Category Archives: democracy

democracy, Global Political Economy, Globalization, Human Rights, political theory, US Politics

Orchestrating Chaos: Trump and the US 2024 Election

While political scientists know alot, the 2024 election shows that we clearly don’t know everything!  The same can be said for our political leaders.  In this session we will think about what we have learned and what we still need to learn about elections and forming governments in a democracy after November 2024. Talk February 7 2025

Further Reading/Viewing

Ahmed, N. (2017, July 30). Pentagon study declares American empire is ‘collapsing’. Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/pentagon-study-declares-american-empire-is-collapsing

Bambrough, B. (2025, February 2). ‘This Needs To Stop Now’—Elon Musk Confirms Radical Doge U.S. Treasury Plan. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-needs-to-stop-now-elon-musk-confirms-radical-doge-us-treasury-plan/?utm_source=pocket_shared

Beauchamp, Z. (2024, November 20). The messy contradictions of Trump’s second-term coalition | Vox. Vox.Com. https://www.vox.com/politics/386299/trump-administration-coalition-economic-foreign-policy

Cardinale, K. (2022, May 25). The making of a Tech Authoritarian. From Plato to Trumpism.https://www.lettsjournal.com/p/the-making-of-a-tech-authoritarian

Cosmo (Director). (2025, January 20). The Secret Life of Chaos | Beyond Order [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inofGyvshoQ

Dalhousie University (Director). (2024, November 20). The 2024 Stanfield Conversation: The US Election and Democracy’s Global Fate | Dalhousie University [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMgA_oJ3mDE

Danner, C. (2025, February 3). Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/elon-musk-doge-treasury-access-federal-payments.html

Davis, C. (2024, October 6). Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? [Substack newsletter]. Matriarchal Blessing. https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/why-boys-dont-go-to-college

Elliott, V. (2025, February 2). The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

Garcia, I. (2022, October 12). U.S. Senate: Blake Masters dislikes the country’s direction. Cronkite News. https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/10/12/us-senate-blake-masters-republican-arizona-venture-capitalist/

Jacobs, B. (2022, May 20). How Gen X Became the Trumpiest Generation. POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown Publishers.

McGreal, C. (2025, January 26). How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa

McMaster, G. (2024, June 29). Four critical things to know about critical race theory. University of Alberta Folio. https://www.ualberta.ca/en/folio/2022/06/four-critical-things-to-know-about-critical-race-theory.html?utm_source=pocket_shared

Monbiot, G. (2024, January 6). What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/06/rishi-sunak-javier-milei-donald-trump-atlas-network

Reich, R. (2025, January 26). The stunning real story behind Trump’s first week—Alternet.org. Alternet. https://www.alternet.org/trumps-first-week/

Sam Friedman, D. L. (2020). The Class Ceiling. Bristol University Press. https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/the-class-ceiling

Schuman, M. (2024, November 9). The American Global Order Could End. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/us-world-power-over-election/680595/

Shapiro, A. (2022, October 3). Come along as we connect the dots between climate, migration and the far-right. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1125746902/climate-change-migration-far-right-political-extremism

Slobodian, Q. (2023, April 4). The Wonderful Death of a State | Quinn Slobodian. The Baffler. https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-wonderful-death-of-a-state-slobodian

The Ezra Klein Show (Director). (2025, February 4). Don’t Believe Him | The Ezra Klein Show [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8QLgLfqh6s

Tusikov, N. (2025). How Might Trump’s Big Tech Agenda Affect Canada? Centre for International Governance Innovation. https://www.cigionline.org/articles/how-might-trumps-big-tech-agenda-affect-canada/

Waller, J. G. (2022, February 20). Authoritarianism Here? American Affairs Journal. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/02/authoritarianism-here/

climate, democracy, US Politics, World Politics

Unrest to Uprising: The Past, Present and Future of Political Protest

This talk will delve into the historical context, current challenges, and future implications of this powerful form of civic action. What are the ethical dilemmas of civil disobedience? What might be the effect of disruptive technologies on state surveillance and the balance between security and individual freedoms? Talk on November 10, 2023

Further Reading

‘93% of Black Lives Matter Protests Have Been Peaceful: Report | Time’. n.d. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/

Applebaum, Anne, and Peter Pomerantsev. 2021. ‘How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire’. The Atlantic, 9 March 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/the-internet-doesnt-have-to-be-awful/618079/.

