Patrick Semansky/AP/File

Donald Trump (left) and Joe Biden gesture during a presidential debate Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Unflattering portraits of both President Biden and former President Trump emerged in a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

It’s the rematch many Americans say they don’t want but feel powerless to prevent.

With just two primary contests held so far, the 2024 presidential campaign appears to be inexorably heading toward another Biden-Trump election, despite the public’s lack of enthusiasm for such a matchup. Or in some cases, outright dread. 

“We had the 2016 face-off; we kind of survived it. Then we got through a Biden administration. ... And now we’re facing down having to decide between these two ill-fitted people again?” asks Abe Ott, a rancher in Durango, Colorado, who didn’t vote in 2016 and cast his ballot for President Joe Biden in 2020. “It’s hard to stomach. It’s like, didn’t we already do this?”

Large numbers of voters like Mr. Ott have repeatedly, emphatically told pollsters that they would prefer some fresh faces on the ticket. In a December survey, a majority of voters said they would be “dissatisfied” with both President Biden and former President Donald Trump as nominees. Just last week, another poll showed almost 2 in 3 voters agreeing that the United States “needs another choice” besides Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden.

Yet already, the nominating contests appear to be all but over. President Biden, who has only faced minor opposition, handily won last week’s unsanctioned New Hampshire Democratic primary, where he wasn’t even on the ballot, and is poised to dominate in the first official Democratic primary in South Carolina this Saturday. And after former President Trump swept both Iowa and New Hampshire, nearly all his opponents, except for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, dropped out of the race and endorsed him. He’s set to win the upcoming Nevada caucuses, where Ms. Haley isn’t even competing, and he holds a commanding lead in her native South Carolina, where Republicans will vote Feb. 24.

“I honestly thought people had smartened up about Trump,” says Patrice Noble, a real estate agent in Polk City, Iowa, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 before caucusing this year for Ms. Haley. “It blows my mind, honestly. I can’t believe it.”  

The situation can be blamed on a number of factors, from a primary process that elevates the preferences of a tiny slice of base voters to the fact that this campaign features the rare combination of both an incumbent president and a “pseudo-incumbent” who has led his supporters to believe he actually won the last election. At the same time, perhaps it’s not surprising that in an era of negative polarization – when voters increasingly say they’re voting against the other side rather than in favor of their own – two candidates with such low favorability ratings are on track to become the major-party nominees.

Randall Hill/Reuters

A supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump rides a motorcycle in Conway, South Carolina, Jan. 28, 2024. Although supported by their respective party base, both Mr. Trump and President Joe Biden have low favorability ratings overall from U.S. voters, heading into a likely election rematch.

A big piece of the story here is America’s two-party system, says Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. He notes that it’s rare among democracies to have just two competitive parties, forcing voters into a binary choice.

Still, he adds, some of the fault ultimately lies with the voters themselves. “It’s not inevitable that our system selects candidates, and voters have to pick between the worst of two evils,” says Professor Grossmann. “Voters are not blameless. ... It’s been clear for a long time that enough Republican voters want Donald Trump to be renominated.”

Indeed, there are definitely voters in both parties who strongly support their leading candidate. The fact that President Biden was able to win resoundingly in New Hampshire as a write-in candidate points to a certain degree of commitment from his backers. Likewise, 61% of those casting ballots in New Hampshire’s GOP primary said they’d be “satisfied” if Mr. Trump won the nomination, according to exit polls.

Many others, however, feel the process has let them down – and that it’s become too hard for less-well-known candidates to gain traction or have a realistic shot at winning.

“A Biden-Trump [rematch] shows that something is out of whack with our system, because we have two candidates who have pretty serious issues,” says Scott Hansen, a technology lawyer from Irvine, California. “I mean, this is our choice?” 

Already, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have transitioned to general-election messaging – a far earlier pivot than what typically occurs, setting up a marathon one-on-one battle that may wind up being the longest ever. In separate events this past weekend, the two men frequently referenced one another and emphasized the stakes if the other candidate were to win. 

To be sure, Ms. Haley is still campaigning and says she is in the race for the long haul. One of her main arguments on the stump is that the country needs a younger leader who’s at the top of their game, rather than a choice between two men who are in or approaching their 80s. 

Yet with the former United Nations ambassador running a distant second in every upcoming GOP primary contest, many have concluded that she has no plausible path to the nomination. Leading Republicans have been urging their party to close ranks around Mr. Trump. 

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, who had previously remained neutral, recently said it’s time to “unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump.”

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A man carries signs in support of President Joe Biden at Day Dawn Baptist church in Pineville, South Carolina, Jan. 31, 2024. Only 4% of Republicans have a favorable view of the Democratic presidential candidate, according to a recent Gallup survey, and only 6% of Democrats have a favorable view of Republican former President Donald Trump.

On the Democratic side, political professionals are also eager to begin the official general election campaign.

“I’m glad the primary is over,” says Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked for the Biden campaign in 2020. “When you have a clear contest between Trump and Biden – and everyone can stop asking themselves, ‘Is someone else going to run? Is someone else going to run?’ – you have a place where Biden can emerge as the leader.”

Still, there are risks in selecting nominees who don’t excite most voters. One is that many Americans will simply tune out the campaign and decline to vote. Although the 2020 general election had the highest rate of voter turnout since 1960, all three previous “rematch” elections in U.S. history recorded lower turnout the second time around.

There also could be a stronger-than-usual third-party vote. More than half of all voters in one recent poll said they would consider backing an “independent moderate candidate” if confronted with a Biden-Trump rematch. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who comes from one of the Democratic Party’s most famous families but is running for president as an independent, is garnering between 8% and 12% of the vote in polls. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who’s not running for Senate reelection, has hinted at a possible independent presidential run.

Given the narrow margins in several battleground states last time around, even a small third-party vote could prove consequential.

“If it comes down to Biden-Trump, I just won’t vote, or I’ll vote third party,” says Anna Noble, Patrice Noble’s daughter. A high school senior who plans to attend Iowa State University in the fall, Ms. Noble caucused for Ms. Haley alongside her mother and was disappointed when Mr. Trump won her caucus site. She’s not a fan of Mr. Biden, either.

“Trump is just in it for himself, and I don’t think Biden is capable,” she says. “It just makes me way less enthusiastic.”

For now, some voters say they’re clinging to hope that something, anything, will happen to shake things up before November. Didn’t Mr. Biden promise to be a “bridge” candidate last time around? What if he surprises everyone and decides to step down? Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is facing 91 indictments across four criminal cases. What if he’s convicted? Maybe someone else will have to step in. 

Mr. Ott, the Colorado rancher, says he would consider voting for a third-party candidate if one actually seemed viable. But more likely, he predicts, he’ll hold his nose and vote for Mr. Biden to oppose another Trump presidency. “I feel more of a sense of resignation than hope,” he says. 

The events of Oct. 7 are imprinted on Salih’s body and mind.

As he sits outside his former training base in central Israel on a crisp mid-January day, the 20-year-old Israeli Druze soldier recounts carefully the day his unit was deployed to repel a surprise Hamas attack.

That day saw Hamas militants kill 1,200 people, mostly civilians, as they rampaged through southern Israeli towns and kibbutzim, igniting the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The day ended with Salih being seriously wounded in combat. He refuses to discuss certain details. But a single glance from his distant eyes offers a glimpse into the death he saw.

Hamas “did not differentiate between Jewish or Druze, Muslim, Bedouin, or Christian; young or old; men, women, children,” Salih recounts, as if still processing the violence. “They didn’t care.

“This was something monstrous, barbaric, against human nature,” he says. “Go to the root definition of ‘terrorism,’ and all of its derivatives, and they all align in this organization.”

For Israeli Druze, the Israel-Hamas war is becoming increasingly personal.

Members of the Arab religious minority, who for decades have served in Israel’s security services, say the graphic Oct. 7 attack and ensuing war have been a turning point in Druze-Jewish relations, with the shared threat and an outpouring of support binding the two communities like never before.

Still on medical leave, Salih, who asked not to use his full name for security reasons, says he’s itching to get back into the fight to protect his 16-year-old sister, mother, and neighbors.

