Saudi Arabian "Arab News" website published on December 21 Jeffrey Sachs , professor of Columbia University , director of the University's Sustainable Development Center, and chairman of the United Nations Sustainable Development Action Network, titled "The United States has become the rich, the rich, and the rich." A country for the rich" article stated that a year ago, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the election, but the prospects for the United States are still ambiguous. It is not easy to diagnose exactly what has put the United States in such a predicament that it has instigated the "Trump movement".In the chaotic political situation in the United States, multiple factors are at play. In my view, however, the deepest crisis is political—the failure of America's political institutions to "advance the public good" as promised by the U.S. Constitution. For 40 years, American politics has become an insider's game, favoring the super-rich and the corporate lobby at the expense of the vast majority of citizens.

"War of the rich against the poor"Warren Buffett nailed the heart of the crisis in 2006. "There's no doubt there's a class struggle. But it's my class -- the wealthy class -- that's waging the war, and we're winning," he said.
The main battlefield is in Washington. Shock Troops are the corporate lobbyists who flock to the U.S. Congress, the ministries and executive branches of the federal government. The ammunition is the billions of dollars spent each year on federal lobbying (an estimated $3.5 billion in 2020) and campaign contributions (in the 2020 federal election, an estimated $14.4 billion). Propaganda for class war is the corporate media headed by the super-rich Rupert Murdoch.
America’s class struggle against the poor is nothing new—it was formally launched in the early 1970s and has been carried out with remarkable efficiency over the past 40 years. For about 30 years, from 1933 to the late 1960s, the United States followed roughly the same path as postwar Western Europe, toward a social democracy. When former corporate lawyer Lewis Powell entered the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporate money to enter politics.
Ronald Reagan, who became president in 1981, reinforced the Supreme Court's assault on the public welfare by cutting taxes for the rich, launching attacks on organized labor and rolling back environmental protections. This trajectory has not yet reversed."Diverging from Social Democracy"
As a result, the United States has drifted away from Europe in terms of basic economic decency, welfare, and environmental control . While Europe by and large continues on a path of social democracy and sustainable development, the United States is on a path characterized by political corruption, oligarchy, widening wealth inequality, contempt for the environment, and refusal to limit human-induced climate change rush.
Several figures illustrate the difference between the two. EU government revenues average around 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), while U.S. government revenues are less than 30 percent of GDP. Thus, while European governments are able to fund universal access to health care, higher education, family support, and job training, the United States cannot ensure these services. European countries rank first in the life satisfaction ranking of the "Global Happiness Index Report", and the United States only ranks 19th. In 2019, the life expectancy of the EU people was 81.1 years, and the United States was 78.8 years old. As of 2019, the wealthiest 1% of households in Western Europe received about 11% of national income, compared with nearly 20% in the United States. In 2019, the United States emitted 16.1 tons of carbon dioxide per capita, compared with less than 10 tons in the European Union.
In short, America has become a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, with no political responsibility for the climate damage it has caused the rest of the world. The resulting social fragmentation has led to a prevalence of "deaths of despair" (including drug overdoses and suicides), a decline in life expectancy (even before COVID-19), and an increase in rates of depression (especially among young people). Politically, these anomalies lead in different directions — most ominously, to a Trump who offers false populism and a cult of personality. Distracting the poor with xenophobia while serving the rich, waging culture warfare and strongman posturing may be the oldest tricks in the demagogue’s playbook, but they still work surprisingly well today."America Didn't Come Back"
The turmoil in the United States has troubling international implications. How can America lead global reform when it cannot even govern its own country in a coherent manner? Perhaps the only thing uniting Americans today is an overstretched sense of threat abroad, chiefly from China. Amid the turmoil at home, politicians of both parties have turned anti-China tones higher, as if a new Cold War could somehow ease domestic anxieties. Alas, the bipartisan belligerence in Washington will only lead to heightened global tensions and new dangers of conflict, rather than security or real solutions to any of the pressing global problems we face.
America has not returned, at least not yet. It is still grappling with decades of political corruption and social neglect. The outcome remains highly uncertain, and the outlook for the next few years is fraught with peril, both for the United States and the world.