‘Climate Chaos, the French Revolution and a Warning for Today | Time’. n.d. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://time.com/6107671/french-revolution-history-climate/?utm_source=pocket_saves.

‘Doe Mee, Maak Nederland Fossielvrij!’ n.d. Fossielvrij NL. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://gofossilfree.org/nl/.

Gurri, Martin. 2018. The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. San Francisco, CA: Stripe Press.

Haidt, Jonathan. 2022. ‘Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid’. The Atlantic, 11 April 2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/.

Hutt, James. 2022. ‘The Battle of Billings Bridge ⋆ The Breach’. The Breach. 16 February 2022. https://breachmedia.ca/the-battle-of-billings-bridge/.

‘Iran’s Summer of Discontent: A Warning for Washington’. 2018. War on the Rocks. 23 July 2018. https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/irans-summer-of-discontent-a-warning-for-washington/.

June 3, Asam Ahmad /, and 2018 / 8 Min Read. n.d. ‘Who Is Your Oppressor?’ Accessed 4 November 2023. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/who-is-your-oppressor.

Kumar, Rajeesh. 2017. ‘What New Declassifications Reveal about the 1953 Coup in Iran’. E-International Relations (blog). 7 September 2017. https://www.e-ir.info/2017/09/07/what-new-declassifications-reveal-about-the-1953-coup-in-iran/.

Levine, Bruce E. 2018. ‘Another Reason Young Americans Don’t Revolt Against Being Screwed’. CounterPunch.Org. 14 June 2018. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/14/another-reason-young-americans-dont-revolt-against-being-screwed/.

Lowery, Wesley. 2020. ‘Why Minneapolis Was the Breaking Point’. The Atlantic (blog). 10 June 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/wesley-lowery-george-floyd-minneapolis-black-lives/612391/.

Monbiot, George. 2022. ‘“It Felt like History Itself” – 48 Protest Photographs That Changed the World’. The Guardian, 2 July 2022, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/02/it-felt-like-history-itself-48-protest-photographs-that-changed-the-world.

Morgan, Ted. 2021. ‘The Capitol Assault Was an Act of Expressive Politics. A Backlash Is Surely Coming—against the Left’. Salon. 27 February 2021. https://www.salon.com/2021/02/27/the-capitol-assault-was-an-act-of-expressive-politics-a-backlash-is-surely-comingagainst-the-left/.

Ozden, James. 2023. ‘What Makes a Protest Movement Successful?’ Social Change Lab. 4 January 2023. https://www.socialchangelab.org/post/what-makes-a-protest-movement-successful.

Pineda, Erin R. 2021a. Seeing Like an Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

———. 2022. ‘“Disobedience”: An Essay by Erin R. Pineda (Keywords: Activism; Civil Disobedience; Climate Change)’. The Philosopher. 18 July 2022. https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/the-new-basics-disobedience.

Resilience. 2018. ‘Poor People’s Campaign Gears Up for Mother’s Day Launch’. Resilience. 9 May 2018. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-05-09/poor-peoples-campaign-gears-up-for-mothers-day-launch/.

Sleeper, Jim. 2017. ‘Warlocks, Witches and American Stampedes: The Built-in Dangers of #MeToo’. Salon. 28 December 2017. https://www.salon.com/2017/12/28/warlocks-witches-and-american-stampedes-the-built-in-dangers-of-metoo/.

