By BILL BARROW, Associated Press PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter’s in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter’s path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That’s a very narrow way of assessing them,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn’t suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he’d be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter’s tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter’s lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor’s race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival’s endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King’s daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters’ early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan’s presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan’s Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.
The Daily Star (TDS): How did you transition to your new research focus on the garment sector in Bangladesh, given your previous extensive research on the prospects and implications of microloans in the country? What prompted this apparent shift from rural to urban settings in your research field? Prof Lamia Karim (LK): I am an economic anthropologist specializing in political economy and women's labor. My primary focus lies in the anthropological dynamics surrounding women's participation in the workforce, particularly the recognition of women as visible agents within the labor market. Historically, women have engaged in informal labor within the domestic sphere, contributing to their families and supporting their husbands. For instance, a male vendor selling food in the market often relies on female family members to prepare the food. Consequently, women's labor remains both invisible and uncompensated. Feminist scholars have long advocated for the acknowledgment and inclusion of unpaid work within economic policy. My interest in this field is also shaped by my personal background. I grew up in a family where women were actively engaged in professional roles; my great-aunt (my grandmother's sister) was a published poet in the 1930s, my mother's first cousin was the first female photographer in what was then East Pakistan, and my mother, along with several of her female cousins, held academic positions as professors and principals of women's colleges. Thus, the sight of women pursuing professional careers was integral to my upbringing. However, I also witnessed the labor of women hired to work in our household—specifically, cooks and cleaners—whose work was often regarded as a natural extension of their identity rather than as respectful employment. These life experiences made me particularly interested in examining the effects of both waged and unwaged work on women and how social forces condition us to view women's work. Bangladesh is home to two significant industries that center on women's work: the microfinance sector pioneered by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and the overseas apparel production industry. Both sectors have emerged as prominent examples of women's work as empowerment, a debatable point, within the framework of neoliberal capitalism. Therefore, I perceive my intellectual trajectory not as a shift but as a natural progression of my scholarly pursuits. TDS: How do you interpret the trajectory of the garment sector in Bangladesh, which originated from a global capitalist restructuring that heavily relied on exploiting cheap labor, and incidents of so many accidents eventually evolving into the primary contributor to the nation's economy? Despite witnessing a semblance of women's empowerment, how do you address the prevalent issue of widespread exploitation of women, which has unfortunately remained integral to this sector? LK: The exploitation of women's labor within the manufacturing industry has a deeply entrenched and troubling history. An examination of industrialization in 19th-century England reveals how poverty forced women, men, and children to the cotton mills of Manchester, where they endured minimal wages and horrific work conditions. A pivotal moment in labor history occurred in the United States in 1911, when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed the lives of 143 workers, in factory conditions reminiscent of what occurred at the Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed over 1,100 workers. Bangladesh is no different. A complex web of actors—including global retailers, government entities, factory owners, BGMEA, the families of these workers, and Western consumers—contributes to the systemic exploitation of working-class women, thereby facilitating the extraction of labor to yield profits and affordable goods. The answer to your question is also embedded in cultural attitudes. We are a very class-based hierarchical society. Upper and middle-classes tend to treat people from the lower economic strata as less than them. Many factory owners, managers, supervisors, see the workers as lower than them on the social scale, and they take it for granted that they can treat workers poorly, such as using vile language or to physically hit them. Firing workers under all sorts of fictional pretexts and defrauding them of wages is another way that workers get exploited. To tackle the problem of violence against women at work, the way forward is the unionization of garment workers, a movement that remains significantly underrepresented in the Bangladeshi apparel industry. Legal NGOs and Human Rights Organizations should be watchdogs scrutinizing the factories for compliance to safety standards. The government too has a crucial role to play in supporting workers' rights. If all these actors could come together, viable change is possible. TDS: What have your research findings revealed about the daily experiences of women laborers in the apparel manufacturing industry? You mentioned that instead of facilitating sustainable improvements in their lives, the neoliberal economy has perpetuated precarity in their work. Could you elaborate on how this has impacted the lives of these women? LK: One is the precarity of global supply chains where workers are at the mercy of the global economy. During the pandemic for example, stores closed in the West, factories had to close in Bangladesh, making many workers lose their earnings. This dependence on the global economy is precarity at its worst manifestation because the workers who