Let’s not forget: We are standing at the edge of global change. I believe what’s visible in this fleeting moment is our own evolution.

Let’s not let this moment flicker and die, to be replaced, with a despairing shrug, by business as usual. Donald Trump shattered the centrist political norms, sent chaos rippling through the corridors of power. Now he’s gone. We have to look through the cracks — these cracks in American exceptionalism — and see what’s possible. We have to make sure Joe Biden sees it as well.

And what’s possible is geopolitics beyond borders. What’s possible is addressing the truly profound threats that the planet — and the future — face, among them climate change and, with even more immediacy, nuclear war. The necessity for total nuclear disarmament — including American disarmament, for God’s sake — is more urgent than ever. This is bigger, by far, than reinstating the Iran nuclear agreement, necessary as that is. We must move beyond the world’s fragile pseudo-peace maintained by the threat of Armageddon. The time to move beyond this insanity is now.

One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict, and Trump can hardly be described as a president who eschewed throwing his weight around, both literally and figuratively. He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence, assassinated an Iranian general, withdrew from several arms and proliferation agreements, and has been waging economic warfare against Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Iraq. He has sanctioned individuals and organizations in both China and Russia and has declared Iranian government components and Yemeni Houthi rebels to be terrorists. He has occupied Syria’s oil producing region to “protect it from terrorists” and has generally exerted “maximum pressure” against his “enemies” in the Middle East.

We’re familiar with Fox, the TV propaganda arm of the Trump administration remaining a far right-wing outlet under Rupert Murdoch and his mission of using media to push an arch-conservative agenda.

And we’re becoming aware of other radical right efforts to use media to indoctrinate people. There’s the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group seeking to buy up more local TV stations to deceive and lie from, and One America News and Newsmax TV.

As the headline of a recent article in The New York Times declared: “Pro-Trump Media Keeps the Disinformation Flowing.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/business/media/misinformation-trump-media.html

Much has to be done about this radical right drive to destroy the ideal of media being an independent monitor, a watchdog taking on power—not a partisan handmaiden.

Use of anti-trust regulations and implementation of Federal Communication Commission broadcast rules are on the top of the list.

Hours after President Biden declared that “democracy has prevailed” during his inaugural address, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove urged Republicans to pressure GOP election officials and legislators to create “a model election code” to reconsider the laws surrounding 2020’s two voting options that lead to the presidential election’s record turnout.

“Republicans should also encourage GOP secretaries of state and state lawmakers to develop a model election code,” Rove wrote in a January 20 commentary for the Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Republican Future Starts Now.”

“The job of proposing electoral reforms shouldn’t be based on the unsupported claims of widespread fraud peddled by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell,” Rove continued. “Instead, the goal should be to suggest measures that restore public confidence in our democracy. How do states with extensive mail-in and early voting like Florida and Texas get it right?”