This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
Tagged with: elections
Adams will still have to reckon with a City Council that will likely be to his left as well as two progressive citywide elected officials, Lander and Williams, who will advocate for positions on policing, budgeting and other issues well to the left of Adams. Adams can either find his way to compromising with the political actors or can spend the next four years fighting with his own party while accomplishing little.
he American ethos of rules not applying to us has not only helped define our terrible response to the Coronavirus pandemic, but also is key to understanding American foreign policy. America’s relationship to the rest of the world frequently can be summed up by the idea do as I say, not as I do. The US urges countries to conduct democratic elections while we conduct our own elections using antiquated structures that do not value each vote equally. We seek to promote human rights around the world, while asking the world to ignore the bombs we drop, the children we put in cages and the long and horrific history of American racism. We invade foreign countries with chilling regularity while demanding that the rest of the world honor international borders. The ubiquity of this dynamic of America’s relationship to the rest of the world is hard to miss and suggests that while the hypocrisy of Governor Newsom, Mayor Breed and others is stark, it may just be the American way.
The 2020 presidential election is, on the one hand, unlike any other in American history. No presidential election has ever been held in the midst of a pandemic that creates significant problems for voting because many people are reluctant to leave their homes or come in close contact with anybody else. The economic downturn, demonstrations associated with the reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement and increased political violence, while not quite as unprecedented, have never all occurred at the same time during an election. More significantly, there has never been an election when the incumbent president has made it clear that he might not accept the outcome if he loses. Efforts by the American government to limit reporting about Russian and other foreign intervention also makes this election sui generis in American history.