are the bottom of the supply chain do not control what happens to them. There are no safety nets to support them. Importantly, these workers do not understand how supply chains work, and how a sudden loss in demand in the US or EU will have tremendous effect on their livelihoods. Precarity at the factory—low wages, long hours, poor quality of housing, poor diet, abuse at the hand of factory management, is constantly compounding precarity in worker's lives. It is well-known that the wages they receive do not cover their living expenses. The women also support their extended families, by extension, another twenty million people (mothers, father, siblings) indirectly depend on their wages. They send home money for a brother's education, mother's medical expense, building a new roof, and so on. Their private lives are also precarious. Most of these women enter the workforce around the average age of fifteen. They are recent rural-to-urban migrants. They are usually brought to the city by a relative or a procurer. Most of them come to Dhaka with no prior knowledge of what it means to live in the city and how cruel and unforgiving the city can be. Many of the young women fall in love with men they meet in the city, who unbeknownst to them may already have a wife. These relationships are tragic and often involve severe domestic abuse. The men in their lives make constant demands on their wages, and if they do not hand the money over, the women are severely beaten. With no family elders, such as a father or an uncle to intercede for them, these women have to cope with these situations on their own. So, one on the one hand, they have attained certain autonomy, they earn wages, they have physical mobility, go to a movie, sit outdoors with friends and have some fuchka, met someone romantically, all the things that would be denied to them in rural society. On the other hand, they make many difficult decisions on their that often gets them into serious domestic precarity. TDS: In your research, you explored the private lives of garment workers, delving into their intimate spheres of love, marriage, and romance. This perspective offers a novel way to understand them beyond the confines of economic analysis. How do you perceive the generational shifts among workers in this sector, from the macroscopic view to the individual human experience? LK: I wanted to understand the attitudinal differences between older and younger women workers. The older women entered in the 1990s, some even in 1980s, at very low wages. All the older women shared a similar background. They came from landless and impoverished families. They described the before and after of coming to work as "Before I could not eat, now I can eat, before I could not send my child to school, now I can send my child to school, before I lived in a house with a leaking roof, now I live in a house with a roof that does not leak." The women had basic literacy of class three or five in a rural school. They could not read their hiring documents, making it easy for factory managers to fire them by making them sign on a document they could not read. Most of the older women came as married women with children, but their husbands had abandoned them. The women had to raise the children on their own. By the time they entered the factory, they already had many familial responsibilities. These women saw themselves as poor women whose goal was to get their children educated and moved up the economic social ladder. After twenty plus years of working, these older women's bodies and hearts were broken. The younger women were entering with higher levels of education, often between class eight to ten. They could read their hiring documents. The younger were mostly single when they came from the village. They also came from poor families, but they entered factory work at higher wages. They would buy new salwar-kameezes, go to the beauty parlors to get their eyebrows threaded, openly hang out with their boyfriends. They did not have children to take care of. Familicidal responsibilities were less burdensome for them. Some of them told me that they would delay marriage because they wanted to experience life and make some money. These younger women exercised more sexual autonomy. They saw themselves as moving up the social ladder. They always called themselves middle-class and they would call the factory "office" and not karkhana. They eschewed the term kormojibi or sromik. To the younger garment factory workers, belonging to the middle class signaled the exit from their poverty-stricken rural backgrounds. Factory employment had moved them up the economic scale. Similarly, taking the label of middle class set them apart from the poorer people they encountered in the city. As garment workers they were not like the women who worked as day laborers, cleaners, maids, cooks, and the like. They worked in brick buildings, operating industrial machines. that endowed them with a sense of pride and achievement when compared to their poorer rural and urban counterparts. They were the new symbol of "Made in Bangladesh" that is youthful, shiny, and hopeful. The combination of these factors gave them a sense of a new world of opportunities and their entrance into middle-class status. TDS: Could you share insights from your conversations with the 16 interlocutors who are older or have aged out of the workforce about their initial aspirations? Additionally, could you discuss the differences observed in their ultimate realities, particularly regarding the changes in life after reaching a mature state within the garment sector? LK: The sixteen older women, between the ages of 45-55 approximately, I interviewed had earned a limited form of sovereignty over their lives. They left abusive spouses, stood up to factory management when they faced workplace injustices, and tried to create better lives for their children through education. For these factory women, class mobility was a cherished goal that they saw as worth sacrificing for. Their goal was to help their children reach the new middle class that was unfolding through industrial capitalism in Bangladesh. Yet only two sons of the older female workers had made it to the new middle class, one as an accountant at a factory, and the other as an IT technician, the rest of their children had either entered the garment workforce or they were in other low-paying jobs as vendors, shop-keepers, guards. These older women recognized the limits of