“Each one of us is defending where they live and their family. I am defending myself and my loved ones,” he says. Oct. 7 ingrained in him, and in Druze across Israel, that “terrorism takes away the people you love.”

“We must stop terrorism,” he says, clenching his jaw. “Where there is terrorism, there can be no humanity.”

Taylor Luck

Israeli Druze artist Sam Halabi sits in his family home, which is converted into a studio and paint-drenched exhibit, in Daliyat al-Karmel, in northern Israel, Jan. 16, 2024. “Hamas is ISIS,” he says. “They are terrorists who butchered innocent people.”

An emphasis on duty

The Druze, a religious minority found across the Levant, number some 149,000 in Israel, less than 2% of the population. Much of the adult population – men and women – serve in the army, security services, or government agencies. Serving the state in which Druze live is both a civic duty and a tenet of their faith.

Druze civilians are now stepping up to support Israeli Jewish and Bedouin friends and colleagues affected by the attack. Artist Sam Halabi installed a mural in central Tel Aviv commemorating hostages held by Hamas.

“Hamas is ISIS,” he says from his studio in Daliyat al-Karmel, his anger simmering. “They are terrorists who butchered innocent people. Hamas is a cancer. We cannot live in peace and security until this cancer is removed.” 

Israeli Druze believe the Islamist Hamas sees them as both “infidels” for their religious beliefs – the monotheists believe in prophets that came after the Prophet Muhammad and in reincarnation – and “traitors” for serving in the Israeli army.

“We know Hamas hates us specifically,” says shopkeeper Abu Hamad. “As Arabs who support Israel, we are doubly targeted.”

Since 1952, Druze men, like Jews, have been drafted into military service. Yet the equality they felt there didn’t always translate to life outside the army.

Druze communities in northern Israel have longstanding grievances against the state, chief of which is that much of their land is registered as “agricultural,” preventing them from acquiring building permits for homes for their children and grandchildren and from expanding their villages.

Others point to discrepancies in budgets their communities receive in comparison with predominately Jewish towns of similar size. Tensions with the government increased with the rise of the Jewish far-right. They came to a head in 2018 when a previous Benjamin Netanyahu-led government pushed through the nation-state law, which stated, “The right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.”

Druze lawmakers failed to challenge the legislation in court as discriminatory, and many today still describe it as a “stab in the back” to non-Jewish Israelis.

Taylor Luck

Zahee Mansour (right) and his wife, Raja, stand at the Druze Cultural Heritage Center they run in the village of Isfiya, in northern Israel, Jan. 16, 2024. Israeli Druze and Jews “have a closer understanding of one another, a better appreciation of one another,” Mr. Mansour says.

Yet today, these tensions – which sparked riots as recently as July – seem a distant memory, minor compared with the existential conflict that Druze and Jews say they face together. 

“Any difference or gap between Druze and Jews ... completely disappeared after Oct. 7,” says Zahee Mansour, who along with his wife, Raja, runs the Druze Cultural Heritage Center in the Mt. Carmel village of Isfiya, next to Daliyat al-Karmel. “We have a closer understanding of one another, a better appreciation of one another.”

Aid to Druze communities

Helping smooth relations was an Israeli government announcement Jan. 7 of 12.5 million shekels ($3.41 million) to “strengthen the resilience” of Druze and Circassian communities in northern Israel, and of a five-year plan to develop their communities devised in meetings with Druze leaders and politicians.

In leafy Daliyat al-Karmel, the largest Druze town in Israel, Israeli and multicolor striped Druze flags hang side by side from shops and restaurants, and atop the municipality.

With several thousand Druze men serving in the war in Gaza, the impact of the conflict is being felt in these tightly knit communities across Israel.

Salih, the wounded soldier, says he feels an “absence” in his home village outside Haifa. His cousin Salman is fighting in Gaza, so, too, are neighbors and friends.

“I worry about them because Gaza is dangerous,” he says.

In Beit Jann, near the Israel-Lebanon border, Adi Malik Harb’s photo hangs from buildings and in shop windows across the mountaintop village of 13,000 people.

If you stop anyone in the street, they will eagerly tell you a story about the 20-year-old, who was killed in action Nov. 17 in Gaza.

Yet even amid such loss, members of the Druze community say they still hold out for peace.

“We can be a bridge between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We know both communities and understand the cultures and languages,” says Beit Jann Mayor Radi Najm, glancing at hand-sketched portraits of Mr. Harb on his office shelf. “The Druze community can be a bridge for peace.”

Um Rami, a Daliyat al-Karmel cafe owner, shakes her head as she scans the news on her phone.

“We need more humanity and empathy on all sides,” she says. “It was inhumane to see Hamas cart off young children and elderly in cages like animals, and it is inhumane to see children crushed in missile strikes in Gaza. We don’t want any more civilian deaths, no matter if they are Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, or Druze.

“Human life must be protected no matter what,” she says. “That is our spiritual belief and our national duty.”

Courtesy of Varangtip Satchatippavarn

Thai entrepreneur Varangtip Satchatippavarn, founder of a period pad brand, has campaigned to make period pads free and accessible for all Thai women.

Since founding her own brand of period pads and liners in 2020, Thai entrepreneur Varangtip Satchatippavarn has given away thousands of products to those in need, including to a low-income community hit by a fire in Bangkok and Myanmar refugees along Thailand’s northern border.

“Public help under these situations often comes in the form of food or clothing, but hardly anybody thinks about period pads,” she says. 

Ms. Varangtip is part of a movement in Thailand aiming to address the lack of access to menstrual products and education, a public health problem known as “period poverty.”

As more countries experiment with providing free menstrual products, period poverty remains an under-addressed issue in Thailand, where many members of low-income communities consider necessities like pads a luxury. Stigma around periods has limited research on the impact of period poverty, and national policies seeking to improve access to menstrual products have foundered. But successful local projects, such as the targeted distribution of free pads in Bangkok schools, prove that eradicating period poverty can be “economically viable,” says Ms. Varangtip.

“Thailand’s health welfare includes free condoms and birth control pills. I’m sure providing free period pads can be done,” she says.

Addressing needs

Think Forward Center, a think tank backed by political party Move Forward, says that throughout the estimated 40 years that a woman has her period, she could spend as much as 84,000 baht ($2,400) on menstrual products. That’s a heavy burden in a country where the minimum wage is about $10 a day.

The group proposes the government eradicate the 7% value-added tax on all female hygiene products, and subsidize them instead. Other countries have gone even further: In 2020, Scotland provided free tampons and sanitary pads for everyone, followed by New Zealand, which started the giveaways in all schools in 2021.

Although many parties and women’s rights groups spoke out about period poverty ahead of Thailand’s 2023 election, there’s been little progress since, in part because of pervasive taboos around menstruation in the Buddhist-majority country. 

Locally, however, there has been some action. Last year, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration started providing free period pads to teen and preteen students in seven schools across the capital, becoming the first public organization to do so. The BMA distributed more than 220,000 period pads to 1,885 students in the first few months, and it aims to expand the program to cover as many as 28,000 students across dozens of schools in the future.

Jitsiree Thongnoi

Students at Wat Phai Ngoen Chotinaram elementary school in Bangkok, shown Nov. 21, 2023, were among the first eligible young teens to receive free period pads as part of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s program.

Wat Phai Ngoen Chotinaram elementary school, which lies just a short walk from a low-income community where many students live, now provides young girls 15 period pads a month. 

“The program helps a lot because some students with financial constraints previously had to wear one period pad for the whole day, with the help of tissue paper to prevent from soaking, which is unhygienic,” says school principal Saipin Lomphong. “Now parents don’t have to pay more stipend for children to buy period pads anymore.”

Kwankhao, an 11-year-old student who asked to withhold her last name for privacy, says her family gives her a daily allowance of 60 baht, or $1.70. She used to spend 80 baht on pads, but now she joins dozens of other girls who go to the school’s meeting hall each month to receive period pads for free.

There, teachers have a chance to check in and advise students on how to treat period cramps and properly dispose of used pads. Teachers also encourage them to share this knowledge with their friends.

“Some friends who don’t have a period yet or don’t live with female relatives … are very curious about periods,” says Kwankhao.

Creating new norms

As part of its period pad program, the BMA has reached out to women’s rights campaigners to talk in schools about menstruation and sex education. Ms. Varangtip was recently invited to talk to 600 female students.