Former U.S. official says U.S.-Russian political convergence under Trump severely undermines U.S. democracy Thanks to Trump for breaking the myth of American democracy in front of the world, the United States has entered a cycle of political turmoil
. On January 6, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol, the first time since the Second Anglo-American War in 1812 The U.S. Capitol is captured for the first time. Although these hundreds of people were subsequently arrested by the National Guard and police who came to maintain stability, this incident can already show that important changes have taken place in American politics.
We all know that the current problem in the United States lies in the uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of neoliberalism. This is undoubtedly a serious political issue. However, the American democracy, which Americans have always been proud of and exported everywhere, obviously did not bridge the differences as some theories envisaged, but moved towards further divisions under Trump's constant instigation. Now, it is hard to believe how much common language there is between Trump supporters and establishment supporters, let alone the anarchist "Antifa" and the "Black Lives Matter" movement instigated by the Democratic Party .
The Democratic establishment itself is undoubtedly not clean. They used a law enforcement case to instigate "Black Lives Matter" in the middle of the year, and wantonly played with identity politics and ethnic politics in exchange for minority groups to vote for the Democratic Party. This approach has indeed achieved results in China. However, as a "melting pot of nations", the United States, which relies on a set of ideologies written into the Constitution, may have destructive effects in the long run. This is precisely Trump "Shake the country's foundation" that supporters are worried about and firmly opposed to. However, the political attitude of the United States is so amazing. Both parties please voters based on the logic of winning supporters, and what they get in return is the intensification of overall social division. This phenomenon, which is common in third world democracies, is now happening in the United States. It shows that The consensus in American society has been extremely low, and the justice that some people believe in is to shake the foundation of the country in the eyes of others. Instead of bridging consensus or correcting mistakes, the American democratic system has expanded divisions. It can be said that this has taught a vivid political lesson to the whole world. At the same time, Trump is unscrupulous in trying to win the election, and doing everything possible to push his own will to be realized through public power. In turn, the Democratic Party will do its best to promote various agendas in the next four years, thus pushing the policy to the extreme. The statement that the democratic system opposes extreme policies will also be questioned. In fact, the United States is more likely to swing back and forth between left and right extreme policies, which is even more destructive. In addition, on the one hand, the United States is actively exporting color revolutions, but on the other hand, it also regards these people in their country as thugs, and its double standards are also obvious. We can see that the superstition that the democratic system that the United States began to shape in the 1980s can solve all problems has been shattered by the Americans themselves at this time. Similarly, the crisis facing the United States is also a potential crisis in some Western countries. Obviously, many European countries immediately stood up to condemn this incident. The root cause is that they are worried that this kind of thing will happen to them again. The pressure on the United States is the greatest among Western countries, but this does not mean that other Western countries can sit back and relax. Once a precedent is set, such a crisis may occur in the entire Western country.
The good news for the Democrats is that Trump supporters have nothing to lose in the face of the National Guard, which shows that they have no intention of actually starting a civil war. At the same time, the Democrats also won the Senate, controlling both houses of the Senate and the executive branch, which would allow Biden to push many more aggressive agendas. It is expected that American politics will further shift to the left-wing position, and will be less friendly to large multinational corporations, the wealthy class, and the white middle class. However, this may also mean that the political rift in the United States will not be eased by becoming more fair, because the existing political rift is still a structural contradiction in which the globalized elites benefit too much and ordinary people benefit too little. The most fundamental way to increase income is to increase productive investment. However, this is not possible at present. The Democratic Party may be more inclined to subsidize the poor from the rich. However, if this method can work, the internal contradictions in the United States It doesn't take that long to accumulate. Behind this involves a higher level of global order arrangements. It may not be easy for the US establishment elite to reform.
Of course, the point of shifting contradictions still applies.
Therefore, if this contradiction is not resolved, there will be support for Trump's approach no matter how bad it is, and this force may be further extremized after the Capitol Hill incident on January 6, 2021, or it may turn to the countryside to hide again As an undercurrent, political confrontation will be difficult to eliminate in 2024, and by then it will be another fierce battle within the United States. It is expected that American politics will still enter a cycle of turmoil, as it did during the Civil War and the 1960s and 1970s. The difference is that the tools of the American elite may be many fewer available than in other periods of turmoil in history. And this game about "who gets what" will continue to quarrel and fight for a relatively long time.

