America Is Increasingly Dependent On Foreign Doctors − But Their Path To Immigration Is Getting Harder

BY SELMA HEDLUND

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE AT

CENTER OF FORCED DISPLACEMENT

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a pressing issue: The U.S. health care system is increasingly dependent on immigrant physicians, but it’s becoming harder for aspiring ones to work and settle in the U.S.

Today, 1 in 4 doctors are foreign-born, international medical graduates. Their numbers are even larger in underserved areas – essentially, low-income, more rural parts of the country where many American doctors don’t want to work.

This immigrant workforce is key to offsetting a dire physician shortage. The need for more doctors is due, in part, to America’s growing and aging population; U.S.-born doctors’ unwillingness to move to poorer and more rural areas; and U.S.-born doctors’ lack of interest in going into primary care, which can be less lucrative and prestigious than other areas of medicine.

As a result, immigrant doctors have become indispensable in hospitals and clinics across the nation. But while they’re in demand, more and more foreign doctors are starting to see the immigration process as a risky endeavor.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote my dissertation about how immigrant physicians navigate the U.S. immigration system and foreign licensing procedures. My interviewees described how a combination of stricter immigration policies and more competition for residency spots have made the U.S. a less feasible destination.

Visa vicissitudes

U.S. visas can be categorized into two categories: immigrant and nonimmigrant. Nonimmigrant visas, such as tourist, student or exchange visitors visas, prohibit holders from having what’s called “immigrant intent,” meaning that they don’t plan to use their visas to permanently stay in the U.S.

In order for immigrant doctors to be licensed to practice in the U.S., they need to complete licensing exams. They also need to obtain clinical experience in the U.S. This can be completed while on a tourist visa or a student visa, which are relatively easy to obtain.

However, all immigrant physicians – even if they’re certified specialists in their home country – need to get accepted into and complete a U.S. residency program in order to practice in the U.S. as specialists. These are intensive, supervised training programs that can last up to seven years.

Nonetheless, a majority of immigrant doctors in the U.S. will complete their American residencies on nonimmigrant visas, even though by this point in the process they quite clearly have immigrant intent.

It wasn’t always this way.

There’s a special work visa called the H-1B that allows for both immigrant and nonimmigrant intent. A few decades ago, many immigrant physicians entered residency programs that sponsored H-1B visas, which served as stepping stones to green cards.

But drastic restrictions to the number of people admitted into this visa program, coupled with cuts in graduate medical education funding, have directed most foreign-born doctors to what’s called a J-1 exchange visitors visa.

Challenges of working in underserved areas

The J-1 not only explicitly prohibits immigration intent, it also requires that doctors return to their home country for at least two years upon completing American residency training.

Foreign-born doctors nonetheless pursue the J-1 because there’s the opportunity to obtain a waiver, with limited slots that will allow them to remain in the U.S. and adjust to an H-1B visa. If selected for the waiver program, they must commit to a minimum of three years of service in a designated medically underserved area in the U.S.

While this system can offer short-term relief to physician shortages, it can also lead to exploitation.

As one interviewee told me, “We hear very scary things about the J-1 waiver. The employers can take advantage and make you work more and pay less.”

For the duration of the waiver program, immigrant physicians have minimal ability to change employers without violating the conditions of the waiver – and their path to immigration. Underserved areas are often understaffed and underresourced, which can make for stressful working conditions.

Forced to go above and beyond

The challenges don’t end with the visa process. There are financial burdens as well.

International medical graduates often spend tens of thousands of dollars to pay for U.S. medical licensing exams, multiple visa applications, international travel and lodging, residency and green card applications.

They also spend months in unpaid positions in hospital settings to gain the U.S. clinical experience that’s required to apply for residency. Then, in order to match into residency, immigrant physicians typically need to outperform their American peers on exams. They also need to have more prestigious research qualifications and stronger recommendation letters. Still, immigrant doctors are more likely to match into less competitive residency programs.

While interviewing immigrant physicians, many testified to the competition getting steeper in recent years.

“I told a friend, if you don’t have scores in upper 90s in all the exams and you’re not a green card holder, don’t even bother,” an Indian physician who immigrated 20 years ago explained to me. “It’s so tough.”

Stuck in limbo

Over the course of my research I noticed a trend: Many international medical graduates will come to the U.S. on student visas to pursue U.S. graduate degrees in health-related fields, such as public health, before they even start the licensing process. This helps them get their foot in the door into a very complicated immigration system and build a stronger resume as they prepare for residency applications. It’s also another expensive investment.

But even those who match into and complete residency won’t necessarily be able to stay and work in America.

Those with positive experiences from working in underserved communities often struggle to remain in their positions after their waiver contracts are fulfilled because of the green card backlog.

The average immigrant’s wait time for a green card has doubled since the national quota system was introduced in the early 1990s.

By 2018, an applicant had to wait an average of 18 months to get approved for their green card and another five years and eight months to receive it. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced new barriers and delays.

Indians, one of the biggest nationalities among immigrant physicians, have the longest wait times under the current system, sometimes waiting up to a decade to obtain the security of permanent residence. Among the 1.8 million cases currently stuck in the employment-based green card backlog, 63% are Indian nationals.

A pending green card application is often formally considered abandoned if the applicant leaves the country, preventing people from visiting loved ones abroad for years.

No fix on the horizon

Despite frequent calls for change and reform, these bottlenecks continue to adversely affect both patients and doctors.

While the current model has its benefits, it also reflects a trend in which much-needed immigrant professionals live in prolonged, demoralizing uncertainty. Work visas have been subject to increasing cuts and restrictions in recent years under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Conditions will likely worsen if Trump returns to office: The “Muslim ban” he enacted in 2017 adversely affected many immigrant doctors and their patients, and his calls for increased vetting will likely exacerbate existing barriers to legal immigration.

A paradox has emerged: While the U.S. says it wants to attract and retain world class talent, its byzantine immigration system continually discourages potential hires.

The doctors I interviewed gave a variety of reasons for wanting to work in the U.S., including better lifestyles and opportunities for professional development. But the complexity and sheer unwieldiness of the U.S. visa regime is causing the nation to lose skilled professionals to other countries with more streamlined processes.

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Local Government Controls Your Roads, Schools And Utilities − But That Doesn’t Mean The US President Doesn’t Touch Your Life In Important Ways

BY ZOE NEMEREVER

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

AUBURN UNIVERSITY

“All politics is local” is a common refrain – and yet, it is also true that the president has some unique powers.

I am an expert on state policymaking, and I’m teaching presidential politics at Auburn University during this election season. Researching and teaching about both state and national politics has made me keenly aware of the stakes of the different races up and down the ballot this fall.

Power close to home

State and local governments shape our daily experiences in practical ways. State governments determine whether residents have access to expanded Medicaid, reproductive care, parental and family leave, and they set the state property, sales and income taxes, which we are all required to pay.

City councils, county boards and school boards determine the quality of the roads we travel, the selection of books in school libraries and the prices of utilities such as water and sewer service.

Most Americans will have the opportunity to vote for a variety of state and local elected officials this November. Yet many voters find their attention drawn to a more captivating contest: the presidential election.

And it is hard to deny that the president has an outsized influence on American public policy.

Staffing the government

So what does the president do?

It’s a busy job, for sure – including tasks such as signing executive orders, making treaties, vetoing or signing congressional bills, acting as the military’s commander in chief, attempting to build public support for their agenda and fundraising for the party.

But one other big responsibility is often overlooked – that of passing out thousands of positions in the executive and judicial branches.

The president’s appointment power is an enumerated power, meaning that it is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

As the size of the judiciary and federal bureaucracy has grown over the past century, this presidential power has ballooned to include 4,000 appointments that turn over at the start of every administration. That doesn’t even include the vacancies that arise during the president’s term – for example, when a federal judge retires or dies.

Perhaps the most well-known presidential appointment power is the power to nominate Supreme Court justices. These nominations tend to be highly political and dramatic affairs. This is due to their irregular and often sudden timing and to the high stakes of lifetime appointments.

Some presidents don’t get to exercise this supreme power as much as they would like. But they still get to fill many other judgeships across the district courts, appellate courts and other federal courts.

The Founding Fathers were adamant that the executive appointment power was not unilateral, as evidenced in Federalist Paper 76 penned by Alexander Hamilton. For 1,200 of the most consequential positions, the president nominates individuals, who are then confirmed – or not – by the U.S. Senate.

The Founding Fathers perceived this as important for preventing the tyranny of a sole actor, which they had just worked so hard to leave behind under English rule.

Assembling a Cabinet

Some of the most consequential of these appointments are members of the presidential Cabinet.

Much like how a head football coach assembles a team of assistants to enact their vision, the president convenes a team of policy champions to lead the 15 executive departments in the federal bureaucracy.

Each department is run by a “secretary,” nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The president consults with Cabinet members at periodic meetings, but secretaries otherwise enjoy a great deal of autonomy. For this reason, the president tries to pick Cabinet members who share their policy perspective.

Much of the agenda presidents claim credit for is, in fact, achieved by the Cabinet departments. For example, during the current Biden administration, the Department of Labor increased guaranteed overtime compensation, the Department of Health and Human Services recommended making marijuana a legal but regulated drug, and the Department of Education launched an initiative to tackle the post-COVID surge in chronic absenteeism.

Cabinet members often fly under the radar of the media, and consequently voters, with a few exceptions. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg had his moment in the headlines earlier in 2024 when he announced a new federal rule that entitles airline passengers to prompt cash refunds when their flights are canceled or delayed. President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was well known for his bus tours promoting the economic value of education. President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spearheaded the noteworthy 2008 U.S.-India nuclear agreement.

Crisis manager in chief, ad hoc

Presidents also have the power to touch voters’ lives in profound ways by serving as a unifying character during national crises, a role that differentiates the president from other elected officials.

These crises, unforeseen at the time of the election, require the president to swiftly reassure a distressed nation. For example, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush delivered an address that acknowledged the grief of Americans while imparting a stern guarantee that the United States would not cower to terrorists. President Donald Trump provided direction for a national response to an unprecedented global pandemic. President Bill Clinton shared heartfelt remarks at the memorial service of those killed in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And Obama honored victims of a racially motivated shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Presidential candidates of course cannot campaign on their ability to handle unpredictable, emergent situations. Instead, they talk up personal traits that will equip them to carry the nation through the next four years – whatever that may bring.

During the recent 2024 presidential debate between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump, the candidates tried to demonstrate traits such as strength, humor and mental sharpness – all of which would prove invaluable during whatever the next four years throws our way.

This November, voters will consider a diverse spread of candidates, from city mayor to president, each with important responsibilities.

National, state and local governments work together to shape our perceptions, good or bad, about the role public policy plays in our lives – and I’d encourage voters to pay attention to candidates at both the top of the ballot and further down.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Diet-Related Diseases Are The No. 1 Cause Of Death In The US – Yet Many Doctors Receive Little To No Nutrition Education In Med School

BY NATHANIEL JOHNSON AND MADELINE COMEAU

On television shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Resident” and “Chicago Med,” physicians seem to always have the right answer.

But when it comes to nutrition and dietary advice, that may not be the case.

One of us is an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics; the other is a medical student with a master’s degree in nutrition.

Both of us understand the powerful effects that food has on your health and longevity. A poor diet may lead to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and even psychological conditions like depression and anxiety. Diet-related diseases are the leading causes of death in the U.S., and a poor diet is responsible for more deaths than smoking.

These health problems are not only common and debilitating, but expensive. Treating high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol costs about US$400 billion per year. Within 25 years, those costs are expected to triple, to $1.3 trillion.

These facts support the need for physicians to give accurate advice about diet to help prevent these diseases. But how much does a typical physician know about nutrition?

What doctors don’t know

In a 2023 survey of more than 1,000 U.S. medical students, about 58% of respondents said they received no formal nutrition education while in medical school for four years. Those who did averaged about three hours of nutrition education per year.

That is woefully short of the goals set by the U.S. Committee on Nutrition in Medical Education back in 1985: that med students should receive a total of 25 hours of nutrition education while in school – a little more than six hours per year.

But a 2015 study showed only 29% of medical schools met this goal, and a 2023 study suggests the problem has become even worse – only 7.8% of med students reported 20 or more hours of nutrition education across all four years of med school. If this is representative of medical schools throughout the country, it has happened despite efforts to bolster nutrition education through numerous government initiatives.

Not surprisingly, the lack of education has had a direct impact on physicians’ nutrition knowledge. In a study of 257 first- and second-year osteopathic medical students taking a nutrition knowledge quiz, more than half flunked the test. Prior to the test, more than half the students – 55% – felt comfortable counseling patients on nutrition.

Unfortunately, this problem is not limited to U.S. medical schools. A 2018 global study concluded that no matter the country, nutrition education of med students is insufficient throughout the world.

Bringing nutrition education back

Even though evidence suggests that nutrition education can be effective, there are many reasons why it’s lacking. Medical students and physicians are some of the busiest people in society. The amount of information taught in medical curricula is often described as overwhelming – like drinking out of a fire hose.

First- and second-year medical students focus on dense topics, including biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics, while they learn clinical skills such as interviewing patients and understanding heart and lung sounds. Third- and fourth-year students are practicing in clinics and hospitals as they learn from physicians and patients.

As a result, their schedules are already jammed. There is no room for nutrition. And once they are physicians, it gets no better. Providing preventive care including nutrition counseling to patients would take them more than seven hours per week – and that’s not counting the time they would have to spend on continuing education to keep up with new findings in nutrition science.

On top of that, the lack of nutrition education in medical schools has been attributed to a dearth of qualified instructors for nutrition courses, as most physicians do not understand nutrition well enough to teach it.

Ironically, many medical schools are part of universities that have nutrition departments with Ph.D.-trained professors; those academicians could fill this gap by teaching nutrition to medical students. But those classes are often taught by physicians who may not have adequate nutrition training – which means truly qualified instructors, within reach of most medical schools, are left out of the process.

Finding the right advice

The best source of nutrition information, whether for medical students or the general public, is a registered dietitian, certified nutrition specialist or some other type of nutrition professional with multiple degrees and certification. They study for years and record many practice hours in order to give dietary advice.

Although anyone can make an appointment with a nutrition professional for dietary counseling, typically a referral from a health care provider like a physician is needed for the appointment to be covered by insurance. So seeing a physician or other primary care provider is often a step before meeting with a nutrition professional.

This extra step might be one reason why many people look elsewhere, such as on their phones, for nutrition advice. However, the worst place to look for accurate nutrition information is social media. There, about 94% of posts about nutrition and diet are of low value – either inaccurate or lacking adequate data to back up the claim.

Keep in mind that anyone can post nutrition advice on social media, regardless of their qualifications. Good dietary advice is individualized and takes into account one’s age, sex, goals, body weight, goals and personal preferences. This complexity is tough to capture in a brief social media post.

The good news is that nutrition education, when it occurs, is effective, and most medical students and physicians acknowledge the critical role nutrition plays in health. In fact, close to 90% of med students say nutrition education should be a mandatory part of medical school.

We hope that nutrition education, after being devalued or ignored for decades, will soon be an integral part of every medical school’s curriculum. But given its history and current status, this seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

In the meantime, those who want to learn more about a healthy diet should meet with a nutrition professional, or at the very least read the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans or the World Health Organization’s healthy diet recommendations.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Lebanese Civilians Are Fleeing The South, Fearing An Israeli Invasion − A Look Back At 1982 Suggests They Have Every Reason To Worry

BY MIREILLE REBEIZ

CHAIR OF MIDDLE EAST STUDIES &

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF FRANCOPHONE

& WOMEN'S, GENDER & SEXUALITY

STUDIES, DICKINSON COLLEGE

Lebanese families have been fleeing the country’s south in the thousands amid escalating tensions and an Israeli bombardment that has so far killed hundreds.

Their fear, echoed by many onlookers, is that Israel will accompany the airstrikes with something that has the potential to have far worse consequences: a ground invasion of south Lebanon.

The rational behind such a move, from the Israeli government’s perspective, is that a ground offensive may be its best chance to push Hezbollah fighters beyond the Litani River in the middle of the country. This would achieve an Israeli war goal of securing its northern borders and allowing an estimated 60,000 residents who have been forced to flee northern Israel to go back to their homes.

Irrespective of motive, a ground invasion and potential occupation is more than wild speculation. Israel has placed thousands of soldiers on standby close to the Lebanon border for such an eventuality.

Nor is such a move without precedent.

As a scholar of Lebanese history, I know Israel and Lebanon have been here before. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in the middle of the latter’s civil war, imposing a siege on the capital Beirut. The results were catastrophic for the whole region. Not only did the ground invasion result in the death of thousands of civilians, the occupation of Lebanon plunged an already fragile nation into lasting political and economic chaos and led to the birth of Hezbollah, the very group that threatens northern Israel today.

Refuge and armed resistance

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 had its roots in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, much as the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel does today.

The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was accompanied by the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” for the Palestinians. In the violent birth pangs of a Jewish state on land inhabited by, among others, Arab populations with deep ancestral ties to villages, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled.

Many refugees entered Lebanon, where in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization was born. By the mid-1970s, the armed resistance group had recruited and trained over 20,000 fighters who actively participated in launching attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil.

By 1982, Lebanon was already seven years into its civil war, with violence flaring between Lebanese Christians and Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims. On June 6, 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a future leader of the country, launched Operation Peace for Galilee and invaded Lebanon with the purpose of eliminating the PLO.

More than 40,000 Israeli troops with hundreds of tanks entered Lebanon from three points: by land across the border into south Lebanon; by sea from the coast of Sidon; and by air as the Israeli forces bombed the Beqaa Valley, Beirut and its Palestinian refugee camps.

For two months, Beirut was under siege, with water and electricity cut off. As a result of the heavy bombardment and lack of access to basic needs, an estimated 19,000 Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian civilians and combatants died, of which 5,500 were civilians from West Beirut.

The Lebanese authorities appealed to the United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom for help. These countries formed the multinational peacekeeping force, which was designed to restore peace in Lebanon, assist the Lebanese armed forces and evacuate PLO fighters to Tunisia.

By August 1982, the multinational force had successfully relocated PLO fighters and began pulling out of Lebanon. They were called back, however, as violence flared.

After the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel on Sept. 14, 1982, the Christian Phalangist militia entered the two Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and killed over 2,000 Palestinian civilians. The Israeli government later set up the Kahan Commission of Inquiry to look into the killings, which concluded that Israel was indirectly responsible for the massacres.

The birth of Hezbollah

All of this history remains relevant to the current situation in the region. Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon, its siege on Beirut and the massacres that followed all led to the birth of Hezbollah.

While members of Lebanon’s marginalized Shiite community in the south had long sought to mobilize through pan-Arab political parties and militias, it was Israel’s invasion that galvanized members of the community to ultimately create Hezbollah in 1985. As former Israeli Defense Minister and Prime Minister Ehud Barak noted in a 2006 interview: “It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.”

Israel’s invasion also soured Lebanon’s relations with the West. Many Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims considered the multinational force – especially the United States – to be a failure and even an accomplice to Israel.

From 1982 onward, Americans and other Westerners became a target. In the following decade, more than 80 Americans and Europeans were taken hostage by Hezbollah fighters. Some were tortured for months; others died in custody.

And on Oct. 23, 1983, a terrorist attack targeted the American barracks in Beirut, killing over 300 people, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. Minutes later, a second suicide attack killed 58 French paratroopers. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the two attacks; some of its members are thought to be among those who officially founded Hezbollah in February 1985.

Aiding Hezbollah recruitment

Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon failed to accomplish its goals of stemming attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. If anything, it had the opposite effect by turning many Lebanese against Israel and creating the conditions in which Hezbollah could recruit.

Although Israel retreated from Beirut in August 1982, it continued to occupy south Lebanon until 2000. During that period it unlawfully detained many Lebanese suspected of resisting the Israeli occupation. Some were detained without charges in inhumane conditions, while others were illegally transferred into Israel.

With such a backdrop, Hezbollah’s legitimacy in the eyes of many Lebanese grew – as did its support. So much so that in 1989, at the end of the Lebanese civil war, the authorities signed an agreement that, although not referencing Hezbollah directly, asserted Lebanon’s right to resist the Israeli occupation in the south.

This clause was interpreted by Hezbollah as legitimizing its armed fight against occupation.

After occupation ended in 2000, Hezbollah had to reinvent its role, claiming that it would continue fighting against Israel until the liberation of the disputed Shebaa Farms, the Golan Heights and occupied Palestine.

In 2006, Hezbollah entered Israeli territory for the first time, killing three soldiers and kidnapping two, demanding the release of Lebanese prisoners in exchange. In retaliation, the Israel Defense Forces attacked Lebanon by air, sea and land, with Israeli ground forces entering Lebanon and carrying out a number of operations on Lebanese territory. A subsequent war saw no such prisoner swap but resulted in the deaths of about 1,100 Lebanese civilians and 120 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

History repeating?

Until Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there had been hopes that decades of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel could be on the cusp of turning. In October 2022, Lebanon and Israel signed a maritime border agreement brokered by the U.S – interpreted as the beginning of normalizing relations between two countries technically at war.

But the magnitude of the human crisis in Gaza and the series of events that followed in Lebanon have ended such hopes for now. Hezbollah’s vow of solidarity with Hamas has resulted in a running series of tit-for-tat attacks with Israel that have escalated over the past year.

The attack using booby-trapped pagers that targeted Hezbollah fighters and killed several civilians across Lebanon on Sept. 17, 2024, has set off a chain of events that have now seen nearly 500 Lebanese killed and Hezbollah extend the geographical scope of its missile attacks in Israel. Its long-range ballistic missiles can reach 250-300 kilometers (155-186 miles) and have reached Haifa and the city’s Ramat David Airbase.

The next step in this deadly escalation could well be a ground invasion. But in 1982, such an operation resulted only in catastrophic results for all concerned – and set in place the conditions for decades of hostilities across the Lebanon-Israel border. A similar offensive today would almost certainly have similar results – especially for the people of Lebanon.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Why West Africa Is Now The World's Terrorism Hotspot

Map shows violent attacks by jihadi groups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in 2024. Burkina Faso appears as a hotspot, with the most attacks so far this year.

BY DAVID LEWIS, JESSICA DONATI AND KAYLEE KANG

DAKAR, SENEGAL (REUTERS) - Having slipped undetected into Mali's capital weeks ago, the jihadis struck just before dawn prayers. They killed dozens of students at an elite police training academy, stormed Bamako's airport and set the presidential jet on fire.
The Sept. 17 attack was the most brazen since 2016 in a capital city in the Sahel, a vast arid region stretching across sub-Saharan Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
It showed that jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda or Islamic State, whose largely rural insurgency has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, can also strike at the heart of power.
Overshadowed by wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan, conflict in the Sahel rarely garners global headlines, yet it is contributing to a sharp rise in migration from the region towards Europe at a time when anti-immigrant far-right parties are on the rise and some EU states are tightening their borders.
According to the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM), the route to Europe with the steepest rise in numbers this year is via West African coastal nations to Spain's Canary Islands.
IOM data shows the number of migrants arriving in Europe from Sahel countries (Burkina, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal) rose 62% to 17,300 in the first six months of 2024 from 10,700 a year earlier, a rise the U.N. and the IOM have blamed on conflict and climate change.
Fifteen diplomats and experts told Reuters the swathes of territory under jihadist control also risk becoming training grounds and launchpads for more attacks on major cities such as Bamako, or neighbouring states and Western targets, in the region or beyond.
Jihadi violence, especially the heavy toll it has taken on government troops, was a major factor in a wave of military coups since 2020 against Western-backed governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the countries at the heart of the Sahel.
The military juntas that replaced them have since swapped French and U.S. military assistance for Russians, mainly from Wagner's mercenary outfit, but have continued to lose ground.
"I don't really see the regimes in Mali, Niger and Burkina holding on forever. Eventually one of them is going to fall or one of them is going to lose a substantial amount of territory, which Burkina Faso already has," said Caleb Weiss, an editor at the Long War Journal and an expert on jihadist groups.
"Then we're dealing with a jihadi state or multiple jihadi states in the Sahel," he said.
GLOBAL TERRORISM HOTSPOT
Western powers that previously invested in trying to beat back the jihadists have very little capacity left on the ground, especially since the junta in Niger last year ordered the U.S. to leave a sprawling desert drone base in Agadez.
U.S. troops and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used drones to track jihadists and shared intelligence with allies such as the French, who launched air strikes against the militants, and West African armies.
But the Americans were booted out after they angered Niger's coup leaders by refusing to share intelligence and warning them against working with the Russians. The U.S. is still looking for a place to reposition its assets.
"Nobody else filled the gap of providing effective air surveillance or air support, so the jihadis are roaming freely in those three countries," said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center, a think-tank in New York.
A Reuters analysis of data from U.S. crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) found that the number of violent events involving jihadi groups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger has almost doubled since 2021.
Since the start of this year, there have been 224 attacks a month on average, up from 128 in 2021.
Insa Moussa Ba Sane, regional migration and displacement coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross, said conflict was a major factor behind the increase in migration from the West African coast, with rising numbers of women and families seen along the route.
"Conflicts are at the root of the problem, combined with the effects of climate change," he said, describing how floods and droughts are both contributing to the violence and driving an exodus from rural to urban areas.
In Burkina Faso, perhaps the worst affected of all, jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda slaughtered hundreds of civilians in a day on Aug. 24 in the town of Barsalogho, two hours from the capital Ouagadougou.
The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in Sydney said Burkina Faso topped its Global Terrorism Index for the first time this year, with fatalities rising 68% to 1,907 - a quarter of all terrorism-linked deaths worldwide.
About half of Burkina Faso is now beyond government control, the U.N. has said, a factor contributing to soaring rates of displacement.
"The two, big veteran terrorist (groups) are gaining ground. The threat is spreading geographically," said Seidik Abba, president of the CIRES think-tank in Paris, referring to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
A U.N. panel of experts that monitors the two organisations' activities estimates that JNIM, the al Qaeda-aligned faction most active in the Sahel, had 5,000-6,000 fighters while 2,000-3,000 militants were linked to Islamic State.
"Their declared goal is to establish Islamic rule," said Nasr of The Soufan Center.
Jihadists use a mixture of coercion and the offer of basic services, including local courts, to install their systems of governance over rural communities that have long complained of neglect by weak, corrupt, central governments.
"Come with us. We will leave your parents, sisters and brothers alone. Come with us and we will help you, we will give you money," said a man from Mali, describing his encounters as a teenager with jihadists who attacked his village. "But you can't trust them, because they kill your friends in front of you."
The young man fled and made it to the Canary Islands last year before moving to Barcelona. He declined to be identified fearing reprisal attacks on family members still in Mali.
LAUNCHPAD SCENARIO
The jihadi groups operate in different areas, at times fighting each other, though they have also struck localised, non-aggression pacts, reports by U.N. experts say.
The groups receive some financial support, training and guidance from their respective global leaderships, but also collect taxes in areas they control and seize weapons after battles with government forces, the reports say.
European governments are divided on how to respond to the conflict. Southern European nations who receive most migrants favour keeping communication with the juntas open, while others object because of human rights and democracy concerns, nine diplomats in the region told Reuters.
One African diplomat said the EU needed to remain engaged as the issue of migration was not going to go away.
Even if Europe were to agree a shared approach, it lacks the military capacity and political relationships to help because the Sahelian countries don't want Western input, the diplomats said.
"We do not have any influence in those countries on extremist groups," said General Ron Smits, head of the Dutch Special Forces.
The other major worry for Western powers is the potential for the Sahel to become a base for global jihad, like Afghanistan or Libya in the past.
"All these violent extremist organisations do have aspirations of attacking the United States," General Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters this month.
Other officials and experts, however, say the groups have not declared any interest in carrying out attacks in Europe or the United States as yet.
Will Linder, a retired CIA officer who runs a risk consultancy, said the attacks in Bamako and Barsalogho showed that efforts by the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso to shore up security were failing.
"The leadership of both countries really need new strategies for countering their jihadist insurgencies," he said.

A Brief History Of Former Presidents Running For Reelection: 3 Losses, 1 Win And 1 Still TBD

A political cartoon from 1912 illustrating Theodore Roosevelt’s dissatisfaction with how President William Howard Taft carried out his policies. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

BY GRAEME MACK

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF 

HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND

This year’s presidential election has a former president, Donald Trump, running for a nonconsecutive term. It’s the fifth time in U.S. history that’s happened.

Historically, a former president running for a nonconsecutive term has prompted voters to change their party allegiances.

In 1848, Martin Van Buren, a former Democratic president, ran as a candidate for the newly formed Free Soil Party and attracted many Northern Democrats who had grown disillusioned with their party’s pro-slavery stance. The Free Soil Party outperformed Democrats in three Northern states and enabled the other major party, the Whigs, to win the presidency.

And in 1856, former Whig President Millard Fillmore headed the newly formed American Party, otherwise known as the Know-Nothing party. When faced with a choice between two candidates, Fillmore and Democrat James Buchanan, who both seemed deeply complicit with slavery’s expansion, many Northerners voted for the new antislavery Republican Party.

Fillmore’s candidacy in 1856 made a Republican sweep of the North virtually impossible, ensuring victory for Buchanan, who only won 45% of the popular vote.

Theodore Roosevelt’s run in 1912 also saw dramatic changes in voter behavior. With the former president on the ballot, millions of voters cast ballots for the other major party or a brand new party.

By this time, Roosevelt had become one of the most famous men in the world. Reformers praised his ability to attract attention and build support for progressive causes.

These characteristics repulsed conservative Republicans and traditional Democrats who feared Roosevelt’s return to power.

After failing to secure the Republican nomination, Roosevelt headed the newly formed Progressive Party, winning six states and 88 electoral votes, the strongest showing for a third party candidate ever.

However, the split in the Republican ranks enabled Democrats to win by an electoral landslide.

One former president ran for a nonconsecutive second term and won: Grover Cleveland, whose two terms ran from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.

The rise of progressivism

When Roosevelt ran in 1912, he saw a society convulsed by rapid change.

Between 1870 and 1900, the population of the United States rose from roughly 38 million to more than 76 million.

During this time, business transformed from small-scale manufacturing and local trade to huge corporations and factory-based manufacturing.

From 1900 to 1915, another 15 million immigrants settled in American cities.

A political reform movement known as progressivism emerged across political parties. It sought to address problems with immigration, urbanization, political corruption, industrialization and the concentration of corporate power.

Roosevelt’s political career tapped into progressivism’s growing momentum. First elected vice president as a Republican in 1900, he assumed the presidency in September 1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley.

Campaigning on his progressive “Square Deal” — focused on consumer protections, control of large corporations and conservation of natural resources — in 1904, the popular incumbent won reelection in the largest electoral landslide the country had seen.

But in 1908, Roosevelt declined to run for a third term. Instead, he advocated successfully for William Howard Taft, his secretary of war.

However, as Taft’s presidency took shape, Roosevelt grew dissatisfied with him. What most frustrated Roosevelt was Taft’s refusal to use executive power to advance progressive goals.

Seeing an urgent need for forceful presidential leadership, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

At the Republican National Convention, however, party leaders rejected Roosevelt and confirmed Taft’s nomination. Roosevelt’s supporters stormed out, complaining that leaders had manipulated rules and procedures to block the former president.

Despite his loss of the nomination, Roosevelt assured his supporters that he felt as “strong as a Bull Moose” and expressed interest in “bolting” from the Republican Party.

Roosevelt’s threat to leave his party was echoed more than 100 years later by another former president running for a nonconsecutive term. In late 2023, Trump refused to participate in the Republican presidential primary debates and refused to rule out the possibility of running as an independent.

In doing so, Trump’s candidacy hampered efforts to seek an alternative candidate. It also disregarded opportunities to win over skeptical Republicans.

The rise of the Bull Moose Party

In a matter of weeks after Roosevelt failed to get the Republican nomination, the Progressive Party, popularly known as the Bull Moose Party, held its national convention and nominated Roosevelt as its first presidential candidate.

His presidential campaign did not lack for energy or spectacle. In October 1912, the former president delivered a one-hour speech immediately after being shot in an assassination attempt.

He told his supporters, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Like the recent assassination attempts on Trump, this attack drew condemnation and galvanized the former president’s core supporters.

Roosevelt faced off on Election Day against the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft; Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate; and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

Many Republicans cast their ballots for Wilson, seeing his candidacy as more viable than Roosevelt’s. Some did so out of disgust for what they saw as Roosevelt’s egotistical and radical campaign.

The split in the Republican Party created an opportunity for Democrats, who had been shut out of the presidency for decades.

The legacy of 1912

On election day, Democrat Wilson won 40 states and earned 435 electoral votes. Democrats also won the House and Senate for the first time since 1892.

However, Wilson prevailed with less than 42% of the national vote, the smallest share won by a president since Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election.

A unified Republican ticket would very likely have prevailed in 1912.

Taft blamed Roosevelt for 1 million Republicans voting for the Democratic ticket to stave off a Progressive win.

Historical parallels are never perfect. However, the 1912 election invites some comparison, as one of the world’s most famous men runs for the third time for the presidency.

The 2024 election will be close. Wary of Trump’s return to power, will disillusioned Republicans vote for Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris, choose a third-party candidate, or sit out the election?

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

What Happened When An Ohio Megachurch Decided To Tackle Racism

BY RUTH GRAHAM

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati has a style that stands out for its flash and irreverence even among its megachurch peers. At one Easter service, a production team shot confetti from the stage and presented a large cake with icing studded with communion wafers. “Jesus is alive!” they announced. “It’s a party!”

But in many other ways Crossroads is a typical American megachurch, an institutional category known for an eagerness to attract people unfamiliar or uncomfortable with traditional religion. The church is broadly conservative, but wary of stepping too noisily into political or cultural controversies.

Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, encountered Crossroads when she was researching a campaign to bring universal preschool education to Cincinnati in 2016. The ballot initiative proposed to raise taxes and direct new resources to poor, mostly Black communities. Han was curious about the initiative’s decisive victory in a rancorous election year, and she began hearing from the campaign’s leaders about one surprising source of their success: Crossroads, a mostly white evangelical church, had marshaled hundreds of volunteers to phone-bank energetically for the measure’s passage.

As Han discovered, the Crossroads volunteers had gone through a six-week workshop on racial justice called Undivided. On the surface, Undivided sounded similar to a corporate D.E.I. training program meant to propel participants to examine their own biases and commit to personal and social transformation.

The difference is that Undivided worked. At least, for certain people, and not without a lot of conflict and discomfort along the way.

But the changes are real. In “Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church,” Han follows four people involved with Undivided over the course of several years: a Black woman, a white woman, a white man and Undivided’s co-founder Chuck Mingo, a Black pastor at Crossroads. She depicts them forming friendships, asking questions, challenging one another, shifting their politics, volunteering and finding the courage to stand up to casual and systemic racism around them.

The span of Han’s research is punctuated by high-profile killings of unarmed Black men by police officers across the country, complicating her subjects’ progress with urgency and grief.

In one of the most poignant story lines, a Black Undivided participant whom Han calls Sandra, a pseudonym, sees her marriage to her white husband unravel over the course of the book. After a fight on their honeymoon about the killing of Trayvon Martin, the couple had maintained their peace by avoiding all discussions of race. As Sandra explores her own identity deeply for the first time, her husband withdraws.

Han has written and co-written previous books about volunteerism in the 2008 Obama campaign and civic participation by underprivileged Americans, among other topics. She is attuned to the subtle and unglamorous work of effecting real change. Her intimacy with her subjects shows in the way she convincingly portrays not just meetings and marches, but quiet family moments and internal wrestling. Yet she also makes clear that individual change is tenuous on its own.

Grant, a white man, begins his Undivided journey by confronting blind spots in his close relationship with his adopted Black brother. Ultimately, he leaves his job in the Ohio state prison system after realizing he can no longer stay silent about the injustices he has observed there.

People learn about race and social control in community, Han writes: “If individuals strike out on isolated journeys of antiracism, but allow the families, workplaces, faith institutions, social groups and neighborhoods they inhabit to sustain the status quo, change always remains fragile.”

The workshop itself is hardly magical. Undivided sessions open with prayer, followed by a lesson delivered on the main stage and in small-group sessions. The premise, as Han puts it, is that “antiracism was fundamental to their calling as Christians.” Most of the participants are strangers to one another — Crossroads had 22,000 weekly attendees when Han started her research — but they begin with a level of trust because of their shared faith. And the leaders plan to push beyond the kind of performative antiracism that consists of social media posts and tote bags.

Undivided launches with the church’s full support. But later, the program’s leaders begin exploring other political actions, including involvement in another ballot initiative that would have reclassified crimes like drug possession as misdemeanors. These discussions cause tension in the church, where older white members prefer messages about unity and civility. Han deftly describes a moderate, well-meaning institution lurching toward and away from substantive activism, without giving up entirely.

By implication, the book serves as a portrait in miniature of the American religious landscape. Crossroads’ top leaders, who cooperated with Han’s reporting, see Undivided as meeting a real desire in their congregation to confront racial injustice, but they are also understandably sensitive to internal blowback.

How can an institution where attendance and participation are voluntary encourage their members to grow without making them so uncomfortable that they decamp for other churches, or for the innumerable other places to spend a Sunday morning in 21st-century America? “Undivided” offers a refreshingly complex portrait of an institution and its members on the rocky path to change.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

The Church Preached Love And Tolerance. Then Racial Politics Tore It Apart.

BY DAVID FRENCH

In her new book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eliza Griswold chronicles the fate of an idealistic congregation fractured by internal divisions.

When I picked up Eliza Griswold’s new book, “Circle of Hope,” I thought I was going to be reading a deeply researched story about a unique Philadelphia church. Instead, I found myself reading a story that countless millions of Americans might instantly relate to — about how political disagreements can fracture the closest friendships and break the best institutions.

Circle of Hope, the evangelical church where Griswold embedded herself, is one of the more unusual such churches in the United States. The vast majority of American evangelicals have embraced political conservatism. According to exit polls by The New York Times, Donald Trump won 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016 and 76 percent in 2020. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the split between Republicans and Democrats, close to even in 2008, grew to 75 percent to 21 percent in favor of Republicans in 2022.

Yet as the rest of evangelicalism was doubling down on conservatism, Circle of Hope became more progressive. The church was founded in 1996 by Rod and Gwen White, two alumni of the Jesus movement, a countercultural, free-spirited Christian movement that began in the late 1960s and fully flowered in the 1970s. Its members were sometimes called “Jesus freaks,” and their lives were very different from those of more mainstream Christians.

The Whites, for example, lived in a commune in California before they moved to Philadelphia to create a new kind of church. It was Anabaptist, a Christian sect that abhors violence and tends to shun political involvement. It focuses on service, with an emphasis on aiding the poor, demonstrating hospitality and living simply. Anabaptists are often critical of American militarism and consumerism.

Circle of Hope was no exception. Its members melted guns to turn them into garden tools. Though their church was roughly 80 percent white, they lived in diverse neighborhoods, sent their kids to the local public schools and tried to integrate themselves into the communities they served.

Griswold’s book is a story of rise and ruin. The rise is inspiring. When we first encounter Circle of Hope, it’s a thriving congregation of hundreds. The founders had ceded control of the church to their son Ben White and three others, including one pastor of color, an Egyptian American man. Each pastor led a branch of the congregation, and each demonstrated a breathtaking capacity for love and compassion.

Griswold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes often about religion, describes in detail the church’s best moments, including its members’ openness to anyone who walked in the doors and acts of grace toward addicts, the mentally ill and the gravely sick that shamed me for my own complacency and selfishness. There were times when, reading about Circle of Hope, I felt I was seeing what a church could be if it made a radical investment in loving its neighbors.

Then came 2020, the outbreak of Covid, a national racial reckoning and an ultimate crisis in the congregation.

None of the pastors was embroiled in a sexual scandal. There was no abuse, and there was no financial malfeasance. Instead, the church chose to center much of its mission on antiracism, and small ideological differences among its leaders tore it to pieces. Routine discussions about complex subjects turned into allegations of white supremacy. Tempers flared, feelings were hurt and before long the church was broken beyond repair.

The political conversations weren’t confined to the insular world of the church. Imagine my surprise when I read that one of the pastors was angry at me. As Griswold paraphrased the man’s views: I am a fundamentalist “passing as reasonable among the white liberals who read the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.” Readers couldn’t recognize how “dangerous” my ideas were.

But what makes Griswold’s book so valuable is the way in which every combatant in the church’s internal culture war is treated with humanity and empathy. Each chapter focuses on a particular person — usually one of the four pastors — but she also writes about other key members in the congregation. As a result, you feel as though you are standing in their shoes.

Unlike much writing about 2020, “Circle of Hope” does not adopt a “woke” or “anti-woke” perspective. It’s not a book of heroes and villains. It’s instead about a collection of people who possess great conviction and endure and inflict immense hurt in the face of conflict.

Circle of Hope suffered from the same maladies I’ve seen time and again in both religious and secular organizations: With great passion can come great intolerance. Small differences create big arguments, and then the way in which people argue becomes more important than what they argue about. People can heal from disagreements over, for example, the best way for a church to respond to the history and legacy of American racism. It’s harder to heal when disagreements turn personal.

At the end of the book, Griswold writes that the four pastors “harrowed” one another, “raking one another’s souls, like fields, and freeing them to grow.” That is a positive approach to what happened when Circle of Hope collapsed. And Griswold shows that the fires kindled in the church’s last months didn’t end up consuming its pastors; they gained wisdom, as good people do when they undergo trials.

But there’s a deep sadness behind that note of hope. The tensions that drove the church apart were small, yet the pain the pastors and other members of the church inflicted on one another was profound — and profoundly unnecessary. As the American church and American society remain divided, it’s very much worth reading Griswold’s book, examining our own hearts and asking ourselves a vital question: Are our differences so great that they justify destroying relationships or institutions that are truly good?

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Book Review: Wright Thompson Exposes Deep Racist Roots Of The Mississippi Delta In ‘The Barn’

    This book cover shows "The Barn: The Secret History Of A Murder In Mississippi" by Wright Thompson (Penguin via AP)

BY ROB MERRILL

“The barn… is long and narrow with sliding doors in the middle,” writes Wright Thompson in ‘The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi.’ “Nobody knows when it was built exactly but its cypress-board walls were already weathered in the summer of 1955.”

What happened inside the barn on Aug. 28, 1955, changed history. It’s where a 14-year-old boy was tortured and pistol-whipped for allegedly whistling at a white woman. He was then driven to the nearby Tallahatchie River, where he was shot in the head and a cotton gin fan was tied around his neck with barbed wire to sink the body. The boy, Emmett Till, was laid to rest in an open casket at his mother’s request, his mutilated face visible to more than 100,000 mourners who paid their respects in Chicago. The image was widely shared in Jet magazine, but withheld from the public by mainstream media outlets. It’s an image that Rosa Parks said years later was on her mind when she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus.

Thompson travels back to his native Mississippi (he grew up in Clarksdale, about 30 miles north of Drew, the closest town to the barn) and talks to scores of people, building on the reporting of others to tell Till’s story, and using the barn as a jumping off point to explore the racist history of the Mississippi Delta. He traces the barn’s land — legally identified on maps as Section 2, Township 22 North, Range 4 West — from the Native Americans who were driven off it, to the British and American industrialists whose fortunes rose and fell with the price of cotton, to the sharecropping life that impoverished generations of Black farmers. Throughout, he pauses to consider his personal history and the collective effort required to cover up details of Till’s story in this country’s stubborn refusal to confront its racist origins.

It’s powerful and unflinching writing. Till’s case, while now famous, was not original. White Mississippians killed Blacks indiscriminately and without consequence for decades. The desegregation of schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 was mostly ignored, and at least in part helped set in motion Till’s killing and the subsequent acquittal of the murderers by a jury of white men. All five candidates for governor that year, writes Thompson, promised to “take any measure to stop the most dangerous and immediate threat to the Mississippi way of life: a Black child who wanted to learn math.”

Thompson does a deep dive into every facet of the story, introducing characters at such a rapid pace that it’s often hard to remember who’s who. There’s a helpful family tree at the beginning that readers will turn back to many times. What’s unforgettable by the end of Thompson’s book, though, is just how thoroughly this country was built on a belief that some people were worthless and expendable because of the color of their skin.

There’s a scene early in “The Barn” when Thompson meets with Gloria Dickerson, a Black woman who grew up in the Delta, left and built a career, but returned in retirement to run a nonprofit that teaches Delta children their true history. Her charge to those kids is simple. “Remember and do better,” she says. “Remember and make it better.” It’s the work of activists like Dickerson and books like “The Barn” that offer some hope that America can heal its oldest and deepest wound.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Inside The Collapse Of Disney’s America, The US History-Themed Park That Almost Was

BY JARED BAHIR BROWSH

ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR

OF CRITICAL SPORTS STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER

As a top producer of children’s entertainment, Disney is no stranger to America’s culture wars.

Liberals have long criticized the company for its products’ promotion of gender stereotypes and racist tropes. Meanwhile, conservatives have excoriated the company for being “too woke,” whether it was casting actresses of color in live action remakes of the “The Little Mermaid” and “Snow White” or coming out against a Florida statute that curtails discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools.

As Disney CEO Bob Iger grapples with the unenviable task of navigating criticism from all sides, I can’t help but recall how executives decided to table an effort to “Disneyfy” American history 30 years ago.

My research and teaching investigates how media companies such as Disney construct historical narratives for popular consumption. I can only imagine how today’s culture wars would have expressed themselves at Disney’s proposed theme park, which would have featured everything from Civil War forts to Native American villages.

Disney eyes the outskirts of DC

From his early days as an animator, Walt Disney presented a sanitized and nostalgic view of America.

Mickey Mouse represented the “everyman,” while the company’s animators drew a largely optimistic portrait of America, first in the studio’s animated films and later in their theme parks. Anyone who has walked down Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., witnessed Magic Kingdom’s Hall of Presidents or visited Epcot’s American Adventure can see how Disney strives to present an uncomplicated, uncritical view of the nation and its leaders.

