Steep Physical Decline With Age Is Not Inevitable – Here’s How Strength Training Can Change The Trajectory

THE CONVERSATION

Resistance training can take many forms and can be individualized to suit a person’s needs as they age. Jamie Grill/Tetra Images via Getty Images

BY ZACHARY GILLEN

Raise your hand if you regularly find yourself walking up a flight of stairs. What about carrying heavy bags of groceries? How about picking up your child or grandchild? Most of us would raise our hands to doing at least one of those weekly, or even daily.

As people age, it can become more and more difficult to perform some physical tasks, even those that are normal activities of daily living. However, prioritizing physical fitness and health as you get older can help you go through your normal day-to-day routine without feeling physically exhausted at the end of the day.

It can also help you continue to have special memories with your family and loved ones that you might not have been able to have if you weren’t physically active. For example, I ran two half-marathons with my dad when he was in his 60s!

I am an exercise physiologist who studies how people can use resistance training to improve human performance, whether it be in sports and other recreational settings, in everyday life, or both. I am also a certified strength and conditioning specialist. My career has given me the opportunity to design exercise programs for kids, college athletes and elderly adults.

Staying physically active as you get older doesn’t need to include running a half-marathon or trying to be a bodybuilder; it could be as simple as trying to get through the day without feeling winded after you go up a flight of stairs. Although our muscles naturally get weaker as we age, there are ways we can combat that to help improve quality of life as we get older.

Muscle loss and chronic disease

One of the most important parts of exercise programming, no matter who I am working with, is proper resistance training to build muscle strength. Some amount of age-related loss of muscle function is normal and inevitable. But by incorporating resistance training that is appropriate and safe at any ability level, you can slow down the rate of decline and even prevent some loss of muscle function.

The medical term for a condition that involves age-related loss of muscle function and mass is sarcopenia. Sarcopenia can begin as early as age 40, but it tends to be more common in adults age 60 and older. Sarcopenia is associated with a number of health issues such as increased risk of falling, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease, among others.

In one of our team’s previous studies, we saw that otherwise healthy individuals with sarcopenia had issues delivering vital nutrients to muscle. This could lead to greater likelihood of various diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, and slow down recovery from exercise.

Recent estimates suggest that sarcopenia affects 10% to 16% of the elderly population worldwide. But even if a person doesn’t have clinically diagnosed sarcopenia, they may still have some of the underlying symptoms that, if not dealt with, could lead to sarcopenia.

Strength training is key

So the question is, what can be done to reverse this decline?

Recent evidence suggests that one of the key factors leading to sarcopenia is low muscle strength. In other words, combating or reversing sarcopenia, or both, may be best done with a proper resistance-training program that prioritizes improving strength. In fact, the decline in muscle strength seems to occur at a much faster rate than the decline in muscle size, underscoring the importance of proper strength training as people age.

Continuing to regularly strength train with moderate to heavy weights has been shown to be not only effective at combating the symptoms of sarcopenia but also very safe when done properly. The best way to make sure you are strength training properly is to seek out guidance from a qualified individual such as a personal trainer or strength and conditioning specialist.

Despite the clear benefits of strength training, it’s been shown that only about 13% of Americans age 50 and older do some form of strength training at least twice a week.

Finding what works for you

So how does a person properly strength train as they age?

The National Strength and Conditioning Association, a leading organization in advancing strength and conditioning around the world, states that for older adults, two to three days per week of strength training can be incredibly helpful for maintaining healthy muscle and bone and combating a number of chronic conditions.

The organization recommends that these workouts involve one to two exercises involving multiple joints per major muscle group, with six to 12 repetitions per set. These are done at an intensity of 50% to 85% of what’s known as one-repetition maximum – the most weight you could handle for a single repetition – with the exception of body weight exercises that use one’s own body weight as the resistance, such as pushups.

I would also recommend resting for about two to three minutes between sets, or even up to five minutes if the set was challenging. For older adults, particularly those age 60 and older, the National Strength and Conditioning Association guidelines suggest that a program like this be performed two to three days per week, with 24 to 48 hours between sessions.

Making life’s tasks lighter

The guidelines above are only one example out of many options, but they provide a framework that you can use to build your own program. However, I would highly recommend seeking out a professional in the field to give specific exercise programming advice that can be tailored to your own needs and goals as you age.

Following such a program would give your muscles an excellent stimulus to enhance strength, while also allowing enough recovery, a very important consideration as people age. You might think it looks like a huge time commitment, but an exercise routine like this can be done in less than an hour. This means that in less than three hours of strength training per week you can help improve your muscle health and reduce the risk of getting sarcopenia and associated health issues.

It’s also important to note that there is no one right way to do resistance training, and it needn’t involve traditional weight equipment. Group classes like Pilates and yoga or those that involve circuit training and work with resistance bands can all produce similar results. The key is to get out and exercise regularly, whatever that entails.

Used Clothing From The West Is A Big Seller In East Africa. Uganda’s Leader Wants A Ban

A second hand clothes retailer folds second hand jeans at his stall at Owino Market in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023...(AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda) 

BY RODNEY MUHUMUZA

KAMPALA, UGANDA (AP) — Jostling for space, people jam the crowded footpaths crisscrossing a massive open market in Uganda’s capital. They are mostly looking for secondhand clothing, sifting through underwear for pairs that seem new or trying on shoes despite getting pushed around in the crush.

Downtown Kampala’s Owino Market has long been a go-to enclave for rich and poor people alike looking for affordable but quality-made used clothes, underscoring perceptions that Western fashion is superior to what is made at home.

Discarded by Europeans and Americans, these clothes are often purchased from wholesalers and then shipped to African countries by middlemen. It’s a multimillion-dollar business, with some two-thirds of people in seven countries in East Africa having “purchased at least a portion of their clothes from the secondhand clothing market,” according to a 2017 U.S. Agency for International Development study, the most recent with such details.

Despite the popularity, secondhand clothes are facing increasing pushback. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a semi-authoritarian leader who has held power since 1986, declared in August that he was banning imports of used clothing, saying the items are coming “from dead people.”

“When a white person dies, they gather their clothes and send them to Africa,” Museveni said.

Trade authorities have not yet enforced the president’s order, which needs to be backed by a legal measure such as an executive order.

Other African governments also are trying to stop the shipments, saying the business amounts to dumping and undermines the growth of local textile industries. The East African Community trade bloc — consisting of Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda — has recommended banning imports of used apparel since 2016. However, member states have not enforced it at the same pace amid pressure from Washington.

In Uganda, the president’s order has spread panic among traders, for whom such a ban, if implemented, spells disaster. They hawk used clothes in scores of large open-air markets across the country of 45 million people, at roadside stands and even in shops in malls where it’s possible to buy secondhand clothes marketed as new.

The clothes are cheap and drop further in price as traders make room for new shipments: a pair of denim jeans can go for 20 cents, a cashmere scarf for even less.

At one of Uganda’s Green Shops, a chain specializing in used clothes, apparel reseller Glen Kalungi shopped for items his customers might want: vintage pants for men and cottony tops for women.

“I am a thrift shopper,” he said. “I usually come to these Green Shops to check out clothes because they have the best prices around town.”

Kalungi likes to visit on clearance days when he can buy clothes for a fraction of a dollar. Then he sells them at a profit.

The chain, whose owners include Europeans, unveils new clothes every two weeks at its three stores. Some of the items are sourced from suppliers in countries including China and Germany, retail manager Allan Zavuga said.

“How they collect the clothes, we are not aware of that,” Zavuga said of their suppliers. “But (the clothes) go through all the verification, the fumigation, all that, before they are shipped to Uganda. And we get all documents for that.”

The Green Shops are environmentally friendly because they recycle used clothes in bulk, he said.

The association of traders in Kampala, known by the acronym KACITA, opposes a firm ban on used apparel, recommending a phased embargo that allows local clothing producers to build capacity to meet demand.

Some Ugandan apparel makers, like Winfred Arinaitwe, acknowledge that the quality of locally made fabric is often poor. Not surprisingly, many people would rather buy used clothing, she said.

“Because it lasts longer,” she said. “It can easily be seen.”

In Owino Market, a ban on used clothes is inconceivable to many, including some who say they don’t think the president’s threat was serious.

Abdulrashid Ssuuna, who tries to persuade customers in the market to stop by his brother’s used clothing business, said a ban would deny him a livelihood.

“It’s like they want to chase us out of the country,” he said of the president’s order. “From these old clothes, we get what to eat. If you say we leave this business, you are saying we go into new clothes. But we can’t afford to go there.”

Ssuuna approaches people in Owino Market to urge them to visit the stall where his brother sells used jeans. The market is aggressively competitive, with merchants sitting behind heaps of clothes and shouting words of welcome to possible customers.

If he helps his brother sell clothing, “I get something,” said Ssuuna, who started this work after dropping out of high school in 2020.

The market is always full of shoppers, but business is unpredictable: Traders must try to anticipate what customers are looking for before they are lured by other sellers.

Some days are better than others, said Tadeo Walusimbi, who has been a used-clothes trader for six years. A government ban is simply untenable, he warned.

It “will not work for me and for so many people,” Walusimbi said.

Francophone Africa’s Scramble For Self-Reliant Sovereignty: Beyond France’s ‘Incroyable Mais Vrai’

BY BOLA A. AKINTERINWA

Francophone Africa’s scramble for self-reliant independence and sovereignty is a big surprise to France as a people, in general, and as a government, in particular. For the French, it is ‘incroyable mais vrai’, that is, ‘unbelievable but true.’ The French cannot easily believe that their former colonized people can declare them personae non grata in their countries.

European scramble for Africa, which culminated into the 1884 and 1885 Berlin Conferences and agreements, is gradually being replaced by a new reactive scramble some Francophone African countries. While the Berlin scramble was largely predicated on the sermons of ‘Missions Civilisatrices’ (Civilisation Missions), exploitative partitioning of Africa into zones of influence, and governance of Africa by manu militari, the reactive Francophone scramble is to stop the unending exploitative impact of the alleged European civilisation mission in Africa, beginning from their countries. The objective is also to replace it with a self-reliant and totally self-dependent sovereignty. The Francophone scramble therefore appears to be a direct negation of the Berlin spirit which sought the partitioning of Africa into zones of influence as an instrument of self-developmental promotion through divide and rule policies.

For instance, some Francophone African countries are currently trying to chase France out of Africa by using coup making to oust incumbent governments which owe political allegiance more to France than to their home country. The coups, though carried out by military junta, have always been endorsed by the people. Consequently, there is the need to differentiate this type of military-supported coups which are not only aimed at simply changing the incumbent president and his government, but also to stop French exploitative influence.

In the eyes of the French they do not see themselves as exploiters but as helpers. Francophone Africans believe that France aids and abets bad governance and therefore organize coups to stop bad governance, politico-economic corruption and other political irrationality. Thus, coups d’état are instruments for fighting against France and for freedom.

Francophone Africa’s Scramble

The scramble for sovereign self-reliance began with the Malian coup of 18 August 2020 at the Kati military base outside of Bamako. This was the foundation of the scramble. Malians engaged in public protests led by the June 5 Movement (officially known as June 5 – Rally of Patriotic Forces) for several days which prompted the military, under Assimi Goita, to take advantage of the situation to lunch a coup d’état against the elected government of Ibrahim Boubacar Keїta (IBK). The Rally wanted the president to resign for his failure to tackle the dire economy and Mali’s eight-year Jihadist conflict.

Another rally in which thousands of people were involved and which lasted for three days, was held on July 10, 2020 not only turned violent but also escalated the political crisis: bridges were blocked. The parliament building was attacked. In fact, clashes with security left 11 people dead and 158 people injured. The anger about this has served as a basis for unification of the people, especially the religious figures and civil society leaders, and military leaders involved in Mali’s 2012 coup.

As explained by Emily Cole of the United States Institute of Peace (Making Peace Possible), it was an argument over promotion at a military base on August 18, 2020 that prompted the rising tensions to culminate into a mutiny. Besides, Mali’s 2012 coup led to growing regional instability while regional and international efforts to stabilize Mali focused excessively on security but neglecting decades of failed governance. Perhaps more importantly, Emily Cole had it that President Ibrahim Boubacar Keїta (IBK) ‘was a symbol of government corruption, of international interference and inaction, of ongoing instability.’ In short, he has come to represent the failure of governance that has led to huge losses of life, mostly civilians, in Mali.

At the level of France’s reactions, Mali’s ties with France began to be tainted when a second coup occurred on May 24, 2021. The Vice President, Assimi Goїta, captured President Bah N’daw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, and Minister of Defence, Souleymane Doucouré.

. Contrary to the wishes of France, the military junta in power refused to set an early date for the restoration of civilian rule. The Bamako authorities accused France of inciting hostility of Mali’s neighbours towards the Malian junta. This mésentente was aggravated with the Mali-Russia rapprochement in 2021, with Russia sending military instructors to Mali, and with the involvement of the pro-Kremlin Wagner group.

More disturbingly, in January 2023 the French Ambassador to Mali, Joel Meyer, was declared unwanted by the Malian government. In February 2023 France announced the pulling out of its troops from Mali and those of the French-led Takuba Force. In fact, the three agreements that provide the legal foundation for French militaries in Mali were denounced allegedly because of a ‘blatant violation of Mali’s national sovereignty by France.’ France was accused of spying and subversion. As further explained by Abdoulaye Diop, Mali’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, there was no longer ‘a legal basis for France to operate on Malian soil…Anything which takes place on the territory of a sovereign state should be discussed and agreed with the state which is in place.

What is noteworthy here is the major causal factor of the misunderstanding. Malians consider that the French troops had been in Mali since 2013 continuously without being able to contain terrorism and which had been spreading from Mali to Burkina Faso and Niger Republic. The conduct and management of the crisis, especially by France, is another problem. When France suspended the issuance of visas to Malians, the Bamako military junta also reciprocated. When President Emmanuel Macron visited Benin, Cameroon and Guinea Bissau, he said West African nations should ensure that Malians should ‘express the sovereignty of the people, build a framework of stability’ to allow an ‘effective fight against terrorist group.’ In response to President Macron, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, spokesman to the military junta, said on public television that ‘the transitional government demands President Macron to permanently abandon his neocolonial, paternalistic and patronizing posture and to understand that no one can love Mali better than Malians.’

As regards Burkina Faso, the story of Franco-Burkinabe relations is not different. France is opposed to the coup d’état in Burkina Faso. Because of the French opposition, the Ouagadougou authorities told the French Ambassador to leave their country. Thereafter, Burkina Faso denounced ‘the technical military assistance agreement reached in Paris on April 24, 1961,’ including the two appendix.’ Considering that armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL have taken over large swatches of land and displaced millions of people in the south of the Sahara, Burkina Faso authorities asked France in January 2023 to withdraw its troops so that the Burkinabes could begin to defend themselves. The French troops must be pulled out within one month.

Unlike in Mali where France had 2,400 troops, there were only 400 Special Forces in Burkina Faso. The Burkina Faso transnational government led by Ibrahim Traore suspended the 2018 military accord with France. The spokesman of Government, Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, reportedly said: ‘we are terminating the agreement which allows French forces to be in Burkina Faso. This is not the end of diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France. This termination is normal and is foreseen in the terms of the agreement.’ And more significantly, Ouedraogo said the Burkinabés and the government want ‘to be the prime actors in the recapture of our territory.’

Additionally, Burkinabés attacked the Embassy of France. They turned to Russia as a ‘reasonable choice in this dynamic,’ the Burkinabé Prime Minister reportedly said. Protesters not only carried Russian flags but were also saying ‘we don’t want the smallest second added to the scheduled date of departure. Let them leave and leave our Faso to us,’ Amadé Maiga again reportedly said. Even though France considers Russia’s influence in troubled African countries as ‘predatory,’ a 58-year-old protester, Amadé Compaoré, has also opined that ‘walking with Russia is not a sin… Russia is the solution.’

From the two cases of Mali and Burkina Faso, two points are made clear. First is the fact that if the French could not contain the spread of Jihadist terrorism since 2013, nothing should prevent seeking an alternative. The chosen alternative is Russia, an arch enemy of the Western world in the making of a new world order. Second, the major concern of the people is not only stoppage of terror but also the end of French neo-colonialism. Will Russia, as an alternative be able to meaningfully solve the problem? Will Russia not be another obstacle to the quest for a self-reliant sovereignty? Will Russia be better than France in the exploitation of the national resources? Will there be transfer of technology, better protection of human rights and democratic culture?

In Niger Republic, even though the conquest of Niger by the French dates back to 1898 and Niger had its political flag independence on August 3rd, 1960, it is still arguable that the Republic of Niger is independent or decolonized. For us, Niger Republic has never known any form of independence. Presidents of Niger Republic need the support of France in order to survive in power. France has been importing economic raw materials from its colonies since the colonial days and such importations are yet to be stopped as at today, especially from Niger. France imports at least 25% of her nuclear needs from Niger. More than 70% of Niger’s foreign reserves are kept in the French Central Bank. If Niger is to take out of it, interest is still paid to France.

What is problematic and relevant here is that when the Mohammed Bazoum was ousted on July 26, 2023, the French government refused to recognize the new junta under Abdourahamane Tchiani, the President of the National Council for the safeguard of the Homeland of Niger. He replaced President Bazoum. France capitalized on the support of the ECOWAS to restore President Bazoum but to no avail. Aggrieved, France suspended the issuance of visas to Nigeriens, and prevented French cultural centres from collaborating with their counterparts in Niger Republic. The artists in Niger vowed not to beg France. Quo Vadis?

Beyond France’s ‘Incroyable Mais Vrai’

Unbelievable, but True’ is not only an issue for France but also for all African observers. France for instance, is much concerned that the French Ambassador was declared persona non grata but was not allowed to go out of the embassy, the ambassador could not eat as explained by President Emmanuel Macron of France. It is unbelievable for President Macron. In this regard, President Macron easily forgets two main issues responsible. First, France is waiting for President Bazoum to come back to power, since the junta in power is not recognized by France. Consequently, France was not prepared to take instructions from an illegal government. Most unfortunately, however, France has been compelled by force majeure to comply with the government’s policy direction, especially when social services to the embassy were suspended. Provision of social services to any embassy is not a function of legality of a government but largely a resultant of a de facto government discharging the duties of a State in international law and relations.

Secondly, the non-recognised Abdourahamane Tchiani junta gave a time limit for the French Ambassador to check out of Niger Republic but the instruction from government was disregarded by the ambassador. It was at the expiration of the ultimatum given that the civilian population supporting the military government that the Embassy of France was surrounded and that efforts were made to enter the diplomatic premises without the consent of the Ambassador as required by diplomatic conventions. In this regard, the French found this development as unbelievable but it was true.

More importantly, it should be noted that, even though France does not recognize the Abdourahamane Tchiani military junta initially, but later accepted to check out of Niger, the truth is that, by implication, the acceptance to still check out of Niger cannot but be a resultant of the instruction given by the unrecognized government of Niger, which, in the eyes of France, is an illegal government, but which, in the eyes of Nigeriens, is both the de jure and de facto, and the wanted government of Niger Republic. The insistence of the people of Niger that political governance in Niger Republic must not be an expression of neo-colonial mainmise and therefore the people of Niger must remove it by forceful means is unbelievable for the French but it true.

Without jot of gainsaying, France does not any longer have any modicum of respect in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. This is to the extent that they now prefer Russia, even if the country is considered as another devil. In fact, it is mainly because of the pro-Russia Wagner group of mercenaries in Francophone countries that France had to quickly accept to withdraw its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. France cannot imagine how French troops will be collaborating with the Wagner mercenaries in fighting jihadist terror in the Sahel.

In light of the foregoing, it has become necessary to go beyond France’s incroyable-mais-vrai syndrome to evolving a programmatic new foreign policy of how to respond to future foreign policy on Africa. The gradual chasing out of Africa of France has the potential to serve as a new basis for a new foreign policy attitude, as well as exploring other areas of foreign policy focus. For instance, Nigeria is yet to evolve a well-articulated foreign policy on the participation of Nigerians in Diaspora in Nigeria’s economic, technology, and political development. True enough, there is the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), chaired by Honourable Abike Dabiri who has been actively engaging Nigerians in the Diaspora. However, this engagement has not been translated into a foreign policy posture. The engagement is currently at the level of bilateral conversations between the Government of Nigeria and the Nigerians in Diaspora.

Whereas, having a foreign policy posture necessarily takes the conversations beyond the bilateral level to plurilateral and multilateral levels, and therefore making the Nigerians in Diaspora a question to be addressed in the various dimensions of Nigeria’s foreign relations. Indeed, more often than not, what we have always seen is unnecessary complaints that the NIDCOM is usurping the functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although the activities of any Ministry of Foreign Affairs necessarily fall under the purview of Public International Law while those of the NIDCOM also necessarily fall under International Private Law, this difference in categorization requires reconciliation. There must be a place for the Diaspora in the conduct and management of Diaspora resources.

Additionally, there is neither any foreign policy on bilateral and multilateral agreement negotiation nor on international technology transfer. For instance, there is no foreign policy targeted specifically at Nigeria’s economic independence or self-reliance in the current mania of Francophone Africa fighting France now.

Another area of concern is what happens to the aspect of special and privileged relationship between France and Francophone Africa? The elements of the special relationship are quite interesting: The first is the CFA franc, which was officially created on 26th December by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle to foster economic integration among the colonies and to ensure effective control of their resources, economic structures and systems. At the time of independence in 1960, the colonial currency was redesigned for both West Africa and Central Africa. West Africa comprised eight countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo known as WAEMU – and became the African Financial Community (AFC as English Acronym and CFA in French). The Central African region comprises Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad, all constituting the Central African Financial Cooperation (CAEMC).

The two currencies are not inter-changeable but have a fixed exchange rate with the French franc and later with the euro: 655.957 CFA. France guarantees unlimited convertibility of the CFA franc. All the foreign exchange reserves are centralize. And more importantly, since 2005, the BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States and the BEAC (Bank of Central African States) are required to always deposit fifty percent of their foreign exchange reserves in a special French Treasury ‘operating account.’

Without doubt, there are proponents and opponents of the CFA franc. For instance, President Idriss Déby noted on 11 August 2015 during the 55th anniversary of the independence of Chad that ‘we must have the courage to say there is a cord preventing development in Africa that must be severed.’ The cord being referred to is the CFA franc. Now that many Francophone African countries are chasing France out of their countries, what now happens to the CFA franc? The ECOWAS agreed to have a regional currency to be named Eco. The Francophone Member States worked against it by naming their CFA franc Eco. The Eco is expected to still be guaranteed by France and convertibility to the euro is still guaranteed. Can the reduction in France’s influence in West Africa enhance greater integration in the region? France is Nigeria’s neighbour by geo-political propinquity. France is not wanted in faraway Mali and Burkina Faso and in neighbouring Niger Republic. But France is still welcomed in Benin, Chad, and Cameroon. How will Nigeria begin to respond to France’s new image in Africa? Franco-Nigerian rapprochement in this context has problems. If Nigeria is hobnobbing with France, it also has the potential of antagonizing the Francophone African countries seeking to free themselves from the clutches of politico-colonial and economico-cultural imprisonment of France. There is the need for re-strategy.

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The Conspiracy To End America Review: Trump And The Fascist Threat

Author Stuart Stevens ran Republican campaigns but joined the Lincoln Project. His latest book delivers a chilling warning

BY LLOYD GREEN

Donald Trump’s supporters want an American Caesar. Back in 2016, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made it explicit. “We need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country,” he declared. Joe Sitt, a major player in New York real estate and an early Trump backer, chipped in: “We don’t have a president, we have a king.”

Five years later, January 6 and its aftermath crystalized another reality: Trump found fair and free elections useless. He and his allies had grown weary of democracy. After all, they had lost.

The Republican party had a new credo: “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.”

The last time the GOP won the popular vote was in 2004, and before that 1988. Seeking to return to office, Trump has threatened the media with charges of treason and hankered for the execution of Gen Mark Milley, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff.

Against this dystopian backdrop, Stuart Stevens delivers his second book, The Conspiracy to End America, on what happened to the party he served for so long, this one under the subtitle Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy. The words are jarring but dead-on. Once a senior campaign operative, Stevens knows of what he speaks. In his view, only the Democratic party values democracy as an end in itself.

He did media for George W Bush’s White House runs, then helped guide Mitt Romney to the Republican nomination in 2012. Now, though, Stevens is at the Lincoln Project, a haven for never-Trumpers. Their commercials got under Trump’s skin – to the delectation of Democrats. They were mean and funny. On the page, Stevens picks up where he left off in It Was All a Lie, his book of 2019. Four years furnished plenty of new material. At present, Trump faces 91 felony counts across multiple jurisdictions yet is the odds-on favorite to capture the 2024 presidential nomination. Truth is stranger than fiction.

“Trump understood the true nature of the Republican party better than those who were the party’s leaders,” Stevens writes of Trump’s first campaign, launched in 2015, a tacit admission that the author himself did not fully comprehend the world around him. It was about resentments, not upward arc: “Hate was creating a surge of appeal.”

Trump beat Hillary Clinton, then lost to Joe Biden. His ambitions were only momentarily derailed. His chief challenger, the hard-right Florida governor Ron DeSantis, faded in primary polling. The rest of the field is running in place or approaching asterisk status. None can land a punch.

As Stevens sees it, the late Weimar Republic and the US today have plenty in common. As was the case 90 years ago, democracy could be made expendable, particularly if the donor class goes along for the ride.

Back then, in Stevens’ telling, the German aristocracy lost touch with the workers. Fearing communism, they and the industrialists made peace with Adolf Hitler – much as GOP donors opened their wallets to Trump. Stevens leaves little to the imagination: “Like Adolf Hitler, Trump hated the establishment figures who supported him, and they despised him.”

He quotes Mitch McConnell, the living embodiment of the Republican establishment, the Senate majority leader when Trump won the White House. With hindsight, McConnell sounds clueless, oblivious to the approaching storm.

“I think we’re much more likely to change [Trump] because if he is president, he’s going to have to deal with the sort of the right-of-center world, which is where most of us are,” McConnell told CNBC.

“Going to have to deal”? Really?

After McConnell helped Trump’s judicial nominees over the finishing line, the senator became expendable. He emerged as a target for Trump’s rants and loathing, including potshots at Elaine Chao, McConnell’s Chinese American wife, who resigned from Trump’s cabinet – if only after January 6. At times, McConnell’s disdain seeped out. Ultimately, though, he maintained sufficient devotion to his Caesar: McConnell blamed Trump for January 6 but refused to vote to convict at the second impeachment trial.

In the same quisling spirit, McConnell has said he would vote for Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee again. A coda: just like Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, McConnell never responded to the barbs Trump aimed at his wife.

As for Cruz, Trump linked his father to the assassination of John F Kennedy and, for good measure, called his wife ugly. No matter: “lyin’ Ted,” as Trump nicknamed him, was there to polish Trump’s boots with his tongue.

Not surprisingly, Stevens shines an unflattering light on Cruz. He also stresses that McConnell wasn’t alone in trashing Trump and then acquiescing to his dominance: he namechecks the former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the New York Republican Elise Stefanik and senators Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn and Tim Scott, all for condemning the insurrection only to backslide swiftly.

“Two weeks after the insurrection, Kevin McCarthy was once again the aging fraternity rush chairman who would do anything to be accepted by the Big Man on Campus fraternity president,” Stevens writes.

This month, in McCarthy’s hour of need, Trump did not rally to his side. The Californian became the first House speaker ever ejected by his own party – while Trump toyed with the idea of becoming speaker himself. Meanwhile, out on the presidential campaign trail, Pence and Scott go nowhere. The Republican party really is The Trump Show.

On Wednesday, House Republicans tapped Steve Scalise, reportedly a David Duke wannabe, as their guy for House speaker. But his candidacy was short lived. On Thursday, he pulled the plug. Other far-right connections continue. Eric Trump was slated to share the stage with Ian Smith, a Nazi apologist, at Trump Doral in Florida this week.

“The collapse of American democracy is like the pandemic,” Stevens warns. “Whatever you say at the beginning will sound alarmist but likely prove inadequate at the end.”

The Conspiracy to End America is published in the US by Hachette

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The Urgent Lessons Of The Interwar Years

BY SHAY KHATIRI

Robert Kagan’s The Ghost at the Feast is an uncommon book. The second volume of a planned four-part series on the history of U.S. foreign policy, it has the rare distinction of being written so engagingly that it is as much a literary accomplishment as a scholarly one. The previous volume, Dangerous Nation, chronicled the history of U.S. foreign policy from the pre-Founding era to 1898. The sequel picks up there and takes the reader to Pearl Harbor.

Kagan, who laments historical revisionism as often flawed, ironically begins his book with a revisionist thesis: American involvement in Latin America and the Philippines at the dawn of the 20th century was accidental, reluctant, and anti-imperial. In making his case, he notes that even the great anti-imperialist Mark Twain supported intervention in Latin America. And he observes that, once they had intervened in both places, Americans were desperate to leave yet reluctant to do so for fear of the chaos that could ensue in a power vacuum. (Eventually, the U.S. military would leave, and those fears would prove to be right.)

In Kagan’s history, America’s entry into both world wars occurred for the same fundamental reasons that have led to all wars. Millennia ago, Thucydides observed that the reasons states go to war are rational fear (or what we today call security), honor, and profit. American exceptionalism did not exempt the nation from this rule. Americans saw their security and moral and commercial interests under threat from Spain, the Central Powers, and the Axis, or already injured. And in each instance, the trio of U.S. interests ran in both directions: Americans stayed out of military conflicts for as long as they could because they viewed war as expensive and often immoral. They eventually entered hostilities out of fear that war would come to them if they did not go to it (or, in the case of Pearl Harbor, because it had already come to them), because of the moral atrocities of enemies, from the Spanish treatment of Cubans to the sinking of the Lusitania to Kristallnacht; and because disorder abroad threatened U.S. prosperity at home.

The explosion of American wealth, commerce, and power in the early 20th century necessitated greater attention to the rest of the world. In his first volume, Kagan observed that the invention of steam power forced American foreign policy to adapt in two ways. First, it reduced the protection that the oceans provided the republic, by making the Americas more accessible to adversarial navies from other continents. Second, it enabled trade across the oceans. In the first two decades surveyed in The Ghost at the Feast, both trends accelerated, and American foreign policy kept adjusting accordingly.

Today’s anti-interventionists, like those of the past, often argue that America is a commercial republic and should therefore engage with the rest of the world only in trade. Yet, like their predecessors, they fail to understand that the size of the U.S. economy means that disorder in the rest of the world negatively affects American prosperity. And while moral atrocities abroad are not enough on their own to send the country to war, as a creedal nation America has a difficult time ignoring tyrants.

Wilhelmine Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare did not sit well with Americans. The sinking of the Lusitania — killing 1,198 civilians, women and children among them, including 124 Americans — brought that moral offense too close to home. “The German government made no secret of the fact that the Lusitania was a target,” Kagan writes, adding that the “day before it sailed from New York, the German ambassador posted an advertisement in the Times, right next to the announcement of the ship’s sailing, reminding passengers of the risks of traveling in war zones.” Public anger toward Germany began to build quickly. Political leaders and intellectuals followed the public sentiment.

And yet Americans were not convinced that war was the right choice. As a Missouri senator wondered: Should the United States go to war over the sinking of a British ship carrying a British flag? For a time, the answer remained no, especially given the German announcement that it would suspend submarine warfare. The pattern was the same before the Pearl Harbor attack. In both instances, presidents prepared the anxious nation for war while promising not to join it, a more sincere pledge in the case of Woodrow Wilson. Eventually, in both wars, enemies forced America’s hand.

Kagan on different occasions makes two key observations. First, that the events of a given decade have much to do with the decisions made in the previous one. Second, that it is “a recurring fact of history that the seeds of future turmoil and destruction are often sown in placid and prosperous times.” Both points lead the reader to the same conclusion: The seeds of World War II were planted in the 1920s. Here is where Kagan’s achievement as a scholar and writer stands out. While most authors have either neglected the connections among military, commercial, diplomatic, and domestic political forces during the interwar period or failed to articulate them, he succeeds in examining them all in remarkably clear prose.

The League of Nations is often mistakenly thought of as a failed precursor to the United Nations, but its design more closely resembled what became NATO. The winners and losers of World War I all agreed on one key point: The presence of the U.S. military was necessary to preserve the peace and the Anglo-American order created at Versailles. Teddy Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge worked to prevent America’s entry into the League. Their opposition was not principled: Roosevelt had been the first person to conceive of the idea, and Lodge had endorsed it. But with the 1920 presidential race looming, and with Roosevelt gearing up for another run for the White House, it was imperative not to give Wilson a victory. With the president stuck in Europe for months and with Lodge, a brilliant operative, running the show in the Senate, ratification failed — and so did the internationalism that the two men had elevated in the Republican Party. They were among the victims of their own ploy, as the GOP would soon become the party of Senator William Borah, a leading opponent of American internationalism.

Often, once cynics boost a populist idea they don’t believe in, sincere populists overtake them. Roosevelt and Lodge had dug the grave of their own principles. After Lodge died in office, it was Borah who replaced him on the Foreign Relations Committee. Americans tend to view past statesmen as high-minded public servants who put the national interest above partisan politics; we wish our leaders today were more like them. The Ghost at the Feast is a good reality check.

The sidelining of internationalist Republicans was terribly consequential. With twelve years of uninterrupted control of the White House, the GOP began to undermine the liberal Anglo-American order that was ruling Europe and had reached Asia. Most notably, the turn toward tariffs and protectionism undermined global trade, and pulling American troops out of Europe caused Europeans to remilitarize.

One of the most interesting observations Kagan makes is about the way one nation’s foreign policy influences another nation’s domestic policies, and vice versa. He has a fascinating chapter dedicated to examining the effect of Kristallnacht on U.S. politics. Kristallnacht, he writes, was “thoroughly covered in the American press [and] sparked widespread outrage.” But also, “as always, American views on foreign questions were closely related to domestic political battles,” with different ideological factions using the episode to further their domestic arguments. For a contemporary observer of American politics, this dynamic is familiar. Kristallnacht caused many Americans to become more sympathetic to the Jewish struggle and more anti-German, while at the same time anti-Jewish attacks in America began to rise.

On the other hand, American conduct shaped Japanese domestic politics. America’s turn away from internationalism weakened Japan’s liberals, who had bet on America, and elevated their fascist rivals. “The much-vaunted cooperation with the United States and the West had proven to be a mirage, and now Japan’s economic dependence on the Anglo-American global economy had produced decline and widespread suffering,” writes Kagan. The Japanese military, exploiting the country’s fragile democracy, circumvented civilian leadership and used the emperor’s “supreme” authority to elevate itself against discredited liberals. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and was met with words of condemnation and little else from across the Pacific (or the United Kingdom). Six years later, heartened by a lack of foreign resistance, Japan escalated the war to the rest of China. (Readers will be excused for thinking of the free world’s indulgence of Russia in the Donbas and Crimea prior to Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine eight years later.) The Asian order had broken down, yet there was still time to prevent the Asian war from turning into a world war.



Citing military historian Williamson Murray, Kagan argues that in 1938 the Wehrmacht was not yet strong enough to ensure a victory against Czechoslovakia. With foreign support, Czechs could have defeated the Germans and discredited Adolf Hitler and Nazism. But Europeans had at last been enjoying peace and prosperity, and Americans had washed their hands of European matters. So in September 1938, the last chance to prevent World War II was wasted when Hitler’s aggression was rewarded with a green light for invasion.

The rise of ideological governance — liberalism, fascism, communism, and theocracy — has changed the character of politics without changing the nature of man. In contrast with the Holy Roman Empire or Napoleonic France, empires of the 20th century, German, Japanese, and Soviet alike, were ideological. Today’s empires, China, Russia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, are also creedal — as is the mighty American empire (an “empire for liberty,” in Jefferson’s words). While all historical studies have something to tell us about the present, the early 20th century has many more similarities to today’s turmoil than do earlier eras. But despite the free world’s uncannily similar treatment of Nazi Germany and Putinist Russia, there is an important difference. Where free nations told the Czechs to surrender, they have armed Ukraine. That decision might turn out to be the point at which the free world stopped — or at least postponed — the next great war.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, then–secretary of state John Kerry foolishly remarked, “The fact is, this is the 21st century, and we should not see nations step backwards to behave in 19th- or 20th-century fashion.” To his great shock, as well as that of many others, the forces of enlightenment and trade had not changed man’s nature. The notion that they could was a dream from which Americans rudely woke up a century ago, and they must wake up again now.



Kagan’s book makes clear that Americans are now staring at an all too familiar challenge. It remains an open question whether they will defend the American world order now as in the Cold War or, distracted by partisan politics, take it for granted only to watch it crumble as in the interwar years.

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INTERVIEW: For Tiya Miles, Girlhood Reading Was ‘My Escape And Joy’

Tiya Miles

BY REBECCA CLARKE

“My favorite author was Madeleine L’Engle,” says the National Book Award-winning historian, whose new book is “Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation.” “In middle school I would ride the city bus to the public library and check out L’Engle’s novels for teens.”

What books are on your night stand?

“The Ministry for the Future,” by Kim Stanley Robinson; “Mendings,” by Megan Sweeney; “Against Technoableism,” by Ashley Shew; “Under a White Sky,” by Elizabeth Kolbert; “Reading Territory,” by Kathryn Walkiewicz.

Who is your favorite novelist of all time?

Toni Morrison — for her sheer bravery, breathless wordsmithing, intellectual range and incomparable understanding of our emotional and social realms. Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins came to mind as a close second. Her best-known novel, “Contending Forces” (published in 1900), is about a Black family in the turn of 20th-century Boston contending with the historical traumas of Southern slavery and lynching. Hopkins was a literary path-breaker, working as a periodical editor and publisher and as a race-issues novelist when these roles were barely open to women. She wrote about the impact of history on people’s lives and relationships in the present day of her era, and because she sought to highlight these historical questions for a wide Black reading public, she experimented with various forms, from the romance to the western.

Which books by contemporary historians — both academic and amateur — do you most admire?

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s exquisite history, “A Midwife’s Tale,” has been my model since graduate school. Walter Johnson’s penetrating history of the U.S. domestic slave trade, “Soul by Soul,” and Seth Rockman’s intricate labor history of late-18th-century and 19th-century Baltimore, “Scraping By,” have long impressed me as prime examples of the historian’s craft.

Who writes especially well (fiction or non) about ecology and its relationship to race? What books have shaped your views on the subject?

When I found Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God" on the shelf of my high school library at around age 15, I felt both embraced and disturbed by it. It was, and is, a pivotal work of Black environmental writing. Like me at the time, the protagonist, Janie, feels an intimate association with a pear tree in her grandmother’s yard (in my case, it was an apple tree). Janie follows a winding path as she matures in 1930s Florida, an inhospitable time and place for Black women. In the end, she suffers through a hurricane that hits her community hard because of their racial and class position on the margins of society and their physical location in an environmental exposure zone. The triumph of this novel is that Janie survives abuse, loss and natural disaster to craft her own personal tale — a story of resilience that reveals the intertwined elements of race, gender and environment. And of course, Octavia Butler, whose work is everywhere now for good reason, wrote piercing novels about race and displacement that double as climate fiction.

What is your favorite book to assign and discuss with your students at Harvard?

Harriet Jacobs’s narrative, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.”

What books might we be surprised to find on your bookshelves?

“Red, White & Royal Blue," Casey McQuiston; “Book Lovers,” Emily Henry; “State of Terror,” Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny; “Woke Racism,” John McWhorter.

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?

Dana in Octavia E. Butler’s “Kindred.”

What kind of reader were you as a child? Your favorite books and authors?

Reading became my escape and joy in elementary school. My favorite author was Madeleine L’Engle, whose books I came to know through the wonderful gift of a fifth-grade teacher, who read “A Wrinkle in Time” aloud to our class. I devoured that series, identifying with Meg, the plain older sister who had her own hidden gifts. In middle school I would ride the city bus to the public library and check out L’Engle’s novels for teens. The title I read and reread was “A Ring of Endless Light,” which featured a love affair with dolphins. I was a huge Trixie Belden mysteries fan, too, and a regular reader of Judy Blume and Paula Danziger, probably like most other bookish girls growing up in the 1980s.

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.”

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.”

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?

Louise Erdrich, Barbara Kingsolver and Alice Walker, with the stipulation that I can just listen in while they talk, AND, for a dessert party, Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole and Talia Hibbert.

Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

I didn’t get very far into Richard Powers’s “The Overstory,” but I’m determined to try again. (It took me at least two attempts to finish Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” as well as Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” which are now among the books that have had the greatest influence on my thinking.) Clearly the problem is not him; it’s me!

Whom would you want to write your biography?

A kindhearted person.

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Amid A Region Rife With Coups And Instability, Ghana Is A Democratic Bulwark

A crowd waits for Vice President Kamala Harris’ arrival at Cape Coast Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, March 28, 2023. (Jessica Sarkodie/The New York Times)

BY DONNA CHARLES

Washington should deepen cooperation with Ghana to promote and sustain democracy as a governance model.

Ghanian President Nana Akufo-Addo is in Washington this week as the United States re-examines its strategy and engagement in West Africa and the Sahel, which have seen eight coups since 2020. Ghana stands out as a bastion of democracy in this region, where nearly 150 million people are today under the rule of armed forces. Violent extremism is also a major challenge facing the region, with affiliates of the Islamic State, among other terrorist groups, taking root. But Ghana stands in stark contrast to these dire trends, playing a critical role in promoting regional peace and economic development.

Donna Charles, USIP's director for West Africa, looks at what the region can learn from Ghana’s democracy and explains why the United States should continue to support its democratic leadership.

 
What makes this visit important?

Once relatively stable and projected to experience exponential economic growth, West Africa and the Sahel now face an increased terrorism threat and a tightening belt of new and entrenched military juntas. Ghana’s leadership role — through the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the U.N. Security Council and the broader international community — underscores the country’s ideal position to counter the wave of anti-democratic movements and violent extremism threatening to inundate the region. As Washington looks to re-calibrate its policy in the region, Ghana is a vital partner.

President Akufo-Addo’s visit to Washington, where he will speak at the U.S. Institute of Peace, also opens the door for the United States and like-minded partners to elevate a partnership with a country that has burnished its brand as a strong democracy surrounded by political instability. The key question is whether the value proposition of democracy, particularly as a governance model shaped and exported by Western powers, will resonate with Africans or if the prevailing winds will continue to shift more governments toward autocracy.

 
What lessons does Ghana’s history and evolution as a democracy provide to other regional partners?

The Republic of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial powers in 1957, is one of the most stable democracies on the continent and boasts almost three decades of peaceful transitions of power. Ghana is not unique in the challenges it faces: rising public debt and inflationary woes, questions about its human rights records amid anti-LGBTQI legislation, and growing concerns over violent extremist attacks along the border with Burkina Faso. These challenges present real concerns for Ghana. But the country’s recent history tells a compelling story about how a country emerges from a one-party state to become a multi-party bastion of stability.

Ghana’s first coup in 1966 emerged because of uncontrolled foreign debt and economic instability. It also faced a fever of coups that did not break until almost 30 years later under Jerry Rawlings, a controversial military officer who led a violent, but failed coup against a previous military junta in 1979, and another successful coup in 1981. Under Rawlings, Ghana weathered severe austerity measures, widespread economic reforms and civil unrest that raised serious concerns about human rights abuses against government opposition. The instability of a junta-led Ghana and an economic crisis in 1983 forced Ghanaian authorities to organize multi-party elections, ushering in a new era of multi-party politics.

In the long run, Ghana’s strong economic recovery, which started to take shape in 1984 with the help of International Monetary Fund and World Bank structural adjustment programs, helped stabilize the country. Meanwhile, its troop contributions to regional peacekeeping operations in West Africa and the Middle East helped boost its image on the world stage. More importantly, Rawlings and his successors signaled their trust in and support for the people of Ghana, respecting term limits and transferring power peacefully and democratically.

So, what can other countries learn from this experience? After decades of instability and coups, Ghana’s leaders came to the conclusion that democracy, coupled with key economic reforms, is the best path to stability. Over time, Ghanaian leadership then worked to institutionalize the idea and practice of democracy and good governance for the benefit of the people and the economy over the long term.

 
Does Ghana prove that democracy works for Africa?

By adhering to the social contract implicitly signed by its citizens when they head to the polls every election cycle, Ghana’s elites reassure the people and the international community that they believe in the idea of the country as a democracy more than they believe in themselves. Ghana’s leaders have consistently eschewed the autocratic idea that the country’s destiny is in the hands of one person and demonstrate that they will continue to cultivate the next generation of leaders.

The recent spate of coups in Africa has raised questions about whether democracy works as a “one-size fits-all” model of governance on the continent, as some would argue the West often promotes. According to an Afrobarometer survey, only 38 percent of respondents from 36 African states are satisfied with how democracy works in their country. While related surveys indicate that most Africans prefer democracy over other systems of governance and embrace multiparty systems and other democratic norms, worrying trends in West Africa, the Sahel and parts of southern Africa suggest growing acceptance of military rule amid of poor governance. These results demonstrate how important it is for aspiring and mature democracies throughout Africa and beyond to demonstrate the value of democracy through basic service delivery, accountability, transparency and inclusion.

This message resonates in West Africa. After violent pro-democracy protests in Senegal in June, President Macky Sall announced he would not seek a third term. Liberians returned to the polls on Tuesday after experiencing a peaceful transition in 2017. And Nigeria, with low voter turnout and reported voter suppression, violence and other irregularities at the polls, allowed its judicial institutions to arbitrate a contested election in February. Along with Ghana’s strong democratic record, these examples underscore that democracy has worked and will continue to work in Africa if citizens are empowered in an inclusive process that is not concentrated in elite centers of power and access.

Why should the United States continue to support Ghana’s democratic leadership in the region?

