Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa
The pumpkin and the football
The US is taking long strides towards a national security state. ZOLTAN ZIGEDY explains

UNLESS you are my age or spent time hanging around old reds, you probably don’t know about Richard Nixon’s “great pumpkin ploy.”
Nixon ran for office in California in 1946 under a “Red under every bed” platform, successfully red-baiting a New Deal Democrat House incumbent.
His understanding of the power of anti-communism became the driving force in his career, which was further realised when he joined the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) soon after his election.
More from this author

The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY

ZOLTAN ZIGEDY reflects on the lessons from two books looking at the US labour movement and the recent history of spontaneous mass uprisings – and finds two pernicious ideologies working against the interests of the people

ZOLTAN ZIGEDY argues Trump’s victory shows the deep failure of liberal calculations that write off huge swathes of the electorate and mirrors the worldwide rise of right-wing populism amid Establishment collapse

From ‘middle class’ to ‘microaggressions,’ from ‘fascism’ to ‘terrorism,’ ZOLTAN ZIGEDY makes an anguished cry for us to turn away from the most misused and misleading terms and tropes – or at least use them accurately