In 1984, Michael Eisner became the company’s CEO. He was credited with revitalizing Disney’s brand through producing hit animated features such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” and spearheading theme parks such as Disney–MGM Studios – now known as Hollywood Studios – and Disneyland Paris.

A visit to Colonial Williamsburg inspired Eisner’s next venture: a theme park based on U.S. history that would be built outside of Washington, D.C.

Beginning in 1993, the company quietly started purchasing real estate in northern Virginia using shell companies. The land acquisitions became public knowledge only a few days before the announcement of the theme park, aptly named Disney’s America.

The news was largely welcomed by politicians. Eisner had already gained the support of the state’s outgoing and incoming governors, along with the Virginia Commission on Population Growth and Development. The plan was to build the park in Haymarket, Virginia, a small, wealthy area southwest of Washington, D.C., a few miles from Manassas, the site of two major Civil War battles.

History isn’t so simple

Although Disney had diligently worked to consolidate support ahead of the announcement, signs of conflict emerged during the first press conference, which featured Bob Weis, a Disney vice president who had helped oversee the planning of several theme parks.

“This is not a Pollyanna view of America,” he told the group of assembled reporters. “We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the underground railroad.”

Questions over how Disney would tell the complex – often discriminatory – history of the nation spurred a group of historians, led by David McCullough, to lodge their concerns: How would Disney construct its narrative of the United States? And how would the park affect Manassas, one of the most important Civil War battle sites?

According to the original plans and brochures, Disney’s America would contain nine sections: a Colonial-era Presidents Square, an Indigenous village, Ellis Island, a factory town from the Industrial Revolution, a Civil War fort, a county fair, an early 19th-century port, a World War II-era battlefield and a Depression-era family farm.

On the surface, these themed areas seemed fitting. You could easily see them as exhibits at the Smithsonian. But issues emerged when people took into account that this was still a Disney theme park, with entertaining guests and making money likely taking precedence over historical accuracy and contemporary sensitivities and sensibilities.

The story of immigration, for example, would have been told through the musical-comedy stylings of Kermit the Frog and the other Muppets.

There were also concerns over how Disney would handle the exploitative and violent history of the treatment of a number of groups.

This included the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Indigenous populations, the latter of which was also connected to the forthcoming 1995 release of “Pocahontas.” Historians later highlighted the film’s distorted history, and it isn’t far-fetched to imagine rides or attractions based on those misrepresentations at Disney’s America.

Mickey Mouse goes to Washington

Even as plans came together for Disney, criticism began to mount.

Disney issued an ultimatum to the Virginia legislature to improve infrastructure surrounding the site, threatening to abandon the project if the US$150 million for infrastructure improvements were not passed on the last day of the Virginia General Assembly’s legislative session in March 1994.

In June, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution opposing the park, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing regarding the proposed project’s environmental impact.

The now-infamous hearing featured discussions regarding sewage, traffic and lodging, and even saw U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who at the time was a registered Democrat, place a Mickey Mouse hat on the lectern in a show of support.

As criticism mounted, Disney decided to shift its approach. In the summer of 1994, it renamed the project Disney’s American Celebration.

Rather than highlight periods or events in American history, the new concept would focus more on themes: Democracy, Work, Family, Generations, Streets of America and the Land.

Many of the attractions featured in these lands would have resembled attractions already in Disney parks. For example, Generations would have been similar to the Magic Kingdom’s Carousel of Progress, while the Land was already a pavilion at Epcot.

This would have also opened more opportunities for sponsorship. The Work section of the park would have included virtual factory tours of popular brands such as Apple or Crayola, while Streets of America would have featured cuisine from around the country, similar to Downtown Disney, which opened in 1997 in Disney World and in 2001 at Disneyland.
It all falls apart

Disney abruptly announced on Sept. 28, 1994, that it would abandon these plans.

Although the criticism from historians was a factor, there were also concerns about the park’s profitability in colder months. The company faced mounting debt from its Paris theme park and uncertain leadership after the death of senior executive Frank Wells in a helicopter crash in April 1994. Eisner, meanwhile, had undergone bypass surgery in July 1994.

Many of the attractions that were planned for the Virginia site found their way into Disney parks, particularly in Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim.

Disney, both under Walt’s leadership and after his death, has long leveraged patriotism for the sake of its media content and park experiences. From Mickey Mouse to the Hall of Presidents, Disney’s nostalgic, linear and uncomplicated view of American progress has been foundational to the Disney experience.

However, an entire park dedicated to this approach – just down the road from a real battlefield integral to the bloodiest war in U.S. history – was too much for historians and other critics to ignore.

Disney’s failure to profit from an uncritical celebration of America may have been a blessing in disguise, as it avoided constructing yet another battlefield in the culture wars.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

California Secretary Of State Among Officials In 16 States Receiving Suspicious Packages

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber (Wikipedia)

BY CLARA HARTER

SACRAMENTO, CA (LA TIMES) -- A suspicious package containing unbleached flour was received at the California secretary of state’s headquarters in Sacramento, in what appears to be the latest in a series of suspicious packages sent to election officials across the country, officials reported Thursday afternoon.

In total, suspicious packages have been sent to election officials in at least 15 other states, officials said. The source of the Sacramento package is unknown.

“Field testing and presumptive chemical test by state law enforcement revealed that the material contained within the package was non-hazardous and tested positive for unbleached flour,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement, adding that federal authorities will continue to investigate the incident.

Weber said local elections offices are being advised to take extra precautions before handling mail that arrives at their facilities.

On Tuesday, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service launched an investigation into suspicious packages sent to election officials in more than a dozen states, including Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Connecticut.

So far, there have been no reports of injuries caused by the packages or harmful material contained in them. However, “an unknown substance” was found in some packages, FBI spokesperson Kristen Setera said in a statement.

A package delivered to an election office in Oklahoma was also found to contain flour, state officials reported.

This is the second time in recent months that election offices in multiple states have been targeted with suspicious mail.

In November, letters were sent to election offices in five states, several of which were found to include fentanyl, the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service reported.

This latest wave of suspicious deliveries comes as early voting kicks off for the November election in several states. Former President Trump, the GOP nominee for president, has continued to insist, without proof, that he lost the last election due to voter fraud, putting extra scrutiny on the nation’s balloting process and on election officials.

On Tuesday, the National Assn. of Secretaries of State, or NASS, issued a statement condemning the the suspicious mailings as well as the recent assassination attempts against Trump.

“Our democracy has no place for political violence, threats or intimidation of any kind,” the NASS stated.

Weber said her office will continue to work with state and federal law enforcement to monitor any threats to California election workers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.