Slave Trade Act

Why Trump’s control of the Republican Party is bad for democracy

Retrieved on: 
星期二, 一月 30, 2024
AKP, Code, Democracy, Legislation, Research, Elected, Republican Party, Society, Policy, Senate, GOP, Democrat, Personalism, Government, Slave Trade Act, Veteran, Heel, Congress, Republican, Supreme court, White, Violence, Defiance

The reason has less to do with Trump and his ambitions than with how power dynamics have shifted within the Republican Party.

Key Points: 
  • The reason has less to do with Trump and his ambitions than with how power dynamics have shifted within the Republican Party.
  • And typical parties tend to select leaders who rise up the ranks of the party, having worked with other party elites along the way.
  • There are three reasons personalist parties are harmful to democracy, all of which have clear parallels to experiences with Trump and the Republican Party.

1. Loyalty to the person, not the party

  • A classic indicator of party personalization is the ouster of politically experienced people in the party elite, who are often highly qualified and more independent of the leader – and their replacement with less experienced people who are personally loyal to the leader.
  • These people are more likely to view their political success as being intertwined with that of the leader rather than the party.

2. Official endorsement of leader’s actions

  • In personalist parties, elites endorse the leader’s actions, cueing voters to do the same.
  • Ordinary citizens who support personalist parties often go along with leaders’ efforts to dismantle democracy, even if they care about democracy, because they are highly receptive to signals provided by the party elite.

3. Polarizing society with controversy

  • While many kinds of leaders demonize their political opponents, we have found that personalist party leaders’ anti-democratic behaviors – such as attempting to overturn an election they’ve lost – split society into polarized factions: those who support them and everyone else.
  • Former President Hugo Chavez’s power grabs splintered Venezuelan society, dividing citizens over what the rules of the game should be and who should have access to power.
  • Chavez’s actions, which faced no resistance from those in his party, polarized society, ultimately pushing the country toward dictatorship.

The GOP is a personalist party

  • Since 2016, Trump has increasingly sidelined the traditional party establishment to remake the party into an instrument to further his own personal, political and financial interests.
  • Traditional parties, including the pre-Trump Republican Party, offer voters a bundle of policy positions hashed out among multiple elite factions of the party.
  • Trump’s supersized control over the Republican Party has transformed other leading party figures into sycophants, always seeking Trump’s favor.

No resistance to a Trump power grab

  • All signs indicate that Trump, if reelected, is likely to pursue an authoritarian power grab by, for example, purging professional bureaucrats, expanding the Supreme Court or using the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against protesters.
  • Party members may even support him in that power grab.
  • Most elected leaders are ambitious and, like Trump, seek to gain and hold onto power for as long as they can.
  • In those circumstances, there is little that stands in the way of a grab for power.
  • My organization, CNAS receives funding from multiple sources, including funding that supported this research from a foundation called Luminate.
  • Joseph Wright received funding from the Luminate Foundation; Charles Koch Foundation; McCourtney Institute for Democracy; and the Minerva Research Initiative.

Jan. 6 was an example of networked incitement − a media and disinformation expert explains the danger of political violence orchestrated over social media

Retrieved on: 
星期五, 一月 5, 2024
Slave Trade Act, NPR, Movement, WILD, Social media, Weapon, Police, MeToo movement, Social, Violence, Black Lives Matter, Democracy, Oath Keepers, MAGA, Oath, Social movement

What set Jan. 6 apart was the president of the United States using his cellphone to direct an attack on the Capitol, and those who stormed the Capitol being wired and ready for insurrection.

Key Points: 
  • What set Jan. 6 apart was the president of the United States using his cellphone to direct an attack on the Capitol, and those who stormed the Capitol being wired and ready for insurrection.
  • My co-authors and I, a media and disinformation scholar, call this networked incitement: influential figures inciting large-scale political violence via social media.
  • Networked incitement involves insurgents communicating across multiple platforms to command and coordinate mobilized social movements in the moment of action.
  • The reason there was not more bloodshed on Jan. 6 emerged through investigation into the Oath Keepers, a vigilante organization composed mostly of former military and police.

