Karen Norris/Staff

Linda Feldmann (Washington Bureau Chief, White House correspondent): Here we go. Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a great weekend! I sure did – went to the World Series champion Nationals’ victory parade. Almost no politics in sight.

Jessica Mendoza (Congress reporter): Happy Monday! That must have been amazing – the pictures looked epic.

Linda: I’ve lived in D.C. 31 years, and it was honestly the most joyous event I have ever attended here.

Jess: If only the city could be as united and happy on weekdays.

Peter Grier (senior Washington writer): But the city is only a reflection of the country. If only the country could be that united and happy.

Linda: Indeed. So ... on to politics and impeachment? This comment I got from a Monitor reader I think reflects the views of a lot of Americans: “It is very difficult for me to understand why all of the energy in Congress is being spent on impeachment when there are so many issues in our country to deal with.”

Jess: I think some members of Congress would push back on that pretty quickly and say there is work going on. Appropriations negotiations are under way, as well as talks on a new trade agreement. But impeachment is definitely sucking up a ton of oxygen.

Peter: That’s true. Just because they’re walking doesn’t mean they can’t chew gum – or write infrastructure bills – at the same time. The problem is there is no consensus on how to fix all those other problems. They would not be solved if impeachment wasn’t happening.

Linda: But they do have to fund the government or else we’ll have another shutdown. But I don’t think we really answered my reader’s question. I think her perception (i.e. “Why are the Democrats doing impeachment instead of ‘doing the people’s business?’ ”) is common and important, and perception is everything. 

Peter: Many Democrats think impeachment is the most important “people’s business.” They consider the president’s behavior to be unconstitutional and dangerous to the republic. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, to paraphrase, “he made us do it.” 

Jess: Democratic members say they are pursuing impeachment because they see the president’s call to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as at least worth investigating. Remember: That July 25 call is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Linda: That call, in the Dems’ eyes, reflected a willingness on President Donald Trump’s part to use foreign aid to an ally as a bargaining chip to get that ally to investigate a potential 2020 Democratic nominee and his son. That “quid pro quo” shows a president behaving in a way that, to many Democrats, fits the constitutional definition of an impeachable offense, and that he is unfit to be president.

Jess: So here we are. Democrats are sticking to that message, and hoping that the evidence they’ve gathered, and the upcoming testimonies, will convince enough of the American public to their side. Republicans on the other hand ...

Peter: ... have struggled to defend the president. He does not make it easy for them.

Jess: But Republicans have mostly kept at it. For a while, after the summary of the Trump-Zelenskiy call was released, the strategy was to say there was “no quid pro quo.” 

Peter: It’s not as clear cut that a quid pro quo is as illegal as one might think.

Jess: Why isn’t quid pro quo necessarily against the law? I think the answer could help lead us to what happens next.

Peter: It depends on intent. If President Trump truly believed that investigating Hunter Biden’s ties to Ukraine was a highly important and sensitive national security priority, then withholding aid to force that ... might be OK? But if he just wanted to damage a political rival, then it’s really bad. And remember, things don’t have to be illegal to be impeachable. That’s a political process.

Linda: I agree – the “illegality” of pressuring Ukraine in this way isn’t an automatic fact. And yes, ultimately impeachment is political, though it is informed by the law. Presidents have a ton of leeway in their conduct of foreign policy.

Jess: Which to me seems like the crux of why House Democrats are going through this process. It’s political. They say they need to do this, no matter what the Republican-run Senate ultimately decides. You hear a lot of talk among members about how history is going to look at this moment in time. They say they want to be found on the right side of it. You can read that as sincere conviction or political theater. Or a bit of both. 

Linda: I’m going to offer a different explanation: The Democrats want to lay down a marker on values and morality. They want to set boundaries on what is acceptable presidential behavior, just as the Republicans did with Bill Clinton and lying about an affair with an intern.

Peter: Nancy Pelosi paraphrase again: “You don’t want this behavior to be normalized.”

Jess: Would you say it worked? With Mr. Clinton, I mean. 

