February 1, 2021

Myanmar Military Seizes Power in Coup

Source: Wall Street Journal

The head of Myanmar’s military has taken charge of the country from its civilian-run government, an army-run television station declared, after civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her party were detained in a Monday morning raid.

The coup marks a major blow to the country’s transition from military rule to democracy, which began about a decade ago. The U.S. and human-rights groups called on the military to adhere to democratic norms.

Tensions have been rising for days over the results of a November election that Ms. Suu Kyi’s party won by a landslide. The army-backed opposition party called the election, only the second truly contested and democratic vote since the end of military rule in the Southeast Asian country, fraudulent. Myanmar’s election commission has denied the claims.

The announcement on military television said the country’s Union Election Commission didn’t adequately address allegations of voter-list fraud, making a one-year state of emergency necessary to restore order and stability. Power has been transferred to army chief Min Aung Hlaing, it said. The military had earlier contested the electoral process, alleging false names on voter lists.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-is-alarmed-by-reports-of-military-actions-in-myanmar-white-house-says-11612145833

February 1, 2021

77 Days: Trump's Campaign to Subvert the Election

Hours after the United States voted, the president declared the election a fraud — a lie that unleashed a movement that would shatter democratic norms and upend the peaceful transfer of power.

By Thursday the 12th of November, President Donald J. Trump’s election lawyers were concluding that the reality he faced was the inverse of the narrative he was promoting in his comments and on Twitter. There was no substantial evidence of election fraud, and there were nowhere near enough “irregularities” to reverse the outcome in the courts.

Mr. Trump did not, could not, win the election, not by “a lot” or even a little. His presidency would soon be over.

Allegations of Democratic malfeasance had disintegrated in embarrassing fashion. A supposed suitcase of illegal ballots in Detroit proved to be a box of camera equipment. “Dead voters” were turning up alive in television and newspaper interviews.

The week was coming to a particularly demoralizing close: In Arizona, the Trump lawyers were preparing to withdraw their main lawsuit as the state tally showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. leading by more than 10,000 votes, against the 191 ballots they had identified for challenge.

As he met with colleagues to discuss strategy, the president’s deputy campaign manager, Justin Clark, was urgently summoned to the Oval Office. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was on speaker phone, pressing the president to file a federal suit in Georgia and sharing a conspiracy theory gaining traction in conservative media — that Dominion Systems voting machines had transformed thousands of Trump votes into Biden votes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/trump-election-lie.html

February 1, 2021

Trump's Really Big Lie was that politics is a performing art. Let government return to governing

A long, long time ago, which is to say as recently as five years back, there were intelligent people who argued that popular culture was a more significant force in American life than politics.

Wasn’t any politician of note referred to as “a rock star”? Hadn’t “Hamilton” revitalized democracy by making the Constitution and progressive politics super hot? Didn’t the kudzu-like proliferation of screens turn their content, whether the next “Avengers” movie or the latest meme, into the new realpolitik, shaping our attitudes and actions in ways far more significant than any law, leader or political party ever could?

I mean, hadn’t “Will & Grace” done more for LGBTQ rights than any activist or lawmaker?

So deeply did many of us believe this that we put it to the test by electing (albeit not by popular consensus) a reality TV star as president. Donald Trump’s lack of experience in politics was seen by many as his greatest strength, as his documented business failures and personal-gain politics were papered over by the persona he had conjured for television. That carefully edited and produced image of a tough-talking, rule-dismissing man of action, boosted by the incendiary power of Twitter, is exactly what tens of millions of Americans — having spent years under the spell of television’s ruthless cavalry of “antiheroes” — believed we needed to script this country back into shape.

And now we know how that turns out — with the most ignominious exit ever of an American president. When the reality star realized that the actual reality of his defeat in the 2020 election could not be rewritten through lies, litigation and threats, he incited a bloody, treasonous attack on the Capitol building at one of the rare moments when virtually every member of Congress was present.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-01-29/trump-really-big-lie-politics-is-performing-art