Social media as command and control

  • What happened in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, does not easily fit into typical social movement frameworks for describing mobilization.
  • Even with the availability of social media, networked social movements still need mainstream media coverage to legitimize their cause.
  • As in prior social movements, the networking capacity of social media proved to be an important conduit to bring strangers together for the occasion.
  • The call to action for Jan. 6 came from the president himself in a series of social media posts enticing supporters to come to D.C. for a “wild” time.
  • Tweets like these from a prominent figure became social media’s equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Mobilizing for violence

  • The purpose of these documents was to explain the rationales and mental states of the accused, while also offering a defense or explanation for their actions.
  • We analyzed the documents, looking at the multiple motivations for the insurrectionist mobilization.
  • In sum, we concluded that disinformation mobilizes and incites political violence under specific conditions, such as a popular public figure calling for help.
  • Oath Keeper Meggs’ tweet illustrates that even before Jan. 6, militia groups were looking for signs from Trump about how to proceed.
  • An investigation by NPR also illustrated how Trump’s messages emboldened participants and ignited the events of that day.

A dark future

  • The use of social media for networked incitement foreshadows a dark future for democracies.
  • Clear regulations preventing the malicious weaponization of social media by politicians who use disinformation to incite violence is one way to keep that future at bay.


Joan Donovan is on the board of Free Press and the founder of the Critical Internet Studies Institute.

African leaders in Sierra Leone played a key role in ending the transatlantic slave trade

Retrieved on: 
星期二, 六月 20, 2023
Navy, Rio, Education, Gold Coast, Granville Sharp, Atlantic slave trade, Sierra Leone Company, Gun, Revolution, Record, Research, Huntington, History, Sale, Movement, Slave Trade Act, Angolan, Abolitionism, Population, SLC, American Revolution, Commerce, Pembrokeshire Action To Combat Hardship, Letter, Minuteman Library Network, Susu, Shipbuilding, Sand, Mining, Gum arabic, Hunting, Temne, Atlantic Ocean

As a historian focusing on the impact of abolitionism, I have studied this history and the founding of modern Sierra Leone.

Key Points: 
  • As a historian focusing on the impact of abolitionism, I have studied this history and the founding of modern Sierra Leone.
  • Sierra Leone’s role in the story shows, however, to enforce that abolition, the British navy had to rely on the support of African states and polities that had already turned against the slave trade.
  • Africans played an overlooked role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.

The founding of Sierra Leone

    • From 1763 onwards, the number of enslaved people shipped annually from the Sierra Leone coast by British, Portuguese and French traders rarely fell below 1,000 and was often closer to 4,000.
    • And yet from 1808, it was Sierra Leone – rather than one of the other sites of slave trading – that became the site of British anti-slavery operations.
    • This was because by then, Sierra Leone was the site of an established and growing colony made up of members of the black British diaspora, many formerly enslaved.

The settlement grows

    • In 1791, another group arrived in the colony and sought out a new treaty of settlement.
    • A new organisation, the Sierra Leone Company, took over the management of the colony from London.

African role in ending slavery

    • As I found in my research, it was African demand that was shaping the success of the colony and its mission to shift the coast’s commerce away from the slave trade.
    • He also worried that this was happening with “SLC” cloths.
    • And a Susu leader’s deputy launched a verbal attack against the slave traders, telling them:
      It is you slave traders who cause all our palavers.
    • The British based an anti-slave trade naval patrol in the colony, as well as a court for processing captured slave ships.

Conclusion


    There is a misconception that Britain was the first to abolish the slave trade and that it brought enlightened anti-slavery ideas to Africa. This misconception was used to justify the spread of colonial rule in the 19th century. But the history of Sierra Leone shows that, in order to enforce their abolition decrees, the British had to rely on African states and polities that had already turned against the slave trade.

Raw Story Hires Two Award-Winning Editors in Investigative Reporting Expansion

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星期三, 一月 18, 2023
Technology, Professional Services, Other Communications, Publishing, Online, General Entertainment, Entertainment, Communications, Other Professional Services, Internet, Other Entertainment, President Trump, News, Congress, Newsroom, Sunlight, Journalism, Slave Trade Act, Oath Keepers, Levinthal, Raw, Pulitzer Prize, Government, Editor & Publisher, Capitol, Press club, DNAinfo, Politico, National Press Club (United States), Multimedia, James Madison Freedom of Information Award, Crime, Center for Public Integrity, The Raw Story, Film, Book, Insider

Raw Story , America’s largest independently-owned political news site, has hired two new award-winning editors as it embarks on an expansion of original reporting.

Key Points: 
  • Raw Story , America’s largest independently-owned political news site, has hired two new award-winning editors as it embarks on an expansion of original reporting.
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230118005067/en/
    Dave Levinthal, formerly deputy editor at Insider, will become Raw Story’s Editor-in-Chief.
  • “I’m tremendously excited to lead Raw Story’s reporting efforts and expand the Raw Story brand and newsroom,” Levinthal said.
  • Prior to Insider, Levinthal reported for Politico and led investigations for the Center for Public Integrity, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom.