With Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election at the weekend, the doom-mongers among western elites are out in force once again. His success, like Donald Trump’s, has confirmed a long-held prejudice: that the people cannot be trusted; that, when empowered, they behave like a mob driven by primitive urges; that the unwashed masses now threaten to bring down the carefully constructed walls of civilisation. More

If Obama, the University of Chicago and City Hall have their way, a large chunk – two square blocks, to be exact – of Jackson Park, one of the jewels of Chicago’s 19thcentury park and boulevard system, will be repurposed, denuded and rendered unrecognizable. If the deal goes through as planned, the private and unaccountable Obama Foundation will be allowed to lease 19.3 acres of prime lakefront land forever for the grand total of one dollar. This stolen public space will house the Obama non-Library, formally dubbed the Obama Presidential Center. More

The persona Donald Trump is floating these days puts him on the same page as, say, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro or Hungary’s Viktor Orban, or their counterparts in Slovakia, Poland, and elsewhere in what Donald Rumsfeld famously called “the new Europe.”  From his “bully pulpit,” the Trump persona is an inspiration for neo-fascists in “the old Europe” too and indeed throughout the world. I say “persona” because I don’t think that temperamentally or ideologically he actually is a fascist. I say this not to his credit, but because I think that the Donald is too much the narcissist to be anything that other-regarding.  He is a conman, and playing the fascist card is part of the con he is working. More