2023
April
10
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

April 10, 2023
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

Two weeks ago, it was a school in Nashville, Tennessee. This morning it was a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. Gun violence is a sad, deadly recurrence in America today. It leaves behind a trail of tears – and sometimes, resolve.

Consider Craig Greenberg, mayor of Louisville. He won office after surviving a shooting at his campaign office one year ago. Now his city has suffered at least four dead, with eight injured, after a shooter opened fire inside a bank this morning.

“Notwithstanding tragedies like today . . . we will find ways to love and support one another, and the family and friends who have been directly impacted by these acts of gun violence,” Mr. Greenberg said.

Among those directly impacted was the state’s governor, Andy Beshear, who had one close friend killed in the attack. “We’ve got to wrap our arms around these families,” he said.

Then there is Gloria Johnson. In 2008, as a teacher at Central High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, she watched terrified students flee the building after a 15-year-old was fatally shot. That helped drive her into politics. On March 30, state Rep. Gloria Johnson walked to the well of the Tennessee House with two colleagues to protest what they saw as political inaction on guns in the wake of the March 27 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Her colleagues, who used a bullhorn, were expelled last week. She wasn’t. “I’m not apologizing for what I did. ... I felt compelled in my heart because I was a teacher who lived through a school shooting,” she said.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee had a personal connection to the Covenant School tragedy as well. He and his wife were close friends with one of the adult victims.

Mr. Lee last week proposed school safety legislation which, among other things, would pay for armed security guards in every public and private Tennessee school. He said: “May we grieve in the days ahead, but not without hope.”


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Taiwan Presidential Office/Reuters
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy walk during their meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, in Simi Valley, California, April 5, 2023.

Even as an emerging unique identity has emboldened Taiwanese to stand up for their freedoms, preserving the status quo with China is seen as the best way to uphold their vibrant democracy. Which Taiwanese party can deliver that?

Returning abortion policy to the states is proving complicated, as some states’ choices tangibly impact their neighbors, and courts clash over abortion pills sent through the mail.

Since his indictment, Donald Trump has been raising money hand over fist, selling things like T-shirts with a fake mug shot. Some Republicans worry he makes it harder for other candidates to raise campaign funds.

Mark Saludes
Residents make an improvised spill boom out of rice straw and coconut materials, which they will deploy to prevent the oil spill from damaging a 60-hectare mangrove forest in Maidlang II village in Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro province in the Philippines on March 3.

An oil spill has effectively put life on hold in a coastal region of the Philippines. As cleanup stretches on, it will take new levels of cooperation to keep local fishing families above water.

Essay

Mike Egerton/Press Association/AP/File
A horse flies over a fence in The Atteys Solicitors Juvenile Hurdle Race in Doncaster, England. Show jumping requires more discipline.

How does one balance freedom and strictures, especially when bonds of affection are involved? With episodes of joy, perhaps, as one horse and rider find.


The Monitor's View

For more than a century, America’s posture in the world has been as defender of democracy. With democracy in decline over the past 17 years, the Biden administration wants to flip that script. A new policy aims to be “affirming” when a country begins to escape autocratic rule, nurturing it with quick economic aid and advice to prove to the people that open and fair democracy can be a better system for daily life.

So far, U.S. support of democratic bright spots has included the Dominican Republic, Moldova, Nepal, Tanzania, and Zambia. Yet it may face a difficult challenge in Thailand, a longtime American ally.

The Southeast Asian country, which has seen multiple coups against elected governments for decades, faces what is considered its most consequential election on May 14. A civilian political party, Pheu Thai, is far ahead in the polls in a contest for parliament’s elected lower chamber. If it wins enough seats, its victory might end the military-dominated government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who took power after a 2014 coup.

Mr. Prayuth has run the Thai economy into the ground. Yet he survived youth-led mass protests in 2020 that called for reform of Thailand’s constitutional monarchy and an end to the country’s conservative and elite establishment. Lately, he has seen defections, such as by longtime ally Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, a former general.

“I’m beginning to grasp that it was wrong to think that people are unable to elect good and capable representatives to office,” Mr. Prawit wrote on Facebook. “The politicians, whom the elite look down on, actually understand the problems. These politicians are more reliable when people call for their help than other groups in the power structure.”

Mr. Prawit, who is running in the election with his own party, may be pivotal after the election in forming a ruling coalition and helping Thailand make a crucial transition. Should the United States be ready to offer massive aid during this probable transition, dispensing advice on political freedoms and taking other steps with speed?

One answer lies in a study of democratic bright spots that have occurred in the past decade. Eight of the 12 best performing ones have stemmed from pivotal elections – ones in which a democratically backsliding or stagnant government loses power at the ballot box – conclude scholars Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Feldman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Thailand will serve as a test case for the United States in being nimble and catalytic when a window of reform opens. “Positive developments and possibilities for democracy are occurring around the world on a regular basis in all kinds of political systems,” write the two Carnegie scholars. As a country that has long seen elected leaders taken down in coups, Thailand may be ripe for a new approach.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Where can we find the inspiration needed for renewal and solutions to problems? When we set aside fears and instead trust in God – the powerful source of every good idea – we find a clear path forward.


Viewfinder

Noah Berger/AP
What a difference a wet winter makes, notes Monitor West Coast Bureau Chief Francine Kiefer. In these before and after photos, a car crosses Enterprise Bridge over Lake Oroville on May 23, 2021, left, and the same location on March 26, 2023, in Butte County, California. Oroville is the state's second-largest reservoir and is now at 83% capacity. As Francine says, "I drive frequently from Los Angeles to San Francisco, passing the Pacheco Reservoir on the way. Last year it was so low, it scared me. When I drove by last month, it looked completely full, with water up to the old shoreline. Green hills swept to the water's edge. What a relief."
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Please come back tomorrow, when we look at trust in the Supreme Court in the wake of a report alleging that Justice Clarence Thomas has been accepting luxury trips from a Republican donor.

More issues

2023
April
10
Monday
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