Carolyn Kaster/AP

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (r.), joined by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. The bipartisan governor duo is urging Congress to retain the federal health care law's unpopular individual mandate while seeking to stabilize individual insurance markets as legislators continue work on a long-term replacement law. Governors Kasich and Hickenlooper shared their plan in a letter to congressional leaders on Thursday.

“Kasich-Hickenlooper 2020” wouldn’t fit on a bumper sticker, John Kasich quipped on NBC’s “Meet the Press” recently. But seriously, the Republican governor of Ohio was asked, are he and the Democratic governor of Colorado really thinking of mounting an independent bid for president?

“The answer is no,” Governor Kasich said, responding to reports that just such a “unity ticket” may be in the works.

Not that a denial puts anything to rest. Politicians are famous for saying “nothing to see here” until there is something to see. In Kasich’s case, the denial about a joint bid with Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) of Colorado could mask a more likely scenario: that Kasich will make a third run for president, and challenge President Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020.

Still, chatter about the Kasich-Hickenlooper trial balloon – born of common-ground efforts on policy and joint public appearances – amounts to more than just political gossip. It speaks to widespread disaffection among Americans with the two major parties, as seen in Gallup data that show “independent” as the preferred political affiliation since 2009. Today, 41 percent of Americans self-identify as independent, with Republicans and Democrats at 28 percent each.

“I don’t know whether this goes anywhere,” says veteran Democratic strategist Peter Fenn, referring to the Kasich-Hickenlooper alliance. “But I tell you, I think people are just so fed up they’re willing to consider anything.”

Why centrists fare better in Europe

And perhaps, following the precedent-shattering election of Donald Trump, more norm-busting is on the way. Political observers don’t rule out the possibility that Mr. Trump himself could run for reelection as an independent, if his alliance with the GOP collapses. Mr. Trump, after all, in recent years has been a Democrat and an independent, as well as a Republican. Some already see Trump as an independent who has just parked himself in the GOP, for now.

Consider, too, the disruptions in Europe. Last year, populist sentiment led British citizens to vote for “Brexit” – exit from the European Union. This year, Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, charismatic newcomer with a brand-new political party, stunned the world by winning the French presidency.

But the US’s political “duopoly” is more rigid than European multi-party systems, including France’s hybrid parliamentary-presidential setup. And experts on “third parties” in the US warn against seeing the rise of unaffiliated voters as a sign that an independent, centrist ticket could ride a rejection of hyperpolarization all the way to the White House.

“There’s a temptation to think of the center as a natural constituency for a ticket like this, one that would present itself as bridging the partisan divide,” says Walter Stone, a political scientist at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the book “Three’s a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence.”

But the reality isn’t so simple, Mr. Stone says.

Why independents don’t vote for independents

Polling on partisanship shows a lot of voters self-identify as independent, but when pressed for how they lean, most pick one of the major parties. And paradoxically, those “leaners” often end up being as partisan or more partisan than people who say they’re Democrats or Republicans up front, he says.

Furthermore, most voters don’t want to “waste” their vote by going third party, which is why independent presidential candidates typically see their numbers drop off by Election Day. Then there’s the Electoral College. While political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution, the Electoral College is – and the major parties have a lock on that system of indirect presidential election.

In 1992, for example, when independent candidate Ross Perot won an extraordinary 19 percent of the presidential vote, he won no states – and thus no electoral votes.

Given that reality, why would Kasich and Governor Hickenlooper even potentially bother to try an independent bid for president?

“It’s a very tough thing to do if the goal is to win,” says Stone. “If the goal is to shape the debates, if the goal is to try to shake things up in one or both parties, then you can make the case.”

The potential Kasich-Hickenlooper bid, as first reported by Axios and CNN, would likely feature Kasich as the lead candidate and Hickenlooper as the running mate. The concept springs from a series of joint appearances in recent months, centered on how states can improve delivery of health care to their citizens. They have expanded their effort on health care to other governors. There’s also talk of expanding their collaboration to immigration and job creation.

Both men have been mooted as potential candidates for president from their respective parties, and so the talk they have generated over the potential “unity ticket” likely has no downside. Being part of the national conversation is the name of the game in presidential politics – whether they run together or apart.

The Centrist Project

But the future of independent politics in America may not start with the presidency. Maybe it begins with efforts at the grassroots level to promote campaigns for office not centered in one of the two major parties.

