NEW YORK – This fall, United States campuses will be awash in what Howard Zinn called election madness It will be a veritable cornerstone of campus culture. Universities will host debate viewing parties.

Campus Republicans and Democrats will table in student centers, squaring off to recruit members and organize campus events. Faculty will encourage students to attend electorally oriented campus programming. Voter registration drives will tout non-partisan motivations for encouraging student participation in the upcoming presidential race. These students are no stranger to election madness. They have long been taught that ratifying the American system by voting is politics par excellence.

Their K-12 classrooms were also imbued with this common sense. Voting, then: a hallowed civic duty. Alongside writing to elected officials, speaking at town hall events, or petitioning Congress, they have been taught that this is how to do politics in the US. But at this moment, America’s electoral common sense is in crisis. If my inbox is any indication, today’s students were rocked by the climate of repression faced by anti-genocide protests last year. Many of these uprisings ended in police crackdowns and academic discipline for student organisers.

These students have had a front row seat to a McCarthyistic climate, one that saw their faculty members fired, censured or disciplined – all of them on one side of the question of Palestine. These students doubt that the system of academia will do anything to promote their political or intellectual growth. They perceive little daylight between the two parties’ position on the genocide. At a Kamala Harris rally in August, protesters broke out in chants of “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide / We charge you with genocide.” Her response? “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” Uproarious cheers of support for Harris drowned out the protesters.

Educators are well aware that disrupting paradigms is a cornerstone of critical thought, that the rupture of a worldview provides fertile soil for transformative pedagogy. This moment has been a paradigm-disrupting one. (Al jazeera) …[+]

DAKAR – Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has dissolved the opposition-led parliament, paving the way for snap elections six months after he was voted in on an anti-establishment platform.

Faye said working with the assembly had grown difficult after members refused to start discussions on the budget law and rejected efforts to dissolve wasteful state institutions. “I dissolve the national assembly to ask the sovereign people for the institutional means to bring about the systemic transformation that I have promised to deliver,” Faye said in a brief speech. The elections will be held on November 17.

Observers say Faye’s party, Pastef (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity), has a high chance of securing a majority, given his popularity and his victory margin in the March presidential election, which he won with 54 percent of votes. The Benno Bokk Yaakar opposition platform led by former President Macky Sall condemned the move. It said Faye had convened a legislative session under pretences to announce the dissolution and accused him of “perjury”. Faye, 44, won the vote in March to become Africa’s youngest elected leader less than two weeks after he was released from prison.

His rise has reflected widespread frustration among Senegal’s youth with the country’s direction – a common sentiment across Africa – which has the world’s youngest population and a number of leaders accused of clinging to power for decades. During the presidential campaign, Faye promised widespread reforms to improve the living standards of common Senegalese, including fighting corruption, reviewing fishing permits for foreign companies, and securing a bigger share of the country’s natural resources for the population. But six months later, these pledges have yet to materialise.

The president and Ousmane Sonko, the prime minister and a popular opposition figure who helped catapult Faye to victory, have blamed the parliament. Pastef does not hold a majority in the assembly, which Faye says has blocked him from executing the promised reforms. In June, the opposition coalition cancelled a budgetary debate in a dispute over whether Sonko was required to issue his government’s policy roadmap, with him arguing that he was not required to. (Al Jazeera)…[+]

GEORGIA  –  A court in Georgia has dismissed two of the 10 criminal charges against Donald Trump and one other charge against his allies for alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled that the southern state did not have the authority to bring the specific charges related to the alleged filing of false documents in federal court.

Judge McAfee allowed the rest of the case to move forward, including eight charges against Trump, out of the original 13. Three other charges against Trump were dropped earlier this year after the same judge ruled that the charges lacked detail. Steven Sadow, a lawyer for Trump, praised the ruling, saying: “President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again.”

Judge McAfee said that the two dropped charges fell under federal jurisdiction, rather than under Georgia state law. The dropped charges against Trump include conspiracy to commit false documents and conspiracy to commit forgery, according to court documents. Two of his co-defendants had their charges of forgery dropped as well.

According to the indictment filed in August 2023 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Trump conspired with 18 other defendants to interfere in the election result. The group “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump”.

Part of the alleged plot included Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s top election official, in which he pleaded with him to “to find 11,780 votes” – the margin in which he lost to Biden. Trump – and 14 co-defendants – have pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other state charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the former president’s loss in Georgia. Four others have pleaded guilty.

The case has largely been put on hold since June, after Willis was found to have had a romantic relationship with one of the lead prosecutors in the case. A Georgia appeals court is currently considering whether Willis must step aside from the case due to the allegations of misconduct presented by defense lawyers. (BBC)…[+]