Linda: Republicans only made Mr. Clinton more popular by impeaching him, and hurt themselves in the next midterm. But in the long run, Republicans have said to me, the Clinton impeachment was still worth it – they laid down a marker on acceptable presidential behavior and satisfied a key part of the GOP political base, religious conservatives.

Peter: So what about this impeachment process so far? Has it been fair to President Trump? That’s been a main line of GOP defense so far – that it hasn’t been, in their eyes.

Linda: Republicans made a smart political argument about the unfairness of the process, though this process is largely the same as past impeachments, as I understand it. But once articles of impeachment are passed, then the Republicans will have to address the substance of the charges. The process argument will fade.

Jess: Democrats will say that they’ve been incredibly fair, that the situation is different than Clinton’s because national security is involved, that they had always planned to open up the hearings to the public and give the president his due process – but only after the articles of impeachment are passed.

Peter: It’s kind of hard to judge the fairness when compared to past impeachments since there haven’t been many. In terms of the Constitution, the House gets to set its own rules, period.

Linda: When I say the Republicans made a smart argument, I meant in terms of impact on public opinion. They can make that case, whether it’s accurate or not. All I’m saying is this argument about “due process” is a compelling one, even if it’s kind of on shaky ground. 

Jess: Republicans also frame impeachment as “undoing the results of the last election” which goes to their “unfairness” argument.

Linda: Now that argument is easy to refute. 

Peter: Yes, in terms of impeachment being in the Constitution. But what about, “the Democrats have been poised to impeach since 2016?”

Linda: If a president commits an impeachable offense, in the eyes of the House, he can be impeached – again, to make a clear statement about acceptable presidential behavior. It’s not undoing an election, it’s the House exercising its right as laid out in the Constitution. 

Peter: We are in a Constitution stress test. We’re not in a full-blown constitutional crisis, but we’re edging close. With Trump officials simply defying congressional subpoenas, we are in an area of ill-defined law and precedent. It’s a hole in the Constitution, in a way. That may get defined as part of this era. Or it may be a hole that gets widened.

Linda: We should get some input from judges on that before too long. Jess, tell us what it’s been like on the Hill covering all this?

Jess: It’s been pretty intense. There’s always a lot going on: Stakeouts outside the secure room where the depositions are taking place. Press conferences with leadership. Last week was a lot, with the vote on the resolution that authorized public hearings moving forward. A lot of drama in the House. It’ll be a little quieter this week, with most House members in their districts.

Peter: Linda, has the White House felt different at all?

Linda: Just a growing sense of ... “What next?” We don’t have briefings anymore, but POTUS talks to us a lot from the South Lawn – “chopper talk.” He’s animated by the impeachment threat, I think, in both a positive and negative way. We in the press corps have no idea how he will respond to actually being impeached.

Peter: Yeah, one wildcard is the president’s reaction.

Linda: He knows it will fire up his base even more, but he also knows that being only the third president in American history to be impeached doesn’t look so good in the history books.

Peter: Whether he gets so angered by the impeachment process that he says or does something else that blows up the headlines. ...

Linda: Exactly. I’m flying with him on Air Force One on Friday (to Atlanta) so we’ll see if he comes to the back of the plane and talks to us. We always want that, even if it’s off the record.

Jess: Meanwhile, I’ll keep eyes and ears on members in Congress. Most of the spotlight will be on the House for a while longer, but Senate Republicans will be worth listening to as well, especially since it looks like this is headed to trial at some point.

Peter: Let us know what happens, Linda. 

Linda: I’ll bring back some presidential M&M’s. 

For all of our impeachment coverage, check out and bookmark csmonitor.com/impeachment.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

And now, the “machine” strikes back – with a warm embrace.

Lebanese activists whose anti-corruption protests led Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his government to resign are confronting the reality that they are facing down more than just a government, but an entrenched political class that is refusing to give an inch.

Even as the young protesters united across sectarian lines to demand a strengthened judiciary and government accountability and transparency, so too are Lebanon’s political elites closing ranks in the face of the popular will, going to any length to prevent such reforms from taking place.

It’s testing the resilience of the economic recession-fueled movement, which is calling for an end to a sectarian system that has allowed political leaders to mismanage services with impunity while awarding themselves billions in government contracts.