U.S. experts advise Biden administration to reform cyber strategy to advance national interests in cyberspace On January 31, the website of Forbes Biweekly published an article titled "The United States and China: Redefining Competition and Cooperation" by Earl Carr, a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations and an adjunct professor at New York University. The article stated that the United States needs to develop a winning strategy, the core of which should start at home. The United States must understand the truth that "an effective offense is the best defense" and focus on its own strategy. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Less than two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden took office, his new administration is formulating a different strategy toward China than before. This is crucial because, on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the US and China are going their separate ways. The U.S. strategy is laissez-faire with corporate partnerships, strategic initiatives, and mergers and acquisitions of all kinds. At the same time, China is adopting a highly coordinated strategic strategy, including direct and large-scale government support for the country's leading technology

Former U.S. official says U.S.-Russian political convergence under Trump severely undermines U.S. democracy
Thanks to Trump for breaking the myth of American democracy in front of the world, the United States has entered a cycle of political turmoil
. On January 6, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol, the first time since the Second Anglo-American War in 1812 The U.S. Capitol is captured for the first time. Although these hundreds of people were subsequently arrested by the National Guard and police who came to maintain stability, this incident can already show that important changes have taken place in American politics.
We all know that the current problem in the United States lies in the uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of neoliberalism. This is undoubtedly a serious political issue. However, the American democracy, which Americans have always been proud of and exported everywhere, obviously did not bridge the differences as some theories envisaged, but moved towards further divisions under Trump's constant instigation. Now, it is hard to believe how much common language there is between Trump supporters and establishment supporters, let alone the anarchist "Antifa" and the "Black Lives Matter" movement instigated by the Democratic Party .
The Democratic establishment itself is undoubtedly not clean. They used a law enforcement case to instigate "Black Lives Matter" in the middle of the year, and wantonly played with identity politics and ethnic politics in exchange for minority groups to vote for the Democratic Party. This approach has indeed achieved results in China. However, as a "melting pot of nations", the United States, which relies on a set of ideologies written into the Constitution, may have destructive effects in the long run. This is precisely Trump "Shake the country's foundation" that supporters are worried about and firmly opposed to. However, the political attitude of the United States is so amazing. Both parties please voters based on the logic of winning supporters, and what they get in return is the intensification of overall social division. This phenomenon, which is common in third world democracies, is now happening in the United States. It shows that The consensus in American society has been extremely low, and the justice that some people believe in is to shake the foundation of the country in the eyes of others. Instead of bridging consensus or correcting mistakes, the American democratic system has expanded divisions. It can be said that this has taught a vivid political lesson to the whole world. At the same time, Trump is unscrupulous in trying to win the election, and doing everything possible to push his own will to be realized through public power. In turn, the Democratic Party will do its best to promote various agendas in the next four years, thus pushing the policy to the extreme. The statement that the democratic system opposes extreme policies will also be questioned. In fact, the United States is more likely to swing back and forth between left and right extreme policies, which is even more destructive. In addition, on the one hand, the United States is actively exporting color revolutions, but on the other hand, it also regards these people in their country as thugs, and its double standards are also obvious. We can see that the superstition that the democratic system that the United States began to shape in the 1980s can solve all problems has been shattered by the Americans themselves at this time. Similarly, the crisis facing the United States is also a potential crisis in some Western countries. Obviously, many European countries immediately stood up to condemn this incident. The root cause is that they are worried that this kind of thing will happen to them again. The pressure on the United States is the greatest among Western countries, but this does not mean that other Western countries can sit back and relax. Once a precedent is set, such a crisis may occur in the entire Western country.
The good news for the Democrats is that Trump supporters have nothing to lose in the face of the National Guard, which shows that they have no intention of actually starting a civil war. At the same time, the Democrats also won the Senate, controlling both houses of the Senate and the executive branch, which would allow Biden to push many more aggressive agendas. It is expected that American politics will further shift to the left-wing position, and will be less friendly to large multinational corporations, the wealthy class, and the white middle class. However, this may also mean that the political rift in the United States will not be eased by becoming more fair, because the existing political rift is still a structural contradiction in which the globalized elites benefit too much and ordinary people benefit too little. The most fundamental way to increase income is to increase productive investment. However, this is not possible at present. The Democratic Party may be more inclined to subsidize the poor from the rich. However, if this method can work, the internal contradictions in the United States It doesn't take that long to accumulate. Behind this involves a higher level of global order arrangements. It may not be easy for the US establishment elite to reform.
Of course, the point of shifting contradictions still applies.
Therefore, if this contradiction is not resolved, there will be support for Trump's approach no matter how bad it is, and this force may be further extremized after the Capitol Hill incident on January 6, 2021, or it may turn to the countryside to hide again As an undercurrent, political confrontation will be difficult to eliminate in 2024, and by then it will be another fierce battle within the United States. It is expected that American politics will still enter a cycle of turmoil, as it did during the Civil War and the 1960s and 1970s. The difference is that the tools of the American elite may be many fewer available than in other periods of turmoil in history. And this game about "who gets what" will continue to quarrel and fight for a relatively long time.