Amid a belt of military-led autocracies that spans most of the Sahel region, longstanding U.S. partners like Ghana are increasingly important to Washington. Enhancing this partnership through vocal support for Ghana’s regional leadership role, increased security cooperation and enhancing diplomatic engagement will signal Ghana’s strategic significance to the United States. It could also buttress against the likes of Russia and China, both of whom continue to position for increased influence throughout the continent. If the case for democracy cannot be made in Africa — meaning citizens do not believe that democracies can deliver materially for all people — then the United States, its African partners and other like-minded allies will face serious challenges to securing peace and prosperity.

Democracy is a prerequisite for engendering public trust and robust civic engagement — and it plays a vital role in allowing economic growth and sustainable development to take root. As of August 2020, Accra, Ghana’s capital, is home to the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the largest trading bloc by number of countries in the world that provides a critical opportunity to lift millions of Africans out of poverty. For AfCFTA to be successful, African countries like Ghana must lead the way in helping harmonize trade rules and regulations, establishing trade-dispute mechanisms and reducing the barriers to trade with other regions of the world. According to the Center for Economic Policy Research, trade in goods and services with democratic countries increases a population’s support for democracy and democratic institutions. Economic analysis of free trade agreements also suggests that free trade helps democracies flourish and thrive.

Washington’s partnership with Ghana means that the United States has a chance to further demonstrate how like-minded partners support and learn from each other in the unifying effort to improve our democracies; the United States must learn from Ghana’s past and present as it learns from ours. Ghana and the United States are linked through strong trade relations, a well-educated and vibrant diaspora and a deep and abiding belief that democracy is the surest path to peace and prosperity.

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The Social Security Cost-Of-Living Adjustment Is Coming -- But It Won’t Be As Big As This Year’s

Karla Abott, 61, stands on the Augustana University campus, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023 i  Sioux Fall, S.D...(AP Photo/Jay Pickthorn)

BY FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Looking ahead to retirement next spring, Karla Abbott finds comfort in the cost-of-living increase that millions of Social Security recipients get each year. But with consumer prices easing, the new boost will be far lower than this year’s 8.7%

Analysts estimate the adjustment for 2024 will be around 3.2%.

After working 38 years as a nurse, the 61 years-old Sioux Falls, South Dakota, resident says she’s been saving for retirement since she was 18. But she isn’t certain that it will be enough, even with her Social Security benefits.

Still, she said Social Security’s annual cost-of-living increases provide some support as she and her husband plan out their non-working years. “The increases will be helpful, certainly to those of us who are still doing the math on retirement,” she said.

Every year the agency adjusts its benefits, based on inflation. The 2024 Social Security cost of living increase — or COLA — is to be announced on Thursday.

The program pays roughly $1.4 trillion in benefits to more than 71 million people each year, including low-income individuals with disabilities.

Charles Blahous, a former Social Security trustee, said the annual COLA announcement is a reminder about the program’s stressed finances. “This is an important system, and we need to restore its solvency, because if lawmakers can’t do that, then Social Security and its basic financing design would have to be abandoned,” he said.

The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released in March said the program’s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2033. If the trust fund is depleted, the government will be able to pay only 77% of scheduled benefits, the report said.

The COLA is calculated according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, but there are calls to use a different index — and for the agency to instead use the CPI-E, which is the index that measures price changes based on the spending patterns of the elderly — like healthcare, food and medicine costs.

Mary Johnson, Social Security and Medicare policy analyst at the Senior Citizens League, says her organization supports the Social Security Administration using whichever index is higher to best protect older people from inflation.

Any change to the calculation would require congressional approval. But with decades of inaction on Social Security and with the House at a standstill after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, seniors and their advocates say they don’t have confidence any sort of change will be approved soon.

“I feel like there’s a lot of distraction in Washington,” Abbott said. “Does anyone even care about what is happening with Social Security? I have no clue why they can’t come together on something so important.”

The cost of living increases have a big impact for people like Alfred Mason, an 83-year-old Louisiana resident. Mason said that “any increase is welcomed, because it sustains us for what we are going through.”

As inflation is still high, he said anything added to his income “would be greatly appreciated.”

Social Security is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers. The maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes for 2023 is $160,200, up from $147,000 in 2022.

There have been legislative proposals to shore up Social Security, but they have not made it past committee hearings.

Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO of the AARP, said the organization “is urging Congress to work in a bipartisan way to keep Social Security strong and to provide American workers and retirees with a long-term solution that both current and future retirees can count on.”

“Americans work hard to earn their Social Security, and it’s only fair for them to get the money they deserve.”

Johnson, the Senior Citizens League’s analyst, said Congress “does not have any record of successfully and timely making changes to Social Security,” and when there were reforms to the program in 1983 — “we were far less divided.”

“Certainly the situation today is so contentious, simply getting there now is a huge effort.”

Your Immune System Makes Its Own Antiviral Drug − And it’s Likely One Of The Most Ancient

THE CONVERSATION

This diagram shows how four different classes of antiviral drugs inhibit HIV. One stops viruses from entering cells, and three inhibit different viral enzymes. Thomas Splettstoesser/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

BY NEIL MARSH

Antiviral drugs are generally considered to be a 20th century invention. But recent research has uncovered an unexpected facet to your immune system: It can synthesize its own antiviral molecules in response to viral infections.

My laboratory studies a protein that makes these natural antiviral molecules. Far from a modern human invention, nature evolved cells to make their own “drugs” as the earliest defense against viruses.

How antivirals work

Viruses have no independent life cycle – they are completely dependent on the cells they infect to supply all the chemical building blocks needed to replicate themselves. Once inside a cell, the virus hijacks its machinery and turns it into a factory to make hundreds of new viruses.

Antiviral drugs are molecules that inactivate proteins essential to the functioning of the virus by exploiting the fundamental differences in the way that cells and viruses replicate.

One key difference between cells and most viruses is how they store their genetic information. All cells use DNA to store their genetic information. DNA is a long, chainlike molecule built from four different chemical building blocks, each representing a different “letter” of the genetic code. These building blocks are connected by chemical bonds in a head-to-tail fashion to produce strings of millions of letters. The order of these letters spells out the genetic blueprint for building a new cell.

Many viruses, however, store their genetic information using RNA. RNA is built from a chain of four chemical letters, just like DNA, but the letters have slightly different molecular structures. RNA is single-stranded, while DNA is double-stranded. Viral genomes are also much smaller than cellular genomes, typically only a few thousand letters long.

When a virus replicates, it makes many copies of its RNA genome using a protein called RNA polymerase. The polymerase starts at one end of the existing RNA chain and “reads” the string of chemical letters one at a time, selecting the appropriate building block and adding it to the growing strand of RNA. This process is repeated until the entire sequence of letters has been copied to form a new RNA chain.

One class of antiviral drugs interferes with the RNA copying process in a cunning way. The head-to-tail construction of the RNA chain requires each chemical letter to have two connection points – a head to connect to the previous letter and a tail to allow the following letter to be added on. These antivirals mimic one of the chemical letters but crucially lack the tail connection point. If the RNA polymerase mistakes the drug for the intended chemical letter and adds it to the growing RNA chain, the copying process stops because there is nothing to attach the next letter to. For this reason, this type of antiviral drug is called a chain-terminating inhibitor.

Viperin as antiviral producer

Previously, researchers thought that chain-terminating antiviral drugs were strictly a product of human ingenuity, developed from advances in scientific understanding of viral replication. However, the discovery that a protein in your cells named viperin synthesizes a natural chain-terminating antiviral has revealed a new side of your immune system.

Viperin works by chemically removing the tail connection point from one of the four RNA building blocks of a virus’s genome. This converts the building block into a chain-terminating antiviral drug.

This strategy has proved to be highly effective for treating viral infections. For example, the COVID-19 antiviral remdesivir works in this way. A viral RNA polymerase has to join together many thousands of letters to copy a virus’s genome, but an antiviral drug has to fool it only once to derail its copying. An incomplete genome lacks the necessary instructions to make a new virus and becomes useless.