After floundering for days when the nationwide protests took them by surprise on Oct. 17, Lebanon’s political leaders are trying every tack: dismissal, condemnation, intimidation, violence, and division. 

But even the tried-and-true accusations of a “Zionist plot” or a U.S.-backed conspiracy have failed to stick.

Now, with the resignation of Mr. Hariri last week, leaders of the various sectarian political groups are trying to co-opt the protest movement, embracing demonstrators in a bid to regain supporters while heading off discussions of deeper structural reforms.

After a week of rising violence in which he blamed foreign powers for the protests and warned of “chaos” if the government resigned, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared in a televised speech on Friday urging that “the new government must listen to the demands of the people who took to the streets.”

“There must be serious work, because time is tight and so is people’s patience,” Mr. Nasrallah said.

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, whose Shiite party Amal joined in the physical assaults on protesters, said he now supported a “techno-political” cabinet that “represents the protest movement.”

In a televised address Friday, President Michel Aoun, a Christian ally of Hezbollah, called sectarianism a “destructive disease,” adding that “ministers should be chosen according to their competencies and expertise, not political loyalties.”

And, trying to riff on protesters’ trademark chant demanding government resignations of “all of them, means all of them,” the aging President Aoun proclaimed Sunday: “I love every one of you; and ‘I love all of you,’ means all of you.”

Even Mr. Hariri is reportedly waiting in the wings for a return to government and is trying to rebrand himself as a reformer who took a stand by stepping down.

The deeper crisis

But despite the verbal concessions there has been little talk of what ignited the protests: the abuse of state funds and the political leaders’ power to enrich themselves and leave citizens dependent on mafia-like patronage networks that encompass government contracts and public employment.

“The Lebanese political class refuses to acknowledge that this is not only an economic crisis, but a deep crisis at the heart of the Lebanese political system,” says Makram Rabah, a Lebanese analyst and lecturer at the American University of Beirut.

“They simply do not want a technocratic government or an independent judiciary because they do not want to give up control of the judiciary or bureaucracy,” says Dr. Rabah. “But the main reason protesters are in the streets is the fact that we don’t have a separation of powers, and more importantly, we don’t have accountability.”

Instead, leaders are retreating to their sectarian audiences to claim that they are reformers being obstructed by the other political groups and, implicitly, sects.

“These leaders are saying ‘I am trying to reform the system, but my partners are stopping me,’ without saying who their partners are and what reforms they are proposing,” says Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at American University of Beirut.

“Everyone is trying to depict themselves as a reformer fighting against a corrupt political system, but in reality they are just protecting each other’s backs.”

Ali Hashisho/Reuters

People watch Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaking on television inside a coffee shop in the port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Oct. 25, 2019. Hezbollah sees protesters’ demands – particularly a nonsectarian technocrat government and separation of powers – as a direct threat.

Hezbollah

The most influential player in Lebanese politics is the one with the most to lose, Hezbollah.

The Shiite paramilitary-political group dominates the Lebanese government with its coalition of Shiite and Christian allies holding a majority in parliament and key cabinet portfolios and its close Christian ally, Mr. Aoun, serving as president.

Analysts say Hezbollah sees protesters’ demands – particularly a nonsectarian technocrat government and a separation of powers – as a direct threat.

Greater independence for government institutions could threaten the group’s supply of materials, weapons, and funds from Iran that enable it to retain military superiority in Lebanon and act as an Iranian security pressure point against Israel.

Any change to monetary policy, such as floating the Lebanese pound or adjusting the peg to the U.S. dollar to curb rising inflation on local markets, would immediately hit Hezbollah’s coffers. Various U.S. sanctions and restrictions on global financial institutions have made the group heavily reliant on the Lebanese currency.

Hezbollah itself has alleged that the protests were a conspiracy to “undermine” and “disarm” the movement, which has fought a war with Israel and most recently was instrumental in propping up the Assad government in Syria. Its military power surpasses even that of the Lebanese Army.

Last week, Hezbollah showed how far it would go when it launched a campaign of violence and intimidation on its own constituents in southern Lebanon before sending its enforcers to break up protest camps in the heart of Beirut and assault unarmed women.

