Democracy is a test. Impeachment may be the final exam.

Democracy is a test. You can’t just wing it and you can’t just skip it. It requires study and it is strongest when everyone participates on test day, which is every day.

That makes democracy hard, too. You can’t rely on others to take the test for you or to look over someone else’s answers to figure out how to add your unique voice and perspective.

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Democracy is in retreat globally. Only 5.7 percent of the world lives in a “full democracy,” according to the just-released Democracy Index. American democracy, too, is facing a stress test in the form of impeachment. It’s time for all of us to cram around democracy’s meaning.

There are governments and systems claiming they are democratically legitimate. Some of the worst offenders use democratic tools to say that they are free and open societies. READ MORE

Trump puts the bad guys on notice: Don’t mess with the ‘hitman-in-chief’

“Hitman: Agent 47” was a fictional movie about a trained assassin who killed the Nigerian warlord Bwana Ovie before his mission to take out the Russian president. It was popularly panned, but did fantastic at the box office.

Hitman: POTUS 45 is a real-time, televised and Twittered political program where the American commander-in-chief whacks Iranian terrorist Qassem Soleimani before setting his sights on the next target. The reviews are still coming in, but 45 is already doing well at the fundraising box office.

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Agent 47 navigated foreign cities, used stealth to deceive well-trained security forces and put himself in vulnerable positions before he could pull off the kill. 

POTUS 45 had it relatively easy. He just gave an order to pull a metaphorical trigger.

Agent 47 had plausible deniability and no identity or nationality to make any single country accountable for his murderous actions. 

POTUS 45 made it clear to the whole world that he alone was responsible for the American high-tech hit. As a result, his actions have made it clear to distasteful foreign leaders and adversaries sitting in an office or on a tarmac anywhere that they are fair game. If U.S. advanced military technologies can get a bead on them, they might be next. READ MORE

President Donald Trump, global peacemaker. Really.

War is the ultimate test for nations and their leaders. History is full of great leaders who fought and won military victories, from Revolutionary War hero George Washington to Abraham Lincoln’s civil war and World War II’s FDR.

Victory is the key to greatness.

President Trump is different. If George W. Bush went into his successful 2004 re-election campaign embracing his role as a “war president,” Trump may angle to win a 2020 re-election as the nation’s “peace president.” Remarkably, if things go well, he could be Donald Trump, peacemaker.

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Disquieting as it may be for those who see him as morally bankrupt, as well as a threat to democratic norms and human decency, there has to be a reckoning that he just might actually succeed in pursuing peace on multiple fronts. Trump’s campaign promises, unorthodox methods and his limitless ego are leading him to seek an end to American military engagements and — with a couple of notable exceptions — even lower the temperature elsewhere. READ MORE

Nuke deals are for suckers

Nuke deals are all the rage these days. The United Nations sees nuclear accords as a path to world peace. President Barack Obama worked toward a “global zero” nuclear-free future.

President Trump, on the other hand, is highly skeptical of deals with Iran and North Korea because he understands what Tehran and Pyongyang leaders already know: Nuclear disarmament deals are for suckers.

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Countries generally balk at giving up their hard-won and expensive nuclear capabilities because nuclear weapons are a time-tested and reliable deterrent. Giving up these weapons requires faith that any agreement inked is rock solid and that the countries agreeing to unilateral nuclear disarmament are assured they will not wind up like Ukraine or Libya – invaded or overthrown.

Trump does not inspire this faith. Neither does he have faith that the other side will do as it’s told. READ MORE

Trump trash-talks his way into war

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Sandbox politics is hard to watch, but easy to interpret. One side hurls an insult, the other responds louder and more offensively. The exchange ends with thrown sand or thrown fists. Bloody noses and bruised egos follow.

Ask any parent. Or Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who just called the President Trump-Kim Jong-Un war of words a “kindergarten fight.” No one wants to be lectured by Russians about civility, but the man has a point. The childish Trump-Un verbal showdown is frightening. It could lead to war.

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The world may be beyond shock or outrage given last year’s rude and raucous presidential election. But every once in a while it’s worth stopping to ask how we got here and what it means.

POTUS is name-calling, potentially making a bad situation with North Korea worse. Un deserves every epithet flung his way, of course, but what’s unprecedented is the loud, public invective coming from the leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest military force.  READ MORE