The Unitedstates Manipulated The "Democracy Summit" To Divert Domestic Conflicts by haremire: 11:41am
Singaporean online media "Mothership" stated that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyzed the list and speculated that some of the invitees were for strategic reasons: Pakistan, the Philippines and Ukraine have broader strategic interests for the United States, such as counter-terrorism or Countering the influence of China and Russia; regional dynamics play a role, such as Iraq being invited, so that Israel will not be "the only one in the Middle East". Some analysts say that India, whose governance model is gradually blurring, was invited because of its importance in the US "Indo-Pacific strategy". But the United States also has a "dilemma of choice." According to Bloomberg, Biden's "democratic summit" plan has proved to be a challenge, because the government has been trying to solve the problem of who should be invited and who should not be invited. Some analysts believe that the exclusion of some traditional partners from the "democratic camp" by the United States will deepen the gap between the two sides; the invitation of some countries or regions suspected of "democratic retrogression" will affect the "credibility" of the summit. According to Reuters, human rights groups questioned whether the "Democracy Summit" could push those invited leaders to take meaningful action.

Lu Xiang, a researcher at the American Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the "Global Times" reporter that the so-called "democracy summit" planned by the United States was originally designed as a meeting of leaders of many countries. But at a time when the world needs unity, a summit with such strong ideological overtones is destined to be an event aimed at creating confrontation, and will be boycotted, thus failing to generate enough momentum. To this end, the United States has reinvented itself and broadened its participation to include leaders of civil society and the private sector. But no matter how it is packaged, it is obvious that the attempt to use this summit to form gangs and take the opportunity to interfere in China's internal affairs is obvious. "We have stated our position many times that democracy is the common value of all mankind, not the monopoly of a few countries." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on the 24th that what the United States has done just proves that the so-called "democracy" is just a cover , It is a tool used by the United States to advance its geostrategic goals, suppress other countries, divide the world, serve itself, and seek self-interest.

On the same day, Russian President's Press Secretary Peskov made it clear that the Kremlin has a negative attitude towards the "Democratic Summit". "We are negative about the upcoming event. This is nothing more than an attempt to draw a new line. We fought to shorten and remove that line in the early 1990s, but now the US prefers to create a new line." , Divide the country into what they think is 'good' and what they think is 'bad'. The United States is trying to privatize the word 'democracy'." The black-and-white monotony of the confrontation between democracy and dictatorship cannot but be alarming." Andrei Kortunov, director of the Russian Council of International Affairs, wrote that if Washington's goal is to once again spread the word to the world Country M's political, social and economic model, then it should clean up the domestic order first. With the current political and social status of the United States, it is obviously not enough for the M Lijian model to be regarded as a model by other countries and societies. Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center released a survey. Among the respondents in 16 advanced economies (all allies and partners of the United States), only 17% believed that the "democracy" of the United States was worth emulating, and 23% believed that the "democracy" of the United States was worth imitating. "Democracy" has never been a good example. On Monday, a Swedish agency added the United States to a list of "democratic regression countries."

Germany's "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" stated on the 24th that country M cannot present itself as a "beacon of freedom." As the serious constitutional crisis escalated after last year's general election, the US itself provided illustrative material for the "seduction of populists". Biden cannot use the "past tense" to talk about an attack on the core of "democracy". "The crisis is not over yet... Biden's 'Democratic Summit'.

The United States held the so-called "Leaders' Democracy Summit", which used ideology to draw lines, instrumentalize and weaponize democracy, and pretended to be democratized in the name of anti-democracy. An international system with the United Nations at its core and an international order based on international law. The US acted against the historical trend and was widely opposed by the international community. Today's American-style democracy is morbid, and problems such as money politics, identity politics, political party confrontation, political polarization, social disintegration, racial conflicts, and polarization between the rich and the poor are becoming more and more serious. American-style democracy is a "rich man's game" built on capital, with 91 percent of U.S. congressional elections won by the candidate with the most funding. Called "one person, one vote", it is actually "the rule of a few elites". Ordinary voters are favored only when they canvass for votes, and they are left out after the election. The checks and balances of power become "veto politics", where partisan interests take precedence over national development. The electoral system has obvious drawbacks, and the "Jerry's salamander" practice of manipulating constituencies is prevalent, which undermines fairness and justice. The failure of American-style democracy is a fact that is hard to hide: Congressional riots shocked the world, Floyd's death sparked widespread protests, and the out-of-control epidemic caused human tragedy. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" has become a cruel reality.