Analysts say this threat of violence is not meant to tip Lebanon into civil strife, but is a tactic meant to intimidate protesters and push them to consolidate back to their sectarian lines, where they are divided and dependent on political elites.

Sectarian “machine”

But what makes Hezbollah even more impervious to pressure is the political mechanism that activists and observers liken to a “wall” or a “machine.”

Even if protesters succeed in pushing for the formation of a technocrat government to enact reforms, observers warn that the new government would be up against an entire system built and fortified as a sectarian patronage network.

“They are calling for a technocrat government, but then that government will have to report to parliament, which is divided along sectarian lines,” says Dr. Khashan. “The government will also have to deal with the bureaucracy and institutions, and the bureaucracy in Lebanon is sectarian to the bone.”

Yet analysts say activists are likely to push on.

“When protesters say ‘all of them, means all of them,’ they actually do understand that these people might stick around, but they are insisting they stick around under new measures and new rules,” says Dr. Rabah, the analyst.

“We cannot import politicians from Mars, but certainly these people must realize that the only way forward is a transition from this current archaic political system to a more modern one that fits the 21st century.”

Albert Cesare/The Cincinnati Enquirer/AP

Sheree Paolello, an anchor at WLWT News, moderates the final Kentucky gubernatorial debate between Republican Gov. Matt Bevin (right) and Democrat Andy Beshear, the state's attorney general, on Oct. 29, 2019, in Highland Heights, Kentucky.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has been called President Donald Trump’s “Mini-Me.” 

A former businessman holding elective office for the first time, the Republican governor is an enthusiastic Twitter user who has refused to release his tax returns. He hates the “fake news” media and has repeatedly come under fire for controversial statements. 

So it’s no surprise that in his fight for reelection, Governor Bevin is clinging tightly to the president – praising him on the trail, featuring him in commercials, and closing his campaign Monday evening with a rally headlined by President Trump himself in Lexington.

Three states will elect governors this year, including Mississippi and Louisiana. But pundits and political analysts have focused primarily on Kentucky, where Mr. Bevin has tried to frame his reelection bid as a referendum on Mr. Trump – and specifically on the impeachment inquiry unfolding in Washington. As such, the race is seen by many as a possible foreshadowing, a signal one year out of what’s to come in 2020.

Yet in northern Kentucky, where the race is expected to be particularly close, many voters shake their heads at this hypothesis. To them, this is just another example of Beltway types making broad assumptions about their political calculations, which are actually more nuanced. 

“Because we have off-year gubernatorial elections, almost every presidential election they’ll look to Kentucky to see if it’s a barometer of what’s to come,” says James Larry Hood, a former adjunct history professor at the University of Kentucky. “It’s never as simple as that.” 

Attorney General Andy Beshear, the Democratic candidate, whose father was Mr. Bevin’s predecessor (and whom Mr. Bevin has given the Trumpian nickname “Lil’ Andy”), held a lead in the polls for months, at one point by a margin of 9 points. Evidence, Democrats say, of voters’ frustrations with Mr. Bevin’s – and Mr. Trump’s – caustic leadership style.

But the polls have tightened dramatically in recent weeks. An independent survey in mid-October showed Mr. Bevin and Mr. Beshear exactly tied, with 46% support. Evidence, Republicans say, of voters’ unhappiness with the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into the president. 

Some voters in northern Kentucky do say they support Mr. Bevin because he has been such a staunch defender of the president. But others – including many who proudly support Mr. Trump – say they dislike the governor because of his record in office, from which the commander in chief can’t save him.

“They both have that abrasive, egotistical attitude – but the difference is action,” says Virgil Clem, who works in finance in Independence, Kentucky, and is shopping for a new headlight for his daughter’s car at a Walmart in Fort Wright. “I can’t name three things Bevin has done for the state, but I can name a billion things Trump has done for our country.” 

National vs. local concerns 

Although Mr. Clem is a registered Republican, he says he’s doing some research on Mr. Beshear. Still, he doesn’t think he can bring himself to vote for a Democrat, and says he’ll probably just write in a candidate on Tuesday.