“Questions I got asked included whether they can drink soda or eat spicy dishes, or if they can have a cold shower during their period,” she says. 

“I think male students should attend too,” she adds, “but it’s up to the school.”

Such conversations are needed outside of Bangkok as well. 

Wannakanok Pohitaedaoh, president of the Association for Children and Youth for Peace in the Deep South, works with about 200 low-income communities in Thailand’s southernmost provinces. Her organization sometimes receives donations, but period pads are rare.

“Many families work as laborers in rubber farms or shrimp farms, and are paid just 100 baht a day,” she says. “Youths in the area, as they cannot afford sanitary products, use period pads only at night, and a piece of cloth in the daytime.”

While she would love to see Thailand provide free sanitary products nationwide, Ms. Wannakanok doesn’t see that happening any time soon.

“The country needs someone in the ministerial position to be really sensitive about woman and child issues,” she says.

Ms. Varangtip, whose brand offers promotional rates for offices and schools that provide free period products, hopes that smaller-scale programs will help move the ball forward.

“We aim to create a new norm here,” she says. “Providing sanitary products is an organization’s own welfare and well-being, but sometimes decision-makers are male and don’t see it as a pressing issue. … So we still have a long way to go.”

The moon is cycling through the news ahead of a new chapter in space. The first private mission to touch down on the lunar surface may land as early as February. Separately, NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon within the next few years. 

Rebecca Boyle, a science journalist, urges deeper interrogation into the impulse to return more than 50 years after the last American landing. Controversy surfaced late last year when the Navajo Nation decried a commercial mission for carrying human remains, arguing that such deposits on the moon would desecrate sacred space. (That spacecraft, however, failed midflight.)

Ms. Boyle’s new book, “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are,” traces the closely intertwined relationship among the moon, Earth, and humanity. In an interview with the Monitor, Ms. Boyle explores lunar stewardship, moon mining, and the case for returning people to the pearly satellite. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

We may soon see the first private-mission moon landing. What are your hopes, or concerns, tied to this new era in space? 

I hope that the next lander succeeds. ... I also hope that people are more aware of what is going on up there. I think the issue with the cremated human remains just shows that there wasn’t a lot of awareness around this whole program.

I’ve written about this for years, but I write about it in science magazines. It doesn’t get as much attention, I think, from the mainstream, non-scientific-minded press. And I think it should. It’s the moon! 

What do you see as the most compelling argument for the United States to return humans to the moon, possibly by 2026? 

I think it would be a good thing, overall, for humanity. I think it would be amazing for this country, again, to send people up there. I think there’s always value in exploring, and learning something new, and just trying to transcend our limits as a human species.

I also think there’s a lot of value in being up there for science. ... There’s nothing that can substitute for a human pilot, and a human set of eyes, and human hands picking something up and considering it, and deciding this rock over that one. I think that’s just invaluable when you’re talking about bringing samples home.

Randall Kahn/Penguin Random House

Rebecca Boyle is the author of the new book "Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are."

I really hope we do go back. I think that when we do, we just need to be thoughtful about who we’re doing it for, what we represent. If you think about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong’s plaque on Apollo 11 ... it says, “We came in peace for all mankind.” If you put that in the context of the Cold War, which is when this happened, that’s a really extraordinary thing to have said.

I think that’s how we should consider this whole project going forward: that it’s for everyone. The moon belongs to everyone, which means it belongs to no one. 

How do you think we should care for the moon? 

We need to be thoughtful about what we do to it, the way we hopefully are thoughtful about how we treat this planet. You hear a lot more lately – I think I hear a lot more – the phrase “be a good ancestor.” A lot of this is in the climate movement context of stewarding the Earth and stewarding our natural environment for people who are going to be here after us. 

I think we really need to extend that point of view to the moon. ... There’s a lot of excitement and there’s a lot of interest in making money or creating a new lunar economy of some kind. I think there maybe is less discussion about how that should look, or who should get to have a part in that, or who should get to have a say. 

You wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, “Anything we do to it will last forever.” Are you concerned about physical changes to the moon?