Greg Orman, a Kansas businessman and political independent who came within 10 points of defeating incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in 2014, has launched an organization called The Centrist Project. Its goal is to recruit viable independent candidates around the country to run for statewide and local office, and to help them succeed.

Independents have a long tradition in Congress. But even there, today’s independent cohort – Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King of Maine – find that being unaffiliated only gets them so far. Once in place, to have any impact at all on Capitol Hill, they have to pick a side – in their cases, the Democrats.

“Third parties work great until you have to caucus,” says Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

Nations are busy putting guns into the hands of robots.

Generals find that attractive for many reasons. Smart machines can take on the dull and dangerous work that soldiers now do, like surveillance and mine-removal, without getting bored or tired. In combat, they can reduce the costs of war, not only in terms of dollars but also in fewer human casualties.

But many governments and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are worried. The threat at present is not that robots are so smart that they take over the world Hollywood-style. It’s that today’s robots won’t be smart enough to handle the new weapons and responsibilities they’re being given. And because of the rapid advances in AI, experts worry that the technology will soon cross a line where machines, rather than humans, decide when to take a human life.

This was supposed to be the year when governments began to address such concerns. After three years of discussing putting limits on military robots, some 90 countries were expected in August to formalize the debate under the aegis of the United Nations. And in the United States, the Trump administration was due to update an expiring Obama-era directive on autonomous weapons.

Instead, the UN canceled the inaugural meeting set for this month because Brazil and a few other smaller countries had not paid their contributions to the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons. The lack of payment also imperils a scheduled November meeting as well. Meanwhile, due to an administrative change, the Pentagon has eliminated its deadline, leaving the current directive in place, despite criticisms that the language is too ambiguous.

The private sector has stepped into this vacuum, warning in an open letter to the UN on Aug. 21 that “lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare [following firearms and nuclear weapons]. Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend.”

The letter, signed by 126 founders of robotics and artificial intelligence companies from 28 countries, asks the new UN group on autonomous weapons to “find a way to protect us all from these dangers.”

What’s under way

Killer robots – as opponents of the technology like to call them – are already being tested and deployed. For example:

•On the southern edge of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, South Korea has deployed the Super aEgis II, a sentry gun that can detect, target, and destroy enemy threats. It was developed so it could operate on its own, although so far the robots reportedly can’t fire without human intervention.

•Britain’s Taranis, an experimental prototype for future stealth drones, has an autonomous mode where it flies and carries out missions on its own, including searching for targets.

•This summer, the US Office of Naval Research has been testing the Sea Hunter, the Navy’s next-generation submarine drone that can operate autonomously or by remote control. Currently oriented toward detecting mines and ultraquiet diesel-electric submarines, the drone is expected to be outfitted with weapons at some point.  

“Research of autonomous systems is continuing to evolve and expand,” Roger Cabiness, a Defense Department spokesman, writes in an email. The department “is committed to complying with existing law of war requirements. [And] the use of autonomy in weapon systems can enhance the way law of war principles are implemented in military operations.  For example, commanders can use precision-guided weapon systems with homing functions to reduce the risk of civilian casualties.”

But as the technology evolves, so do the ethical questions. When the Air Force uses remotely piloted drones to target people, such as terrorists, it specifically ensures that military personnel decide whether to fire. On the other hand, the US Navy since the 1980s has been using the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, which tracks, targets, and shoots down incoming antiship missiles without human intervention. The missiles move too fast for humans to make the right moves quickly enough.

In 2012, the Defense Department issued Directive 3000.09, which says “autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.” Of course, what the Pentagon considers “appropriate levels of human judgment” can vary from general to general.

“There will be a raucous debate in the department about whether or not we take humans out of the decision to take lethal action,” Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee at his confirmation hearings in July. He said he didn’t think it reasonable for robots to decide whether to take a human life.

More ethical than humans?

Many ethicists and artificial intelligence developers want to ensure people are kept in the loop when lethal force is applied. At the moment, that’s a given, at least from those nations adhering to the law of war. Robots struggle to differentiate between soldiers and civilians in complex battle settings.

But the day may come, some say, when robots are able to be more ethical than human troops, because their judgment wouldn’t be clouded by emotions such vengefulness or self-preservation, which can shape human judgment.

“Unfortunately, humanity has a rather dismal record in ethical behavior in the battlefield,” Ronald Arkin, director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote in a guest blog for the IEEE, a technical professional organization. “Such systems might be capable of reducing civilian casualties and property damage when compared to the performance of human warfighters.”