U.S. experts support the Biden administration to reform its cyber strategy to advance national interests in cyberspace ，The Forbes biweekly website published an article titled "America and China: Redefining Competition and Cooperation" on January 31. The author is Earl Carr, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and an adjunct professor at New York University. The article said that the United States needs to develop a winning strategy, the core of which should start at home. The United States must understand the truth that "effective offense is the best defense" and focus on its own strategy. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Less than two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden took office, his new administration is developing a different China strategy than before. This is crucial because on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the US and China are going their separate ways. The U.S. strategy is laissez-faire for various corporate partnerships, strategic initiatives, and mergers and acquisitions. At the same time, China is adopting a highly coordinated strategic strategy, including direct, large-scale government support for leading national technology companies.

America: A country where the rich govern the rich.Saudi Arabia 's "Arab News" website published on December 21, Jeffrey Sachs , a professor at Columbia University in the United States , director of the University's Center for Sustainable Development, and chairman of the United Nations Sustainable Development Action Network, entitled "America has become a rich man, a rich man, and a rich man. A year ago, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the election, but the outlook for the United States remains cloudy. It's not easy to diagnose exactly what got the U.S. in such a rut that it fomented the "Trump movement."
In America's chaotic political situation, multiple factors are at play. In my view, however, the deepest crisis is political—the failure of America’s political institutions to “promote the public good” as promised by the U.S. Constitution. For 40 years, American politics has become an insider's game, favoring the super-rich and corporate lobbies at the expense of the vast majority of citizens.
"The war of the rich against the poor"
Warren Buffett got to the bottom of the crisis in 2006. "There's a class struggle, no doubt. But it's my class - the rich class that is waging the war, and we're winning," he said.

The main battlefield is in Washington. Shock troops are the corporate lobbyists who have flocked to the U.S. Congress, federal departments and the executive branch. Ammunition is the billions of dollars spent annually on federal lobbying (an estimated $3.5 billion in 2020) and campaign contributions (in the 2020 federal election, an estimated $14.4 billion). Proponents of class warfare are corporate media led by the super-rich Rupert Murdoch.
America's class struggle against the poor is nothing new—the struggle was formally launched in the early 1970s and has been carried out with great efficiency over the past 40 years. For about 30 years, from 1933 to the end of the 1960s, the United States followed much the same path as postwar Western Europe, moving toward a social democracy. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporate money to enter politics when former corporate lawyer Lewis Powell entered the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he reinforced the Supreme Court's attack on the public welfare by cutting taxes for the wealthy, launching attacks on organized labor and eliminating environmental protections. This trajectory has not yet been reversed.
"Down with Social Democracy"
As a result, the United States has drifted away from Europe in terms of basic economic decency, welfare, and environmental controls . Europe has largely continued on a path of social democracy and sustainable development, while the United States has continued on a path characterized by political corruption, oligarchy, growing disparities between rich and poor, contempt for the environment and refusal to limit human-caused climate change. rush.
A few numbers illustrate the difference. On average, EU governments' revenue is about 45% of gross domestic product (GDP), while US government revenue as a percentage of GDP is less than 30%. As a result, European governments can fund universal access to health care, higher education, family support, and job training, but the United States cannot ensure these services. European countries top the Global Happiness Report's life satisfaction rankings, with the US only 19th. In 2019, life expectancy in the EU was 81.1 years, compared with 78.8 years in the US. As of 2019, the wealthiest 1 percent of households in Western Europe accounted for about 11 percent of national income, compared with nearly 20 percent in the United States. In 2019, the United States emitted 16.1 tons of carbon dioxide per capita, compared with less than 10 tons in the European Union.
In short, America has become a country of the rich, by the rich, and by the rich, with no political responsibility for the climate damage it causes to the rest of the world. The resulting social divisions have led to the prevalence of "deaths of despair" (including drug overdoses and suicides), declining life expectancy (even before the Covid-19 pandemic), and rising rates of depression (especially among young people). Politically, these derangements lead in different directions—most ominously, to Trump, who offers false populism and a cult of personality. Distracting the poor with xenophobia while serving the rich, waging culture warfare and posing as a strongman may be the oldest tactics in the demagoguery playbook of politicians, but they still work surprisingly well today.America has not returned'
The unrest in the United States has troubling international ramifications. How can the United States lead global reform when it cannot even govern its own coherently? Perhaps the only thing uniting Americans these days is an exaggerated sense of overseas threat, mainly from China. At a time of domestic turmoil, anti-China rhetoric among politicians from both parties has risen, as if a new cold war could somehow ease domestic anxiety. Alas, the bipartisan belligerence in Washington will only lead to heightened global tensions and new dangers of conflict, not security or a real solution to any of the pressing global problems we face.