“I wouldn’t vote for Bevin if he was the last guy on the planet,” he says. “I don’t feel like he has the state’s best interests in mind.”

Mr. Bevin, a product of the tea party movement who once mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has achieved a number of GOP priorities since taking office, including new abortion restrictions and a right-to-work law. But many voters, including Republicans, criticize the governor for disparaging comments he made about teachers and other public servants. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Abby Marsh waits to enter the debate on her Northern Kentucky University campus in a bright yellow T-shirt she made the weekend before that reads, "Anyone but Bevin." A middle grades education pre-major from Georgetown, Kentucky, Ms. Marsh says she has participated in teacher protests over the past two years against Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin.

In April 2018, Mr. Bevin signed a bill altering Kentucky’s public employee pension system, which is the worst-funded in the country. Teachers protested by calling in sick, which Mr. Bevin called “remarkably selfish and shortsighted,” and evidence of a “thug mentality.” Eventually the legislation was overturned after a suit led by Attorney General Beshear, but the back-and-forth on the issue has continued. Earlier this year, Mr. Bevin blamed several tragedies on the teachers strike, including the shooting death of a child.

Kentuckians say they have a particular allegiance to teachers – in such a rural state, everyone knows their town’s educators, and public education is one of Kentucky’s largest employers. In that sense, Mr. Bevin may have picked the wrong industry to fight with. This fall, Morning Consult ranked Mr. Bevin as the country’s second most unpopular governor, with an approval rating of 36%. 

In response to this backlash, in a state Mr. Trump won with almost 63% of the vote, it’s not surprising that Mr. Bevin has shaped his reelection as a test of loyalty to the president. In debates, as well as in a press conference in front of the state Capitol, Mr. Bevin has urged Mr. Beshear to voice his opinion on impeachment – a call Mr. Beshear has resisted.

“This race isn’t about the White House,” Mr. Beshear insisted in a debate in mid-October. “It’s about what’s going on in your house.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by many voters here, who point out that governors have little to do with what’s going on in Washington, and say they want solutions on local issues. The fifth and final gubernatorial debate at Northern Kentucky University last week featured questions about replacing the Brent Spence Bridge that connects Covington, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio; gambling; and the region’s drug epidemic. Impeachment did not come up.

A smattering of lawn signs

For all the national interest in the race, plenty of voters say they don’t have an opinion about the governor’s race. Some say they’ll vote Republican or Democratic because they always do. Some look surprised to hear there is an election Tuesday. Driving across northern Kentucky, real estate and anti-abortion lawn signs vastly outnumber signs for Mr. Bevin or Mr. Beshear.

Pumping gas at a United Dairy Farmers convenience store, Donna Collins, a nurse from Alexandria, Kentucky, says she hasn’t thought much about the race. “People are looking at Bevin badly because of the whole teacher thing,” she says. Still, she thinks he might win, because “people go with what they hear, and we’ve been hearing his name a lot.”

Abby Marsh waits to enter the debate on her Northern Kentucky University campus in a bright yellow T-shirt she made the previous weekend that reads, “Anyone but Bevin.” A middle grades education pre-major from Georgetown, Kentucky, Ms. Marsh says she has participated in teacher protests against the governor over the past two years. She doesn’t think Mr. Bevin will be reelected Tuesday. 

“I have so much family who are Republicans, like my parents,” says Ms. Marsh. “And they can’t stand him.”

She says her parents plan to attend Mr. Trump’s rally on Monday evening because they love Mr. Trump, not because they support Mr. Bevin.

Based on the governor’s two primary elections, he is not Kentucky Republicans’ overwhelming first choice for the job. In 2015, Mr. Bevin won the GOP nomination by only 83 votes. This year, the incumbent governor faced a competitive primary, in which state Rep. Robert Goforth won almost 40% of the vote. 

William Woods, a northern Kentucky native and licensed real estate agent who came in a distant third in this year’s Republican primary, recently endorsed the Democratic candidate, Mr. Beshear.  

“This endorsement is not political,” says Mr. Woods, outside the debate hall at Northern Kentucky University. “It’s about honesty and transparency.”