Yeah, I mean, because there is no erasure of anything we put up there or that we do up there. The Apollo landers and the Apollo rovers are still sitting on the lunar surface and have been probably bombarded by micrometeoroids, space dust flying around, definitely bombarded by radiation from the sun and cosmic sources. But they’re not going anywhere. There’s no wind. There’s no rain to wash it away. ... I feel like in this headlong new space race that we’re experiencing, maybe people aren’t being as thoughtful about those things as they could be. 

Who’s responsible for raising these discussions – NASA, the press, other stakeholders? 

All of the above. NASA is a very powerful institution in terms of how people feel about the entire Earth and the entire space environment. I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, I just think there needs to be a broader consideration. ... There’s international bodies that can be more proactive. 

I think NASA’s trying – the new Artemis Accords [are] like a version of a space treaty, essentially. That confirms the existing Outer Space Treaty, which is from 1967, but introduces a few new concepts and ways of working together. ... There’s not like an international body in charge here. There’s really no one in charge. 

How far away are we from mining moon water? 

That’s one of the stated goals of the entire Commercial Lunar Payload Services program and of NASA, generally – they really hope CLPS fosters the development of new companies that will go up there and do stuff like that, and extract things like lunar water.

They’re launching another rover [potentially in late 2024, whose] entire purpose is to look for water, and it’s going to the south pole. That’s where there probably is some level of abundance of water stored in either hydrated minerals or maybe in some sort of deposit under the surface that people could access and, in theory, use – either for human use, but more likely for things like rocket fuel. 

AP

People in Guatemala City celebrate as they watch the inauguration of Bernardo Arevalo as the new president, Jan. 15.

With just a little searching on the internet, it is possible to find scores of current examples of people across Latin America striving to overcome persistent violence and economic hardship. Mayan women raising chickens in Guatemala rather than trekking north to seek jobs in the United States. Mothers of gang members in Honduras mediating peace in their urban barrios. A lone priest in Mexico refusing to be interrupted by armed men while delivering his sermon.

Taken individually, these may seem more anecdotal than noteworthy. At a time when gang violence and organized crime are surging across countries from Mexico to Ecuador, however, such humble measures of community are at the center of a regional debate about peace and governance.

Criminal groups are “a symptom that the social contract is in question,” said Mauro Cerbino, a professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador. He told Civicus, an alliance of civil society groups, that “any effective response will therefore need to ... rebuild the community – through education, art, dialogue and culture – to confer meaning on the lives of so many young people” who feel unvalued and without purpose.

One response that has gained currency among regional leaders is the mass crackdown and incarceration strategy of El Salvador. Since declaring a state of emergency almost two years ago, President Nayib Bukele has virtually eliminated one of the world’s highest homicide rates. Neighboring Honduras is emulating his approach. Ecuador plans a referendum to adopt similar measures.

Mr. Bukele brought peace by locking up 76,000 people – anyone suspected of gang or other criminal activity or association. He is expected to win easy reelection this Sunday, despite changing the constitution to enable him to seek reelection. People say they can take their children to public parks again. Critics say democracy has been trampled. Vice President Félix Ulloa admitted as much on Tuesday but argued that security was the better trade-off for limiting individual rights.

In El Salvador’s other neighbor, Guatemala, a new government is now pursuing a different strategy based in part on countering corruption to restore economic opportunity. The approach is shaped around values that President Bernardo Arévalo cultivated during 25 years of peace building in other countries, such as respect, reconciliation, and individual dignity.

The objective of peace building is “not to create dialogues, but to build societies that know how to talk to each other, that know how to establish agreements, that know how to manage differences,” President Arévalo told the United States Institute of Peace.

Such dialogue has many venues. A local group literally sewing peace into its community is Trama Textiles, a cooperative owned by Mayan women in Guatemala that promotes equality through traditional weaving. It notes on its website that art “fosters affection” and “ameliorates isolation.”

In El Salvador, one church leader has turned his kitchen into a bakery, offering former gang members a way back into society. “Reintegration is nothing more than giving an opportunity to someone who no one else wants to help,” Pastor Nelson Moz told La Croix International last year.

A dialogue is unfolding across Latin America about the best way to build peace through governing.