The Economist. n.d. ‘Digital Media Fuel Global Protests but Can Be Used against Them’. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://www.economist.com/international/2021/01/16/digital-media-fuel-global-protests-but-can-be-used-against-them

‘What INGOs Can Learn from Greta Thunberg and the Global Climate Strikes’. n.d. openDemocracy. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/what-ingos-can-learn-greta-thunberg-and-global-climate-strikes/

‘Why Confrontation Is Not the Best Way to Effect Regime Change in China – Areo’. n.d. Accessed 4 November 2023. https://areomagazine.com/2019/06/21/why-confrontation-is-not-the-best-way-to-effect-regime-change-in-china/

‘Women Are Marrying Trees to Save Them from Deforestation’. 2021. Euronews. 13 September 2021. https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/09/12/over-70-women-marry-local-trees-to-save-them-from-deforestation.

democracy, For Students, Politics in Canada, US Politics, World Politics

The New(er) World of Untruth Part II

Alternative facts, misdirection, and outright propaganda seem to dominate the news media landscape today in a way that is quite different from the past.

Presented February 10th, Society for Learning in Retirement

Thank you to the Society for Learning in Retirement in Kelowna for honouring me with a lifetime membership! I feel very privileged to be able to continue serving this very wonderful group of humans!

Some Tools for Media Literacy

Readings

2018 Edelman Trust Barometer. (2017).

Art of the lie—Post-truth politics. (2016). The Economist. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2016/09/10/art-of-the-lie?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2016098n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n

Benkler, Y., Faris, R., Roberts, H., & Zuckerman, E. (2017). Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda—Columbia Journalism Review. Columbia Journalism Review. http://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php

ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue. (2022, November 30). OpenAI. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

Coaston, J. (2018). #QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, explained—Vox. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/1/17253444/qanon-trump-conspiracy-theory-reddit

Coles, T. J. (2018). Fake News and Weaponized Bots: How Algorithms Inflate Profiles, Spread Disinfo and Disrupt Democracy. Counterpunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/08/fake-news-and-weaponized-bots-how-algorithms-inflate-profiles-spread-disinfo-and-disrupt-democracy/

Devega, C. (2018). Donald Trump’s “chaos magic”: Author Gary Lachman on the far right’s links to occult philosophy | Salon.com. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2018/07/16/donald-trumps-chaos-magic-author-gary-lachman-on-the-far-rights-links-to-occult-philosophy/

Edwards, S., & Livingston, S. (2018). Fake news is about to get a lot worse. That will make it easier to violate human rights—And get away with it. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/03/fake-news-is-about-to-get-a-lot-worse-that-will-make-it-easier-to-violate-human-rights-and-get-away-with-it/?noredirect=on

Gonzalez, R. J. (2018). The Mind-Benders: How to Harvest Facebook Data, Brainwash Voters, and Swing Elections. Counterpunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/23/the-mind-benders-how-to-harvest-facebook-data-brainwash-voters-and-swing-elections/

Gross, J. (2023, January 10). How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/world/europe/finland-misinformation-classes.html

Gutting, G. (2011). The Social Side of Reasoning—The New York Times. The New York Times Opinionator – The Stone. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/argument-truth-and-the-social-side-of-reasoning/

How to Spot a Bogus News Site. (n.d.). Pocket. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://getpocket.com/collections/how-to-spot-a-bogus-news-site

Illing, S. (2018). Hashtag wars: How Facebook, Twitter, and social media changed how we fight wars—Vox. Vox. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2018/10/8/17884154/social-media-cyberwar-isis-taylor-swift-peter-singer

Jenkins, H. (2009). How "Dumbledore’s Army" Is Transforming Our World: An Interview with the HP Alliance’s Andrew Slack (Part One)—Henry Jenkins. Henry Jenkins.Org. http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2009/07/how_dumbledores_army_is_transf.html

Morgan, J. (2017). Sockpuppets, Secessionists, and Breitbart – Data for Democracy – Medium. Data for Democracy. https://medium.com/data-for-democracy/sockpuppets-secessionists-and-breitbart-7171b1134cd5