It’s entirely possible they would be able to do a better job than humans in the future, but the ethical challenge doesn’t go away, counters Toby Walsh, an artificial intelligence researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney who helped spearhead this month’s open letter to the UN. It simply changes the question.

‘They will lower the barriers to war.’

“When [robots] are much more capable, they will be weapons of mass destruction,” he says. “They will lower the barriers to war. You won’t need 1,000 people to wage war. You will just need one.”

That’s a key question surrounding the new technology. By lowering the costs of war, robots may make it easier for nations to start wars.

“Anything that makes the threshold for going to war lower than it was in cost and blood and treasure can act as an incentive to move from diplomacy to war,” says Col. James Cook, a military ethicist at the US Air Force Academy. “It’s human nature to try to get away with a cheap victory.” (He stresses that he’s not a spokesman for the military.)

Sometimes, the advanced technology might start a conflict accidentally, warns Ryan Gariepy, chief technology officer of Clearpath Robotics in Kitchener, Ontario. Clearpath was the first robot company to publicly oppose killer robots, in 2014. One challenge of robot sentries, for example, is that one could malfunction and fire, potentially setting off a “flash war.”

Such mistakes could create sticky legal entanglements, points out Arend Hintze, an artificial intelligence researcher at Michigan State University. If a military robot makes a mistake, who’s liable: the military, the hardware maker, the software designer?

The questions of accountability become trickier as the technology becomes more complex. In January, three US jet fighters dropped 103 tiny aircraft (known as Perdix) in California to demonstrate the capabilities of microdrone “swarms.” Instead of directing each drone, the Perdix operator gives an order to the group, such as observing a military facility, and the drones figure out how to do it operationally.

Perdix is only intended for surveillance for now. But the technology hints at the potential for such swarms to be used in combat down the road.

Tom Davenport/AP/File

White supremacist Richard Butler leads a parade through downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in October of 2000. The march came after a $6.3 million judgment against him and his Aryan Nations group in a lawsuit the previous month that cost the group its 20-acre compound.

The “church” dripped with Nazi flags, swastikas, and racist war cries. Adolf Hitler stared from a bust. Outside, a guard tower watched over the compound set on a path marked “whites only” in the lush hills of northern Idaho.

From his self-proclaimed Aryan Nations church, a retired engineer named Richard Butler preached hate to his followers, and served it upon the community here. It was the same toxic ideology that brought violence to Charlottesville, Va., and for years it poisoned this town. Coeur d’Alene became code for white supremacists.

But what happened here offers an antidote of hope. The community came together, rejecting the vision of Mr. Butler’s small band, and organizing a tenacious effort to drive them out without the dangerous confrontation that produced one death and dozens of injuries in Virginia. It took more than two decades, but it worked.

“We won,” says Norman Gissel, a long veteran of the struggle, and a member of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. Mr. Gissel and others involved in that campaign are loathe to offer their strategy as a sure solution for other cities. But they say their approach might be one guide.

“One of our rules from the very beginning was that we would never go to anything the Nazis did,” Tony Stewart, another founder of the task force, says. But that did not mean ignoring them. “We decided we would never remain silent, but when they did activities we would do a counter-program at some other location.”

Hatching the strategy 

Mr. Stewart recalls the night that strategy was hatched. Butler had come to this postcard-pretty town near the Canadian border in 1974, bought 20 acres 11 miles out of town, and opened his doors to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis who rejected the “mud races” of diversity. He gave Sunday sermons promoting a “White People’s Republic” in the Northwest.

Most people here ignored them. “In Idaho, we don’t tell you a lot about what you should do. We don’t mess with people,” Woody McEvers, now president of the city council, said at his restaurant, the Rustler’s Roost, where Butler and his followers often came on Sunday afternoons.

But then a Jewish restaurant was painted with ugly graffiti. A 9-year-old black girl was harassed. The group started having an annual “world congress” on its property, with rallies and marches in 1985 and 1986. A bomb blew in the back door of a Catholic priest who had condemned their march, while he sat in his living room.   

“People did not react until there were victims,” says Stewart.

Even before that, Stewart, Gissel, and others decided the town should no longer be complacent. A small group of 10 gathered on cold February night in 1981 in the basement of a church to form the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. Others were there: “There were six neo-Nazis trying to intimidate us,” Stewart recalls. “They came and just walked in the back. They were walking back and forth. They were trying to frighten us or get us not to do anything.”