Just then, Mr. Bevin emerges from a black SUV and begins shaking hands with a small group of 10 or so supporters, one of whom is wearing a MAGA hat. “Four more years,” they chant. 

“This election is not about the president or the White House,” says Mr. Woods. “The only connection I see is that Bevin could not win without Trump.” 

Note: An earlier version of this story misstated the date of Louisiana's gubernatorial election. It is November 16th. 

In August 2003, France baked. A record-breaking heat wave swept the country for two weeks, pushing the thermometer up to 111.4 degrees Fahrenheit. And when the temperature began to drop the French suffered another shock.

More than 15,000 people – mostly old people, and often lonely old people – had died because of the unusual heat, they discovered. The country was mortified.

This year, summer struck with a vengeance again; temperatures reached a national record of 114.8 F. But this time the death toll did not exceed 1,462, according to just-released official figures.

“Thanks to preventive measures and warning messages that the public took on board, we have succeeded in reducing 2003’s mortality rate tenfold,” French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn said.

Key to that achievement was the National Heat Wave Plan that the government drew up in 2004 – a top to bottom nationwide action plan setting out who should do what when temperatures reach certain levels.

“There used to not be any organized coordination” when heat waves arrived, recalls Mathilde Pascal, a researcher with the French Public Health Agency. Now everyone from the prime minister to the village mayor has his or her duties spelled out.

Another problem in 2003, says Ms. Pascal, was the that the Health Ministry’s press release warning about the heat wave did not really get through to people. “The idea that summer heat could actually be dangerous struck people as a bit ridiculous,” she says.

Not so today. This year the government unleashed a flood of leaflets, posters, radio and TV spots, and internet advertisements warning people about the heat wave and advising them how to cope with its effects. “People take these warnings seriously now,” says Ms. Pascal.

And when they don’t, cabinet ministers go on TV to tell them off. Ms. Buzyn reprimanded “irresponsible” runners who continued to go jogging at noon and parents “who leave their kids in the car when they nip into a shop.”

“So long as we see risky behavior ... we will keep on plugging the message,” she told a France 2 TV interviewer in June.

The heat wave plan, which has been refined over the past 15 years, is built on careful forecasting by the national meteorological service and widespread diffusion of those forecasts so the public and officialdom can prepare for any unusually hot weather.

The plan sets four levels of preparedness, from keeping a special eye out between June 1 and Sept. 15 up to “maximum mobilization” declared by the prime minister. At each stage the apparatus of the state, ranging from the national government to local pharmacies and mayors, swings into action.

A major thrust concerns publicity. This year marked the first time the authorities declared a top-level “red alert” and the first priority, explains Ms. Pascal, “was to remind people of the simple commonsense steps that they might not always follow” such as drinking at least a liter of water a day, eating normally, and avoiding outdoor exercise.

Regis Duvignau/Reuters

An elderly woman is given ice cream at a retirement home in Le Bouscat, France, June 25, 2019, amid record high temperatures across the country.

The authorities also took special measures in special circumstances. Homes for older people were required to provide a “cool room” for their residents – either air conditioned or shaded and facing north. School outings and sporting events were canceled. The Paris metro system asked commuters to travel only if absolutely necessary because its cooling system was overloaded. A nationwide high school entrance exam was postponed. Government departments and private firms allowed more people to work from home. City authorities tried watering the streets, though that had only a limited impact.

In 2003, the death toll was especially high among isolated old people; every town hall in the country is now obliged to keep a register of its senior citizens so that health workers or volunteers can check up on them by phone or in person.

Events in 2003 also revealed that health workers were generally unfamiliar with heat stroke, a potentially fatal condition. In those days, first aid providers were unsure both of the symptoms and the necessary care. Since then, says Ms. Pascal, “we have made a lot of progress in training health workers about this.”

Now, she says, with heat waves increasingly common and increasingly severe, the authorities are turning their attention from immediate health care tasks toward more structural approaches to keeping cool. Individuals can do much to protect themselves from heat waves, Ms. Pascal points out. But the phenomenon has now become widespread and poses wider questions.

French playgrounds, for example, are being given makeovers so as to tear up tarmac and replace it with less heat absorbent materials, or just to plant more greenery. New construction regulations make better insulation mandatory. With this year’s heat wave starting in June, schools are considering how far into summer their classes should last.