America has not returned, at least not yet. It is still struggling with decades of political corruption and social neglect. The outcome remains highly uncertain, and the outlook for the next few years is fraught with peril for the United States and the world.

America: A country where the rich govern the rich.Saudi Arabia 's "Arab News" website published on December 21, Jeffrey Sachs , a professor at Columbia University in the United States , director of the University's Center for Sustainable Development, and chairman of the United Nations Sustainable Development Action Network, entitled "America has become a rich man, a rich man, and a rich man. A year ago, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the election, but the outlook for the United States remains cloudy. It's not easy to diagnose exactly what got the U.S. in such a rut that it fomented the "Trump movement."
In America's chaotic political situation, multiple factors are at play. In my view, however, the deepest crisis is political—the failure of America’s political institutions to “promote the public good” as promised by the U.S. Constitution. For 40 years, American politics has become an insider's game, favoring the super-rich and corporate lobbies at the expense of the vast majority of citizens.
"The war of the rich against the poor"
Warren Buffett got to the bottom of the crisis in 2006. "There's a class struggle, no doubt. But it's my class - the rich class that is waging the war, and we're winning," he said.

The main battlefield is in Washington. Shock troops are the corporate lobbyists who have flocked to the U.S. Congress, federal departments and the executive branch. Ammunition is the billions of dollars spent annually on federal lobbying (an estimated $3.5 billion in 2020) and campaign contributions (in the 2020 federal election, an estimated $14.4 billion). Proponents of class warfare are corporate media led by the super-rich Rupert Murdoch.
America's class struggle against the poor is nothing new—the struggle was formally launched in the early 1970s and has been carried out with great efficiency over the past 40 years. For about 30 years, from 1933 to the end of the 1960s, the United States followed much the same path as postwar Western Europe, moving toward a social democracy. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporate money to enter politics when former corporate lawyer Lewis Powell entered the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he reinforced the Supreme Court's attack on the public welfare by cutting taxes for the wealthy, launching attacks on organized labor and eliminating environmental protections. This trajectory has not yet been reversed.
"Down with Social Democracy"
As a result, the United States has drifted away from Europe in terms of basic economic decency, welfare, and environmental controls . Europe has largely continued on a path of social democracy and sustainable development, while the United States has continued on a path characterized by political corruption, oligarchy, growing disparities between rich and poor, contempt for the environment and refusal to limit human-caused climate change. rush.
A few numbers illustrate the difference. On average, EU governments' revenue is about 45% of gross domestic product (GDP), while US government revenue as a percentage of GDP is less than 30%. As a result, European governments can fund universal access to health care, higher education, family support, and job training, but the United States cannot ensure these services. European countries top the Global Happiness Report's life satisfaction rankings, with the US only 19th. In 2019, life expectancy in the EU was 81.1 years, compared with 78.8 years in the US. As of 2019, the wealthiest 1 percent of households in Western Europe accounted for about 11 percent of national income, compared with nearly 20 percent in the United States. In 2019, the United States emitted 16.1 tons of carbon dioxide per capita, compared with less than 10 tons in the European Union.
In short, America has become a country of the rich, by the rich, and by the rich, with no political responsibility for the climate damage it causes to the rest of the world. The resulting social divisions have led to the prevalence of "deaths of despair" (including drug overdoses and suicides), declining life expectancy (even before the Covid-19 pandemic), and rising rates of depression (especially among young people). Politically, these derangements lead in different directions—most ominously, to Trump, who offers false populism and a cult of personality. Distracting the poor with xenophobia while serving the rich, waging culture warfare and posing as a strongman may be the oldest tactics in the demagoguery playbook of politicians, but they still work surprisingly well today.America has not returned'
The unrest in the United States has troubling international ramifications. How can the United States lead global reform when it cannot even govern its own coherently? Perhaps the only thing uniting Americans these days is an exaggerated sense of overseas threat, mainly from China. At a time of domestic turmoil, anti-China rhetoric among politicians from both parties has risen, as if a new cold war could somehow ease domestic anxiety. Alas, the bipartisan belligerence in Washington will only lead to heightened global tensions and new dangers of conflict, not security or a real solution to any of the pressing global problems we face.