The organizers ignored them. They embraced some old-fashioned phrases –  freedom, equality, and justice –  and decided on a way to challenge the Aryan Nations. When the Aryan Nations marched, the group sponsored counter protests as far away as Spokane to draw the crowds down. For one event, Stewart enlisted local businesses and individuals to pledge money to human rights groups for every minute of a planned Aryan Nations march, and then publicly urged Butler to march slowly to raise more money for his opponents. 

“They marched for 27 minutes and we got $34,000,” Stewart chuckled.

But others did directly confront the Aryan Nations marchers, and the Coeur d’Alene police worked hard to try to keep the groups separate.

“I was a young patrolman at the time,” says Christie Wood. “It was stressful, difficult. We had a role to keep peace, but part of that role was marching alongside these white supremacists who you didn’t even want to have to look at.”

There were arrests on both sides, but no serious injuries. “At any moment it could have gotten out of hand like it did in Charlottesville,” Ms. Wood says.

Doug Struck

Members of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which continues to work against racism, are from left Norman Gissel, Christie Wood, and Tony Stewart in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on Aug. 16.

Violence brought the downfall 

And it was not all political theater. A splinter group from Aryan Nations, called the Order, killed a Jewish Denver radio talk host in 1984, and robbed several banks and armored cars before its leader was killed in a shootout with federal agents in Whidbey Island, Wash. In 1986, three bombs went off in Coeur d’Alene, remarkably causing no injuries. When this reporter visited Butler’s compound a week after the bombings, the mother of one of Butler’s followers argued that her son had acted righteously in gunning down a Missouri state trooper the previous year with a silencer-equipped automatic pistol. He is serving a term of life without parole for that murder.

It was the group’s violence that finally brought it down. In 1998, an American Indian woman and her son were driving by the compound when her car backfired. The compound’s guards, imagining gunshots, chased her, firing into the vehicle and forcing it off the road, and terrorized the pair at gunpoint. The Southern Poverty Law Center pounced on the incident, bringing lawsuits on behalf of the victims.

They won a $6.3 million judgment in 2000 against Butler, and two of his bodyguards served prison time for assault.

Gissel, an attorney who brought nationally prominent lawyers into the case, said the jury voted the large award to uphold the culture of Kootenai county.

“We won that case ... because the jury was on our side for 20 years,” he says. “When the police and prosecutors do their jobs well and aggressively, the jury will do theirs.”

Butler’s compound was seized in the judgment, used as a training exercise by the fire department and burned to the ground. “We didn’t want anything left to show they were ever here,” Stewart says. They cut down two trees that had swastikas carved on them, and stipulated that the ground lay fallow for 20 years.

“There was so much hate here. It needed to rest,” Stewart says. 

The property is now an unmarked stand of pines and open field next to an Alpaca farm.

The challenge: to keep a sense of community

Butler died in his 80s in 2004. Various adherents claimed his mantle, none to much consequence. But the task force members say their work continues. Philanthropist Greg Carr donated $1 million to create the Human Rights Education Institute, which carries out education, and the task force consults with communities under similar threat. Successive administrations in the town and county have continued to support the work.

“We have had to work hard to keep our sense of community. It’s not always been easy,” says Sandi Bloem, who was mayor for 12 years. The task force has put on a tolerance program for 32,000 fifth graders. The schools have adopted an anti-bullying campaign. The city went through a bruising debate and ultimately adopted an ordinance guaranteeing equal rights for gay and lesbians, an unusual step in conservative Idaho.

But the picture of success is not unmarred. In recent years, racist leaflets have been scattered about town. A few white supremacists picketed a human rights gala ball. Food trucks owned by Hispanics were vandalized and the owners harassed. (The task force urged everyone to eat lunch from the trucks. “The police officers got tired of eating tacos every day,” says Stewart, laughing.)

And while the town has doubled in size to 44,000 people, gradually changing from a blue-collar town to one filled with hip eateries, a medical center, and street corners sprouting public art, it still attracts people drawn to a community of mostly white population, says former Mayor Bloem. 

“Those people still exist. There are still undercurrents,” agrees Lita Burns, a director of the Human Rights Education Institute. Of Mexican ancestry, she came 16 years ago, and was startled when her 8-year-old daughter asked why people stared at them. Coeur d’Alene has changed for the better, she says, but “we don’t want to forget that history. We have to learn from the history.”

The violence in Charlottesville has revived uncomfortable debate in Coeur d’Alene. The daily newspaper, on a recent day, had an editorial saying “Love is the answer,” next to letters to the editor making a thinly veiled analogy of newcomers to “nasty little beasts” and another blaming the “alt-left communists” who confronted the marchers in Charlottesville.

“There’s no community devoid of hate. No such community exists,” says Stewart. “What we could say to any community in America is, never allow the perpetrators of hate come into your community and change you. Never let them be in charge. Never stay silent.”

It was June 29, and Dexter Rawlings had finished his first day of on-the-job training, installing solar panels on the rooftops of Washington. After hours under the unforgiving summer sun, he arrived home, exhausted. But an email was waiting for him with an encouraging message: The work he had done was projected to save local homeowners more than $11,000 in energy bills over the lifetime of the panels.

“I screenshotted it and posted it on my Instagram to show everybody what I was doing over the summer,” Mr. Rawlings says.

Rawlings, 24, is a D.C.-native, though he grew up in a foster home in nearby Maryland. This summer, he was a member of the first cohort of Solar Works DC, a partnership between the city and the nonprofit GRID Alternatives that trains workers for solar jobs. Many of the participants come from Washington’s poorest areas, and over the next three years will be paid to install solar panels on 300 low-income homes. By 2032, the District aims to install solar on 100,000 low-income residences.

In recent years, rooftop solar has become one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Dramatic reductions in the installed price of solar panels, a robust federal rebate program, and the potential for long-term energy savings have fueled soaring interest in residential solar installation. That surge has heightened demand for laborers trained in solar installation, resulting in a crucial skills gap. Solar Works DC aims to bridge that gap while bringing the energy savings of rooftop solar to low-income residents.

In 2016, US solar companies employed 260,077 workers – up 25 percent from 2015, according to the Solar Jobs Census released by the Solar Foundation and the Department of Energy. While employment has tripled since the first census in 2010, two-thirds of American solar firms report face difficulty filling positions from manufacturing to sales.

Last year, the District of Columbia had 1,180 solar jobs, and industry analysts anticipate a 26 percent increase this year. Over the next 15 years, the nation’s capital plans to invest close to $300 million in solar, according to Tommy Wells, director of Washington's Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE).

Solar Works DC is one of several partnerships that GRID Alternatives has with municipalities across the US to bring renewable energy technology and job training to low-income communities. In its first three years, the program aims to provide on-the-job technical training to more than 200 D.C. residents.

Under the D.C. sun, a crash-course in solar power

Like Rawlings, 23-year-old Devonta Sanders was part of Solar Works’ summer cohort. Mr. Sanders says he didn’t know anything about solar power when he started. “I wanted to get a new skill-set to put under my belt,” he says. After six weeks of on-the-job training, Sanders says he now feels comfortable installing solar panels from start to finish. And he has plans to spin that training into a full-time career.

From day one, Solar Works trains participants in all aspects of the installation process – from the electrical groundwork to laying panels on the rooftops – as well as in sales and outreach. Upon arriving at a house, sometimes as early as 7:30 a.m. to beat the heat, the group would split into two: a roof crew installs panels while the ground crew focuses on electrical work.

“Everyone works as a team to get the job done,” Rawlings says, animatedly describing his work day. 

While Sanders says he prefers working on the roof, it has its challenges. “A few times I felt the heat through my shoes,” he says, laughing.

Now, inspired by a summer spent on the rooftops, Sanders says he plans to continue working on installations for GRID Alternatives and aspires to be a solar instructor.

That’s exactly the kind of pathway to career employment Solar Works aims to carve for local residents, says DOEE director Mr. Wells.

“You can clearly say, you go through this program, get certified, there's a job waiting for you on the other end,” Wells says. But beyond a job, he hopes the program can open doors to a career “by getting more people in a pathway to a job they can grow in, and grow into the middle class.”

For many participants, the work goes beyond providing a paycheck. “Instead of working in a restaurant, I was out here actually helping people,” says Rawlings.

New industry, new possibilities

While Solar Works aims to engage lower-income residents of all ages, there is a focus on young people, says Alexis Harvey, workforce coordinator for Solar Works.

As a D.C. native, Ms. Harvey, 24, knows first-hand how limited opportunities can seem when growing up in an underserved urban environment. Solar Works, she explains, is a step toward changing bad habits and attitudes, breaking vicious cycles in the process.

“I've seen the whole ‘Oh, you ain't going to be nothing,’ ‘In order to get money you got to sell drugs,’ ” Harvey says. “That's the only way they know how to do it because that's what's been taught.” Solar Works, Harvey adds, offers urban youth new dreams.

“This is an opportunity for them to see the possibilities,” she says. “People shouldn't be boxed in when they're looking for their future ... They should have options. This is one of those options.”

Wells says the district is investing more in solar on behalf of low-income communities than any other city in the US.

“We recognized that it was a tremendous opportunity ... to expand solar in [DC], but also to help create employment opportunities for youth and now others to work in this industry,” Wells says.

Washington recently doled out millions in grants to energy companies with that goal in mind. “We’re expecting the grantees of the $13.2 million to look toward Solar Works for qualified employees,” Wells adds.

The first Solar Works cohort graduated on August 4, and their fall successors are scheduled to begin on September 5. Many from the first group of 12 plan to bring the skills they’ve learned to energy internships and jobs.

This summer, Rawlings completed nine installation projects, saving low-income families an estimated $205,000. He’s already interviewed at a local solar firm.

“I want people to know that if they ever want to sign up for anything that's environmental ... this is the probably one of the top things you could do right now,” he says. “It[‘s] got more jobs than any other job out here, it's on the top of the list. You can't go wrong with solar, literally, you can't go wrong with solar.”

This story was produced in conjunction with the Medill News Service.

[Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify the long-term goals of the program.]

Simon Montlake/The Christian Science Monitor

A view of a community garden plot, or allotment, in Finchley, London, that belongs to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Mr. Corbyn grows fruits and vegetables on his 250-square-yard plot.

The single-track road dips at a stream cloaked by nettles and blackberry bushes. Across the bridge, up a gentle incline, lie more plots of land planted with fruits and vegetables and tended by the amateur gardeners who blossom across this nation.

The plot beside the stream is typical: Beds of corn and beans, trees bearing unripe apples and pears. A pile of compost under a blue tarpaulin awaits a rake. A few weeds are poking up.

The owner of this particular plot could be forgiven for taking a back seat to nature. Jeremy Corbyn – Labour parliamentarian, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and, after June’s election, a serious contender to run Britain – lately has more pressing matters to attend to.

While serving in Parliament, Mr. Corbyn has found time to farm his allotment, as community gardens are known here. He mostly comes on Sundays, say fellow gardeners, and gets to work, rain or shine.

Three plots uphill, Jim Flanagan is forking his first potatoes of the season. As a retiree who comes on weekdays, he rarely sees his famous neighbor, but he admires what he’s done on his plot. “He knows what he’s doing alright. But he hasn’t got the time,” he says.

In a nation of gardeners, where TV call-in shows dispense tips by the bushel, Corbyn’s pastime is run-of-the-mill. But it fits his popular image as a modest, unmanicured politician who prefers his bicycle to a chauffeured car, a vegetarian who makes his own jam from the fruits of his labor.

During the election campaign, he presented a jar of his apple-blackberry jam to the hosts of a popular daytime show. In another interview, Corbyn was asked if he might prefer to stick to his allotment rather than occupy 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence.

“It’s possible to do both because if you grow plants and look after your garden, it gives you time to think, it gives you a connection with the natural world and makes you stronger in everything else you do,” he told Channel 4 News.

A nation of gardeners

Corbyn-as-gardener is fodder for critics who see him as a political naif not fit to run the government. One unkind comparison made is to Chauncey Gardiner, the simpleton gardener played by Peter Sellers, a British actor, whose gnomic utterances propel him towards the US presidency in the 1979 film “Being There.”

Yet in a time of populist distrust of establishment politicians, the plainspoken allotment man who pulls his own weeds may have an edge over his smoother rivals.

“He’s the perfect man, I tell you. He doesn’t bother who he’s talking to, he’s the same,” says Joe McLean, who grows flowers, fruits, and vegetables on his allotment. He pulls out his phone to show a photo taken with Corbyn in June, just 10 days after the election.

That day, Corbyn stopped by Mr. McLean’s plot to sample his cherries and Persian cucumbers (McLean was born in Iran). Corbyn also praised the trimmed flowerbeds (“That’s my son, he did all that”) and the two cracked a joke about how McLean couldn’t rely on his daughter anymore to lend a hand as she had moved to Dubai for work.

That a bountiful 12.5-acre community garden persists in a crowded corner of London is testament both to Britain’s passion for gardening and its habit of self-reliance amid wartime privations. The land was first leased to the local council to grow food during World War I; this year’s open house celebrated the 100th anniversary of East Finchley Allotments.

Allotment diggers got another boost in World War II when public and private land, including Royal Parks and the lawns outside the Tower of London, was converted into vegetable gardens as part of the Dig For Victory campaign. By 1945, the number of allotments – typically a plot of 10 poles, an Anglo-Saxon measure equal to 250 square yards – had swelled to 1.3 million.

Today, according to the National Allotment Society, Britain has around 330,000 allotment plots. Most have long waiting lists; plots are often handed down within families. At East Finchley Allotments, more than 100 applicants are pending, says Janet Francis, a member of the committee that runs the site. Turnover is low.

As a public garden, rents are modest. Standard plots rent for £85 a year (about $110), with a discount for seniors (Corbyn is 68), which covers water rates and property maintenance, says Ms. Francis.

'His private space'

Asked how long Corbyn has farmed his spot, Francis says she has no idea, but adds that it precedes her own arrival, 13 years ago.

Mr. Flanagan has tended his plot for 18 years. He grew up on a farm in County Cork, Ireland, one of nine children. Since he didn’t stand to inherit the farm, he moved to England and went into the building trade. Retirement has meant more time to plant and poke, trim and turn. “It’s a hobby for me. It gets me out of the house,” he says, leaning on his fork.

How much time Corbyn still devotes to his allotment is unclear. A weathered wooden-and-iron bench sits under an apple tree. Masking tape covers cracks in the window of a 6-by-6-ft. shed; inside tools are neatly stacked and a wheelbarrow rests on its side.

Other allotments show grander ambitions: trellis archways, paved pathways and lawns, new greenhouses. One boasts a kids’ trampoline. But many also reveal a make-do spirit, like threaded CDs hung to deter pigeons and plastic bottles atop poles so gardeners don’t poke themselves in the eyes.

At one such plot, a bearded gardener stops to talk to a reporter. He points out his corn and other vegetables, the tree fruit coming in the fall. But asked about sightings of Corbyn, his tone changes. “It’s his private space and we don’t intrude,” he says, tartly.

Reuters

Guatemalans protest President Jimmy Morales's decision to expel Ivan Velasquez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), in Guatemala City Aug.29.

 One adjective often used to describe corruption in Latin America is “chronic.” Or, even worse, “entrenched.” Such a fatalistic narrative, however, has been challenged in recent days by the people of Guatemala. They have adopted an alternative view that honest governance should not only be the norm but irreversible.

On Aug. 24, President Jimmy Morales – who was elected on an anti-corruption platform – attempted to squelch a probe into alleged shady financing of his 2015 campaign by trying to oust a key prosecutor. Several cabinet ministers then quit. Street protests broke out. Foreign leaders condemned the move. And a high court reversed the president’s action.

Soon after, Mr. Morales wrote on his Facebook page: “The rule of law should always prevail.” He now awaits a decision that could strip him of official immunity in order for him to face charges.

Such a rapid chain of events is testament to a decade of progress in the Central American country toward reversing a culture of impunity. Guatemala’s example also builds on similar achievements in tackling corruption, such as in Brazil and Argentina, that help defy the false stigma of a hemisphere condemned to live with graft in high places.

Guatemala also offers the region another model in pursuing clean government. In 2007, it agreed to the creation of a United Nations body, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, to assist local prosecutors in going after corruption. Dozens of officials have been convicted. Notably, in 2015 then-President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti resigned over a massive corruption scheme in customs. The unique panel remains a highly popular institution.

Morales, a former TV comedian and political outsider, was elected on the hope that he could keep the momentum going in this cleanup of government. Yet by challenging his attempt to remove the head of the UN commission, Ivan Velasquez, Guatemalan citizens realized even more that their newfound embrace of transparency and honesty in governance is the real driving force for change. Such a popular shift in thinking is essential for Latin American countries to draw top foreign investors, create healthy economies, and reduce inequality.

It also might result in descriptions of corruption in Latin America as “faltering” or “rare.”