Moreover, although cells also have their own polymerases, they never replicate RNA like viruses do. This potentially allows chain-terminating antiviral drugs to selectively inhibit viral replication, reducing unwanted side effects.

Clearly, viperin does not fully protect against all RNA viruses – otherwise no RNA viruses would make you sick. It seems that some viral RNA polymerases, such as those in poliovirus, have evolved to discriminate against the antiviral molecules that viperin synthesizes and blunt their effect. However, viperin is only one arm of your immune system, which includes specialized cells and proteins that protect you from infection in other ways.

Ancient antivirals

Scientists discovered viperin about 20 years ago while searching for genes that turn on in response to viral infections. However, figuring out what viperin actually does proved very challenging.

Viperin’s function was particularly puzzling because it resembles an ancient group of proteins called radical SAM enzymes that are usually found in bacteria and molds. Notably, radical SAM enzymes are extremely rare in animals. Exposure to air rapidly inactivates them, and researchers thought they likely didn’t work in people. It’s still unclear how viperin avoids inactivation.

Researchers were clued in to viperin’s function when they noticed that the gene coding for viperin is next to a gene involved in synthesizing one of RNA’s building blocks. This observation led them to examine whether viperin might modify this RNA building block.

Following this discovery, researchers identified viperinlike proteins across all kingdoms of life, from ancient bacteria to modern plants and animals. This meant that viperin is a very ancient protein that evolved early in life, probably well before the advent of multicellular organisms – because even bacteria must fight viral infections.

As more complex life forms evolved, viperin was retained and integrated into the complex immune systems of modern animals. Thus, this most recently discovered arm of your immune system’s defenses against viruses is likely the most ancient.

Israel Has No Good Options For Dealing With Hamas’ Hostage-Taking In Gaza

THE CONVERSATION

Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kfar Azza kibbutz into the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. AP Photo/Hatem Ali, File

BY JAMES FOREST

Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group that mounted a deadly surprise attack on Israel that has killed – at last count – at least 1,200 Israelis, has captured what are estimated to be 150 hostages. Brought back to Gaza, those hostages include children, members of the military and the elderly. Most are civilians captured from the towns bordering Gaza. President Joe Biden revealed on Oct. 10, 2023, that some are Americans. Hamas has said that every time Israel strikes a Gaza home “without warning,” a hostage will be killed, and that execution would be recorded and the recording played for the public.

The Conversation asked James Forest, a University of Massachusetts Lowell expert on international security, to help readers understand the dynamics of this hostage crisis.

The taking of hostages looks like a planned part of this Hamas operation – why would Hamas do this?

Terrorist groups have historically taken hostages to gain leverage in negotiating for policy concessions, financial ransoms or the release of imprisoned comrades, and generally to influence the decisions and behavior of the targeted government.

In this instance, Hamas has stated that its goal is about forcing Israel to release imprisoned Palestinians. Its threat to kill hostages in retaliation for unannounced attacks against Gaza is another example of attempted coercion of Israeli leaders.

Hamas also has a vulnerability that many other terrorist groups have not had – namely, a physical territory of its own that can be targeted.

Holding hostages in unknown locations throughout this territory is an attempt to prevent Israel from launching military strikes that could inadvertently kill Israeli citizens. And taking hostages could also be intended to generate morale among Hamas supporters domestically and internationally by showcasing the group’s abilities to frighten and harm a more powerful adversary.

Similar to the hostage-taking at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Palestinian group Black September, another likely objective here is to draw international attention to the desperation of people living in blockaded, impoverished Gaza.

However, attention doesn’t necessarily lead to sympathy. Taking innocents hostage, especially children and the elderly, is condemned worldwide, and it will be hard to find sympathy for the perpetrators of such crimes even when they’re claiming to free their land from occupation. Further, when citizens of other countries – such as the U.S. – are among the hostages, Hamas will likely find this to have been a counterproductive decision because it could invite retaliation from multiple countries.

Two other strategic considerations behind this act would be provocation and spoiling. Hamas is likely drawing on classic strategy in which the terrorists try to provoke the targeted government into an overly heavy-handed response. Hamas likely wants to enrage Israel to the point that Israel begins lashing out against Palestinians with escalating brutality. This, in turn, would support the so-called spoiler strategy, by disrupting current efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Arab nations.

What choices do the Israelis have for responding?

Democratic governments face many challenges in responding to terrorist groups taking their citizens hostage. Israel cannot be seen to underreact, yet neither should it overreact.

Among the different counterterrorism strategies they could pursue, repression – including collective punishment, an approach frequently used by Israel in the past – would seek to deter Hamas from conducting further terrorist attacks, and also to raise the level of hardship among Palestinians in Gaza to a point that they rise up against Hamas. Examples of repression in response to terrorism include prohibiting free speech or public gatherings, arresting political activists without probable cause, arbitrary searches and destruction of homes, and deportations.

A July 2020 United Nations report noted: “While Israel’s justification for imposing the closure on Gaza was to contain Hamas and ensure Israel’s security, the actual impact of the closure has been the destruction of Gaza’s economy, causing immeasurable suffering to its two million inhabitants.” To date, repression has not produced the results sought by Israel.

Another strategy, referred to by scholars as “decapitation,” involves the capturing or killing of a terrorist group’s leaders.

Three important challenges come with this approach, the most important of which is locating the group’s leaders when they are being sheltered within a territory with so many tunnels – as Gaza has – and among Hamas supporters.

Second, if Israel is able to capture Hamas’ leaders, there may not be much political will on either side of this conflict to negotiate a prisoner-hostage swap, at least not while the daily carnage fuels their desire for vengeance. Third, if top commanders of Hamas are killed, there is always a chance they could be replaced with new leaders who are more brutal than the previous ones.

Finally, another option available to Israel is negotiation. In years past, government leaders have arranged for the release of Israeli hostages, including soldiers, in return for the release of imprisoned Palestinians.

However, negotiation almost never takes place in the midst of an active military confrontation. Instead, the historical pattern suggests any potential negotiations would wait until some time after the guns and rockets have gone quiet.

Hamas leaders believe a fundamental source of their perceived legitimacy is based on their ability and willingness to violently confront Israel. So the underlying challenge is that there is no hope of negotiating a lasting peace with a group that does not see peaceful coexistence as being in its best interest.

How would a hostage in this situation be treated? Do we know based on previous hostage-taking?

It’s hard to say for sure. I think it will vary according to a mix of contextual factors, like who the hostage is and who is holding them hostage.

It is likely that Hamas leaders have given orders to their units that hostages are not to be harmed, and they are to be moved around and held in various locations in hopes of deterring Israeli military strikes.

However, disciplined adherence to such commands is not always the case among terrorist groups – especially in the midst of an active military confrontation. That said, most violent groups recognize that if their hostages are killed, they will lose whatever bargaining chips they had hoped to gain.

Is there a role for intermediaries? If so, who might they be?

Finding an intermediary who is trusted by all parties will be exceedingly difficult, as trust is hard to come by in this region. And whether it’s a country with influence – like the U.S. – or an international organization, it’s likely that an opportunity for intermediaries to help arrange the return of hostages will only emerge after the active shooting, rocket attacks and air strikes have subsided.
How might the taking of these hostages affect the conduct of the war, on both sides?

Israeli forces are surely being told to try to avoid actions that could harm the hostages. Throughout this conflict, assistance from U.S. and other intelligence agencies will likely help Israel locate targets to attack and hostages to rescue. Some hostages could be found and reunited with their families.

Hamas will likely use the hostage drama to generate lasting media attention. The group’s leaders may feel that a building destroyed by a bomb will generate some photos and headlines for perhaps a few days, but posting online photos and videos each week of Israelis being held captive would garner the spotlight for Hamas much longer. In the end, both sides must tread carefully.