This week’s Republican National Convention started as it meant to go on: with apocalyptic fear-mongering by the US president and his acolytes. The candidate himself popped up on day one to warn the nation he leads that the only way he can lose in November would be due to a rigged election. The tactic of questioning the legitimacy of any result will be a key tool in Trump’s coming fight against democracy and one of the major weapons in his arsenal will be an attack on mail-in voting. Our DC bureau chief David Smith reports.
The debasement of the democratic process – abetted by political appointees and Republican congressional allies – is emblematic of how Trump has reduced his party to a hollowed-out Trumpian rusk. Former Clinton aide and Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal writes on how Trump and his inner circle cite Lincoln as they shred his party’s legacy.
Last week saw the likely poisoning of the leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny as he collapsed after drinking a cup of tea. For some, the mere fact that Navalny was still alive after his excoriating criticism of Vladimir Putin and his officials was reason for suspicion, but Navalny has been a determined thorn in the Russian president’s side for years. Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth tells the story of the apparent attack.
In Britain, the summer has been dominated by an exams debacle that has seen confidence in Boris Johnson’s government wane. Next week, as schools return (Scotland’s have already gone back), life in the UK should be starting to go back to normal. But with coronavirus infection rates still high and economic conditions extremely fragile, the country is facing the prospect of an extremely turbulent autumn. Can it get a grip in time?
In opinion, Nesrine Malik looks at the hypocrisy that is central to the the way Britain talks about immigration; Farrah Jarral writes on the difference between mistakes made by doctors and those made by politicians (one, she suggests is more likely to apologise than the other … ).
In culture, Robert McCrum draws on his own experiences to explain how the words fo Shakespeare get us through even the worst crises and Sigur Rós singer Jonsi explains his love of gay techno to Michael Cragg ahead of his surprisingly poppy new album.
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