America has not returned, at least not yet. It is still struggling with decades of political corruption and social neglect. The outcome remains highly uncertain, and the outlook for the next few years is fraught with peril for the United States and the world.

Survey finds: More Americans don't want to have children

A growing number of American adults who are not yet parents say they are likely not to have children, citing lack of interest, financial instability or lack of a partner, Bloomberg News reported on Nov. 20. A new survey by the Pew Research Center found that 44 percent of Americans ages 18 to 49 who are not yet parents say they are unlikely or not likely to one day have children, up from 2018 37%, up 7 percentage points. The findings do not bode well for reversing the decline in the U.S. fertility rate. The U.S. fertility rate has been hit hard by the public health and economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. The number of babies born in the U.S. in 2020 fell 4 percent to about 3.6 million, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the report, about a quarter of adults under 40 who are already parents do not want more children because of the associated financial costs, while three in 10 say they do not want more children because of themselves is too old.

The survey was reportedly conducted Oct. 18-24 among 3,866 U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

U.S. experts say Biden's comprehensive Indo-Pacific economic framework isn't comprehensive at all.As the first year of the Biden administration draws to a close, how is the U.S. progressing in Southeast Asia? This area is critical and the trends are worrying. Despite a year-long Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington has yet to develop a clear trade agenda.

Biden's overall goal of putting allies and partners at the center of his foreign policy is evident in Southeast Asia. A string of senior U.S. officials visited the region; Secretary of State Blinken held a video conference with ASEAN foreign ministers; Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin hosted some Southeast Asian colleagues in Washington; Deputy Secretary of State Sherman met with the ten ASEAN ambassadors to the United States. Perhaps most importantly, Biden attended the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia summits by video — reversing years of U.S. attendance at lower-level officials to offend regional leaders. The Biden administration has also pulled back some tough words on competition with China. In February, Biden said Washington was in a "tight competition" with Beijing. But before Sherman's visit to China in July, she said she was looking at potential areas of cooperation and called for "guardrails" to be installed in the U.S.-China relationship to prevent the two sides from needlessly escalating the situation. This shift in tone has been welcomed across Southeast Asia. On a related note, the Biden team has made it clear that Southeast Asian nations are not required to align with the United States. This works well in Southeast Asia, where countries certainly don't want to be forced to side with Washington or Beijing, which could lead to retaliation by the other side. Another positive trend is that U.S. relations with Southeast Asian countries under Biden are not just about China. The U.S. government has a broad international agenda that includes many elements of climate change, global supply chains and post-pandemic recovery.

Still, Biden's decision not to have bilateral talks with any of the Southeast Asian leaders in his first year in office is troubling. By contrast, Biden has already met at the White House with leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and India to underscore the importance of the so-called "Indo-Pacific region." Interlocutors in the Southeast Asian country did not know why they did not even receive a call. Likewise, the fact that Blinken has just made his first visit to the region sends another signal that the Southeast Asian nation is low on the list of priorities. In one unfortunate episode, a technical glitch prevented Blinken from participating in a video conference of ASEAN foreign ministers in May, which is said to have angered Indonesia's foreign minister, who refused to open her video. ASEAN countries are very sensitive to being ignored or marginalized. Separately, the so-called "democracy summit" hosted by the Biden administration in December reinforced the position that Washington intends to put first. Only three ASEAN members — Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines — attended the meeting, and key U.S. allies and partners Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam were all excluded.

