In a brief and poignantly related follow-up to my earlier piece this morning on the "rise of world authoritarianism," there is "Biden's awkward democracy summit," in which the Financial Times's Edward Luce writes:
"President Joe Biden’s second summit for democracy, which is taking place this week, is both virtual and surreal. Among the participants are India, which is in the process of jailing opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on a trumped up defamation ruling; Israel, whose leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to shut down judicial independence; and Mexico, whose leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is trying to end free and fair elections. With friends such as these, democracy hardly needs enemies."
I'll second that. In fact, my earlier motion "first-ed" it.