Mosleh, M., Pennycook, G., Arechar, A. A., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Cognitive reflection correlates with behavior on Twitter. Nature Communications, 12(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20043-0

Pennycook, G., Epstein, Z., Mosleh, M., Arechar, A. A., Eckles, D., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online. Nature, 592(7855), Article 7855. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03344-2

Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2022). Accuracy prompts are a replicable and generalizable approach for reducing the spread of misinformation. Nature Communications, 13(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30073-5

Shao, C., Ciampaglia, G. L., Varol, O., Yang, K., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. (2017). The spread of low-credibility content by social bots. http://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592

Weisburd, A., Watts, C., & Berger, J. (2016). Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/

Yglesias, M. (2017). The Bullshitter-in-Chief—Vox. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/30/15631710/trump-bullshit

democracy, Human Rights, World Politics

The End of Impunity: Making Human Rights Work in the World

Despite a plethora of treaties, constitutional guarantees, and international organizations, the world continues to be afflicted with senseless atrocities that offend human conscience.   Why are institutions powerless against such waves of human cruelty and ruthlessness?  This session will explore what can be done to make human rights real.  Talk November 14th at Okanagan College, November 18th at SLR.

References

Holloway, K. (2017, November 24). Racism is a highly profitable online business | Salon.com. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2017/11/24/racism-is-a-highly-profitable-online-business/

Jones, D. (2007). The depths of disgust. Nature, 447(7146), 768–771. https://doi.org/10.1038/447768a

Mugabo, L. (2018, April 6). Liberation, Decolonization, Gacaca – Reflecting on the Rwandan Genocide, 24 Years Later – The Volcano. The Volcano. https://www.thevolcano.org/2018/04/06/liberation-decolonization-gacaca/

Nelson, B. (2022, November 5). How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence – Scientific American. Scientific America. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-stochastic-terrorism-uses-disgust-to-incite-violence/

Resnick, B. (2018). Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling. Vox. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/15/16144070/psychology-alt-right-unite-the-right

Resnick, B. (2017). The dark psychology of dehumanization, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/7/14456154/dehumanization-psychology-explained

Serwer, A. (2018, March 14). Obama’s Legacy of Impunity for Torture – The Atlantic. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/obamas-legacy-of-impunity-for-torture/555578/

Shieber, J. (2018, August 28). Distributor of plans for 3D-printed guns puts his product back in circulation | TechCrunch. Techcrunch.Com. https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/28/distributor-of-plans-for-3d-printed-guns-puts-his-product-back-in-circulation/

Smith, J. A. (2022, April 19). How War Shapes Our Attitudes About Violence. Greater Good Magazine: Politics. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/war_shapes_attitudes_about_violence

Timmons, H. (2022, October 29). Hate speech, online extremism fed Pelosi attack, terror experts believe | Reuters. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hate-speech-online-extremism-fed-pelosi-attack-terror-experts-believe-2022-10-29/

Waldstein, D. (2015, June 17). In Chile’s National Stadium, Dark Past Shadows Copa América Matches – The New York Times. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/sports/soccer/in-chiles-national-stadium-dark-past-shadows-copa-america-matches.html

Zhang, L., Lee, E., & Kim, E. (n.d.). IMMIGRANTS IN COVID AMERICA – Xenophobia & Racism. University of Minnesota. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://immigrantcovid.umn.edu/xenophobia-racism

democracy, Human Rights, Inequality, political theory, Politics in Canada, US Politics, World Politics

Attack on Democracy

Around the world, the institutions of liberal democratic systems are
waging a rear-guard action against sustained attacks from populist
and extremist movements. These trends are not new, but can be
traced to events in the recent past, as well as broader historical
developments. In this session, participants will learn why political
scientists are so concerned about these trends, and what ordinary
citizens can do to improve democratic accountability in Canada.

Attack on Democracy