wing governments where reasonable—particularly as China will eagerly fill the deficit if Americans decline to step up. The post The Growing Rift in the Latin American Left appeared first on The American Conservative.