Adam Shatz

Why were​ supporters of the Democrats – including seasoned election-watchers – so easily persuaded by Republican triumphalism? The polls were one reason, of course. But susceptibility to Republican hype is more directly a result of the Trump years. There is every reason to fear that Trump, or rather Trumpism, might return. It’s easy to mock MSNBC-watching liberals who rapidly resort to analogies with Germany in the 1930s (especially when analogies with episodes in American history, such as Reconstruction and the McCarthy era, are closer to hand and more illuminating). But there is little doubt that the United States has become more vulnerable to authoritarian challenges thanks to the deterioration of its democracy over the last two decades. The reasons for this decline are many but include the absence of limits on campaign finance and the overwhelming influence of corporate money, the right-wing assault on black enfranchisement and the descent of some quarters of red America into conspiratorial culture-war fanaticism.

When​ Richard Wright sailed to France in 1946, he was 38 years old and already a legend. He was America’s most famous black writer, the author of two books hailed as classics the moment they were published: the 1940 novel Native Son and the 1945 memoir Black Boy. By ‘choosing exile’, as he put it, he hoped both to free himself from American racism and to put an ocean...

Privately, Netanyahu and the Israeli army have always had an interest in keeping Hamas in power in Gaza. Israel allowed the movement to flourish in its early years as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the PLO. Hamas’s rule in Gaza kept the Palestinians divided, and Palestinian political fragmentation has always been a key Israeli objective. Several Israeli pundits have suggested that Netanyahu deliberately provoked Hamas in order to prevent his opponents from establishing a governing coalition. Israel has had four elections in two years, and if he fails to hold on to power, he could face corruption charges and a prison term. In the lead-up to Hamas’s rocket barrage, he pursued a series of flagrantly reckless policies. Oppression alone seldom detonates revolt; humiliation – what the Algerians call hogra – is also necessary. Netanyahu supplied it in abundance. The war was more of a gift to Hamas than he bargained for, however.