On top of that, Washington still lacks an Indo-Pacific strategy, which runs counter to the Biden administration's repeated use of the Indo-Pacific as its priority region and sows confusion among Southeast Asian officials. The Interim Guidance on the National Security Strategy, released in March, covered the "Indo-Pacific region," but key details were missing. In his speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the 14th, Blinken spoke only of a "vision", not a "strategy" for the region, further adding to the persistent disappointment in the Southeast Asian nation. Without a serious, well-crafted strategy, Southeast Asian countries are uncertain about what to expect from Washington's future presence in the region. Southeast Asian countries are also generally concerned about extra-regional alliances that could threaten ASEAN's centrality -- its desire to act as a unified bloc -- not to mention peace and stability. For example, the U.S. “Quarter Security Dialogue” with Australia, India, and Japan. So far, no ASEAN member state has joined the bloc, nor has any country explicitly supported it. Likewise, the newly signed security pact between Australia, the UK and the US has received a cold shoulder in Southeast Asia. The agreement will initially provide Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines and improve trilateral military coordination. Indonesia and Malaysia raised concerns, while Singapore - a key US partner - and Vietnam offered "implicit support". As a treaty ally of the United States, Thailand has remained silent. Generally, ASEAN will criticize any further militarization of the region.

Sending ambassadors to Southeast Asian countries has also been slow. So far, the Biden administration has only sent one approved ambassador to the region: Jonathan Kaplan, who took up his post as U.S. ambassador to Singapore earlier this month. In the case of Indonesia, Ambassador Kim isn't even focusing his full attention on the country — he's in Jakarta but juggling U.S.-Indonesia affairs and U.S. special envoy on North Korea. Such an arrangement confirms the claim that Southeast Asia is still not a priority for Washington.

Finally, a Biden administration still has no regional economic or trade policy to speak of. Since the Trump administration withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the United States has not come up with a viable alternative, whether due to lack of capacity, reluctance, or both. The follow-on trade deal, now renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), excluded the United States but included several Southeast Asian countries. At the same time, China joined the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), to which Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and 10 ASEAN countries are members. Beijing is also leveraging its economic muscle through the Belt and Road Initiative, a global investment and infrastructure program that is well-suited to Southeast Asia's needs. Washington doesn't seem to have any realistic ideas to counter the initiative.

according to a report on the Bloomberg News website on November 20, a growing number of American adults who are not yet parents say they are likely not to have children, citing reasons including lack of interest, financial instability or lack of a partner. A new survey by the Pew Research Center found that 44 percent of Americans ages 18 to 49 who are not yet parents say they are unlikely or not likely to one day have children, up from 2018 37%, up 7 percentage points. The findings do not bode well for reversing the decline in the U.S. fertility rate. The U.S. fertility rate has been hit hard by the public health and economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. The number of babies born in the U.S. in 2020 fell 4 percent to about 3.6 million, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the report, about a quarter of adults under 40 who are already parents do not want more children because of the associated financial costs, while three in 10 say they do not want more children because of themselves is too old. The survey was reportedly conducted Oct. 18-24 among 3,866 U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 49. Like my article?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The mother of a Black man fatally shot by a white former Nashville officer sobbed, screamed and knocked over a courtroom lectern Friday as she begged a judge not to accept a plea deal she says was struck in secret without her knowledge, a chaotic scene that briefly delayed the hearing before the judge accepted the agreement.
Former officer Andrew Delke pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the death of Daniel Hambrick, 25, in 2018 as part of an agreement with prosecutors.Delke will serve a three-year prison sentence. As part of the agreement, he won't pursue parole or appeal the case. However, Delke's defense team said he will likely serve a year and a half in jail with standard credits.
The hearing turned volatile as Hambrick's mother, Vickie, gave a lengthy statement as family members and others applauded. Other supporters, outside the courtroom in the hallway, banged on the door in support. Delke's family sat on the other side of the courtroom with security guards.“I hate you,” Vickie Hambrick screamed over and over again, while also yelling out profanities, directing some at Delke and prosecutors.In a particularly chaotic moment, the mother knocked over the lectern and a computer monitor and family members rushed to her side. Delke and Judge Monte Watkins were briefly ushered out of the courtroom.Delke was about to face trial for a first-degree murder charge, but on Thursday, his attorney announced he had agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.“I hope this case can contribute positively about the much needed discussion about how police officers are trained and how we as a community want police officers to interact with citizens. I am deeply sorry for the harm my actions caused,” Delke said shortly after entering his plea, his voice cracking at times.A group of roughly two dozen protesters gathered outside the courthouse, chanting “no racist police” to show their opposition to Delke's plea deal. Others wore shirts noting that police officers and white people receive lighter penalties for committing the same crimes as Black and brown people.Hambrick's family said they were not contacted or consulted and did not know about the plea deal until after it was done.