“These are new issues,” says Ms. Pascal. “We have to cope with them.”

For devotees of the puppetry arts, there is no season like autumn. Halloween skeletons dance in front yards. Full-bodied costumed mascots cheer their football teams. Giant effigies tower over parades and protest marches.

Each one is part of a tradition that stretches back for millennia with roots in ancient Greece, Egypt, India, and China. Even the floating balloons of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, dubbed “upside-down marionettes” by their 1927 inventor, New York puppeteer Tony Sarg, are part of an art form UNESCO has designated as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” 

Watching something inanimate become animate in a live setting is alluring, say puppetry experts. And it suggests why this three-dimensional entertainment is surviving in a world smitten with flat digital surfaces. One sign of the craft’s ongoing appeal: the delight on display recently in the small French village of Charleville-Mézières, which hosts the biennial Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes, attracting around 100,000 attendees. 

“People mistakenly assume puppetry is only for children. That is a prejudice,” says Philippe Choulet, a Strasbourg-based philosopher and art historian, and moderator of the festival’s Philosophy Café, where attendees gather to discuss ideas. “With puppetry, one finds elements of music, video, acting, singing, mechanical craftsmanship, scenic construction, folkloric references, and political commentary. It is a total art, like opera.”

Megan Kelly/Courtesy of Yannick Dufour

In “The Alchemy of Words” a puppeteer, a filmmaker, and a musician explore the narrative of Arthur Rimbaud, an influential French poet.

In September, visitors to the international festival packed 40 venues around the city to capacity. Museums and libraries also mounted exhibitions of beautifully crafted marionettes used by notable performers from previous decades. It is the kind of teeming display envisioned by French puppeteer Jacques Félix, who launched the festival in 1961.

Yoda and beyond

Those who follow the art form’s popularity say it is in the midst of a 40-year renaissance, tracing interest back to the first “Star Wars” movies in the 1970s and 1980s. “George Lucas’ work is often described in terms of CGI and special effects. But his team, especially Yoda’s [co-creator] Frank Oz, really advanced the reach of puppetry, too,” says festivalgoer Colette Searls, associate professor in the theater department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

A new generation became puppet fans through the work of Muppets creator Jim Henson, adds Blair Thomas, founder and artistic director of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. The late Mr. Henson, who conducted a rare master class in puppetry at the nearby Institut International de la Marionnette (IIM), was honored with a photographic retrospective at the festival. Mr. Thomas notes that the 1997 production of Julie Taymor’s Balinese-inspired “Lion King” was a watershed moment, generating great public interest in other styles of puppetry. “Critics saw the richness in Taymor’s use of masks, shadow, and rod puppets,” he says. That eclectic tradition “continues with Broadway shows like ‘War Horse’ and ‘King Kong.’”

The use of puppets in storytelling introduces a different quality to dramatic performance. “Unlike traditional theater, puppetry is not text-driven,” Professor Searls says. “Instead, puppetry makes an impact through pacing and visual images” that appeal directly to our subconscious.

As for influences propelling the art form today, Professor Searls and Mr. Thomas both refer to an observation by Claudia Orenstein, co-editor of “The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance.” Her idea, they say, is that interactions with smart, hand-held devices have created pushback by audiences craving the unexpected spark of autonomy in otherwise familiar objects. 

“The material quality of puppets has an immediacy that is not dependent on technology,” says Mr. Thomas. “It’s happening right in front of you. You see a well-manipulated puppet that you know is not alive. Yet, irrationally, it appears to be. That contradiction creates a tension in our mind that’s exhilarating.”

In France, a showcase

At the festival, touring companies from 28 countries presented shows with themes that included environmental destruction, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and technological progress. The approaches often blended the traditional and the modern. 

“Gimme Shelter,” a meditation on human need and fragility designed and directed by Violaine Fimbel with her Yokï Company, is set in an abandoned amusement park. Half the audience is inside a small room decorated with electric fuses, garbage, and animatronic toy animals placed around an actor who resembles a refugee or homeless person. Outside, the remaining spectators sit on carnival rides watching human-sized toys move about the post-apocalyptic landscape, creating an unsettling dreamscape of warning. 

