Lily Beau Conway

1 week ago | contrarian.substack.com | Joshua Kolb |Joyce Vance |Lily Beau Conway

Every week, there’s an avalanche of news for us to cover. But this past week may be remembered as a genuine pivot, a moment when the increasing sprint of authoritarianism took a militaristic and violent turn. In spans like this, the urge to tune out, to become desensitized, to accept apathy becomes increasingly compelling. This maneuver is part of the authoritarian playbook. Overwhelm the moral senses of the population to the point of nonaction.

3 weeks ago | contrarian.substack.com | Joyce Vance |Joshua Kolb |Lily Beau Conway

Last week in The Democracy Index, we highlighted the implications of Elon Musk’s flameout from the White House, framing it in the context of Otto von Bismarck’s immutable lessons of political realities. Well, there’s no highfalutin historical comparison for the messy meltdown that occurred Thursday, as the inevitable rupture between Musk and Donald Trump unfurled in spectacularly rapid fashion.

4 weeks ago | contrarian.substack.com | Joshua Kolb |Lily Beau Conway |Joyce Vance

Otto von Bismarck, the political genius who unified and ruled Germany for decades in the late 19th century, famously said that politics is the art of the possible, indeed the “art of the next best.” This is a lesson the novice Elon Musk learned in calamitous fashion over the past few months. This week’s Democracy Index shows how Musk’s ignominious departure — though not a panacea — represents a signal failure for him, and therefore for Donald Trump.

1 month ago | contrarian.substack.com | Joshua Kolb |Lily Beau Conway |Joyce Vance

A spectacle and a sabotage. That was the latest disgraceful display in the Oval Office this week, when the president of the United States ambushed the South African president with patently false white supremacist claims that South Africa is conducting a “genocide” of white South African farmers. That bizarre and disturbing episode provided a capstone to a week when the Trump Administration took new steps in abusing the power of government to attack institutions and perceived enemies.

1 month ago | contrarian.substack.com | Joshua Kolb |Joyce Vance |Lily Beau Conway

The Trumpian kleptocracy approached full flower this week. As the president took the first major foreign trip of his second term, heading to the Middle East, the brazenness of his corruption repelled even his most ardent supporters and revealed one of the core features — and weaknesses — of his regime: corruption. That rot has spread throughout his Administration, infesting accountable democratic governance. That is reflected in this week’s Democracy Index indicators, our thermometers.