Late last year, I wrote about how the incoming administration needs to address three factors in order to maximize the possibility of avoiding a second wave of authoritarianism in the soon-to-be post-Trump world. I have already considered how important it will be for Biden to be adept at crisis management and attentive to institutional repair. The third critical factor is accountability:  When the Biden justice department begins turning over rocks we may finally learn the extent of the criminal activity perpetrated by the outgoing administration against the people of the United States. What we already know about illegalities large and small

It’s a new year, a time of hope and possibility. Let’s talk about reform. Last week, in the first of three posts about how the incoming administration can prevent a second bout of authoritarianism, I wrote about the crisis management skills Joe Biden will need to exhibit in order to address four intertwined policy emergencies: the pandemic, economic devastation caused by the pandemic, our long overdue reckoning on racial injustice, and the climate catastrophe. Crisis management is but one of three things the Biden administration will need to aggressively pursue, along with institutional repair and accountability. On the matter of

If every crisis is an opportunity, Joe Biden is about to inherit the biggest opportunity since 1933. I wrote last month that Biden faces the imperative of making sure the electorate’s rejection of authoritarian leadership is permanent, and that his success will depend on his ability to simultaneously manage the crises he inherited from his predecessor, repair the institutions of democracy that were trashed by his predecessor, and hold his predecessor and enablers accountable for the damage they inflicted on our democratic institutions. Today and in two subsequent posts, I’ll speak about these challenges in turn, looking at the obstacles