Basil Twist, a New York-based puppeteer and a festival lifetime achievement honoree this year, reprised his Japanese-inspired production, “Dogugaeshi.” The show, commissioned in 2003, features a nested series of telescoping shoji screens to create an illusionary depth of field, incorporating a mesmerizing dance of shadows, patterns, images, and video feeds. It also includes a live musical performance and one magical, long-whiskered white fox whose dancing face floats between the multipatterned scrims.

Petra Hellberg/Courtesy of Yannick Dufour

"Paper," directed by Bernard Cauchard, features the manipulation of paper to create characters that tell “a wordless tale of life."

“Ambergris,” a humorous romp following Pinocchio through the belly of a whale in search of a scent-making ingredient useful for perfume, offers more lighthearted fare. The puppets, including a whale, Captain Ahab, and a giant nose, cavort around a giant musical calliope whose inner workings reveal Pinocchio’s path through the whale’s digestive system.     

What unifies these disparate performance styles, says Raphaèle Fleury, manager of the research center at IIM, “is a certain way of playing with space and materials that gives life to the inanimate, driving the audience to feel something vivid and present.”

A throng of children crowding around Scotland’s Bernie Wilson, the Punk Puppeteer, demonstrates this notion. Mr. Wilson is camouflaged within a backpack worn by his banjo-playing puppet. Repeatedly, the children draw close, staring into the puppet’s face. Suddenly it moves and they scatter, screaming. After a moment, they return to surround Mr. Wilson again. 

“Puppets operate on the periphery of every dominant culture,” says Mr. Thomas. “They operate by their own logic, outside of human rules. That’s a type of freedom, giving the form a timeless strength.”

Reuters

South Africa's Siya Kolisi celebrates with the Webb Ellis trophy after he and his national rugby team won the World Cup Final Nov. 2, 2019, in Japan.

One of the world’s most unequal countries, South Africa, did not feel so unequal on Saturday. Its national rugby team, the Springboks, won the World Cup with its first black captain and a team that is the most racially representative ever seen. A self-doubting nation was suddenly elevated to gratitude for a quarter century of progress since the end of white-rule apartheid.

The sheer athleticism of the team’s victory was itself praiseworthy. So is the fact that the South African squad was chosen on merit, not skin color, after a long history of rugby being only for the white minority. This created a rare moment of unity. “After generations of division, we have become a people with a great sense of national pride,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa, who watched the game in Japan.

He added that South Africans often fail to appreciate how far they have come toward the goal of creating a society of inclusion and opportunity. Gratitude is an essential force multiplier for any nation, especially in moments of inspiring triumphs likes the Springboks’ victory.

For South Africa, a seed of hope for interracial progress was planted in 1995, a year after the country’s first free election and a time when only one member of the Springboks was black. That year President Nelson Mandela made a symbolic gesture of reconciliation by handing the men’s international rugby trophy to captain Francois Pienaar after the team won the World Cup. The event was made famous in the film “Invictus.”

The hope back then has turned into reality for the current captain, Siya Kolisi. According to his coach, Rassie Erasmus,“There was a time when Siya didn’t have food to eat.”  But under a post-apartheid democracy, he was able to rise from extreme poverty to fulfill a dream in sports. And beyond the integrated team he plays on, he is also married to a white woman.

Mr. Kolisi is the change South Africa seeks. Yet in the Springboks’ victory, he pointed to a lesson for himself, his teammates, and all South Africans: “We can achieve anything if we work together as one.”

South Africa still struggles to make room for individual excellence and nonracial teamwork to become the “rainbow nation” it wants to be. “There is much more that we need to do to make this a country where the black child and the white child can attain the heights they always dream of,” said President Ramaphosa.

Yet the country has not only broken a color line for black advancement but also achieved a mental breakthrough. The Springboks’ success, according to their captain, was rooted in a team desire to inspire even the poorest South African to “come and see us play.” Like Mr. Kolisi himself, the lowest in South Africa was lifted up high in Saturday’s sweet victory.