upward mobility in a deeply hierarchical society due to their lack of social capital. As one older woman said to me, "My son has received his bachelor's degree. He wants to work in a government office, but I do not have the contacts to help him. He has ended up working at a store." But their voices remained laced with traces of hope—if not for them, then for their children. These older women entered the workforce when wages were very low, so they had little savings by the time they were forced out of factory work. They suffered from poor health. Their eyesight, fingers, arms were affected from long-term factory work. Kidneys were affected from not drinking water at work to avoid taking toilet breaks, something frowned upon by line supervisors. Many of them suffered from lung infections from breathing the air inside factories that is full of debris of clothing. Many workers were provided masks, but workers did not wear them because they felt hot and uncomfortable. It was a zero-sum game for these women. TDS: Have you noticed any significant changes in the trade union movement or apparent enhancements in safety measures within this sector following the Rana Plaza incident? LK: The trade union movement, still insignificant compared to the scale of the workforce, has become more visible after the Rana Plaza factory collapse. After the accident, the global retailers and EU did not have a fig leaf to cover their complicity in ignoring the safety conditions in the factories they were sourcing from. EU, Canada, Australia, and US to a lesser degree, became vocal about the right to unionize and the safety accords were written and implemented, with their many limitations. Trade union leaders have told me that now they have a voice with factory owners, BGMEA, and the government. This is an ongoing struggle. I did not inspect factories since that was not what I was doing. Safety measures vary across factories. There are factory owners who are forward looking and want to improve work conditions; there are others who think of workers as disposable bodies. The answer to your question requires investigative journalism. TDS: As automation advances, Bangladesh's impending graduation from the category of least developed countries (LDCs) looms, coinciding with a gradual decline in women's participation in the sector. What are your thoughts on the garments industry as a whole, and what potential changes, both minor and monumental, do you envision that could reshape the prevailing landscape? LK: With the garment sector accounting for Bangladesh's largest export, generating $47 billion in 2023 and employing approximately four million workers whose earnings sustain the Bangladeshi economy. To effect meaningful change, it is essential to improve wages, enhance workplace safety, and provide accessible housing, healthcare, childcare, and education for their children. Factory owners resist these improvements, citing pressure from Western buyers who are reluctant to increase costs. Bangladesh will face increased competition from other LDCs. The Ethiopian government sought to attract Western buyers by guaranteeing wages as low as $22 per month for workers. Conversations with several garment factory owners regarding the potential loss of business to competing countries revealed a prevailing belief in their logistical advantages. However, as evidenced by the presence of garments labeled "Made in Ethiopia" in H&M stores, capital will invariably pursue profit at the expense of workers unless robust unionization efforts are undertaken. Such collective action represents a crucial avenue for genuine empowerment and systemic change. I would recommend diversification from the garment industry to other sectors, and to invest in the domestic market. Here I am arguing for import substitution, so we are not wholly dependent on the vicissitudes of the global economy. While China has transitioned from low-wage apparel manufacturing to high-value sectors such as semiconductor processing, Bangladesh remains stuck on its garment industry. The nation's economic landscape necessitates a forward-looking approach, emphasizing diversification away from apparel manufacturing and the training of workers for more sustainable employment opportunities. But there is an intangible paradox here between the welfare of workers and the welfare of capital. The logic of capitalism is to chase lowest production costs across the globe, devouring the poor and dispossessed on its journey. To harness unfettered capitalism, one needs a systemic change to the economic structure. I do not see that on the horizon. My goal in writing Castoffs of Capital was to humanize these women, to glimpse their world through their eyes, as they graciously allowed me into their lives. I envisioned a future where a Western consumer, poised to purchase a simple tee-shirt or a pair of jeans, could not only see the garment but also feel the pulse of those who made it. I wanted them to visualize the women, to empathize with their stories, and to reflect on the profound consequences of their consumer choices. In this way, I hoped to weave a deeper understanding of the interlocking human tapestry that sustains our global economy. My heartfelt thanks to Kormojibi Nari who assisted me with the research on older workers. The interview was taken by Priyam Paul of The Daily StarNone
Curtis Yarvin who is a pretty prominent figure in the neoreactionary movement is eventually gaining traction among the key members of the upcoming administration of US President- elect Donald Trump specifically influencing US Vice President- elect JD Vance , reported The Guardian. ET Year-end Special Reads Gold outshines D-St with 20% returns, but 2025 may be different The year of the pause: How RBI maneuvered its policy in 2024 2024, the year India defeated China's salami-slicing strategy According to The Guardian, the ideology of Curtis Yarvin which views liberal democracy as a ‘decadent enemy’ actually promotes a vision of governance that favors autocracy over democratic principles. The ideas of Curtis Yarvin actually resonate with pretty recent actions taken by US President- elect Donald Trump and his supporters which include legal maneuvers against media critics and mobilizing the MAGA base against dissenting Republican lawmakers. The strategies of Curtis Yarvin includes advocating for a ‘RAGE’ campaign to purge government employees and dismissing court rulings that challenge authoritarian governance, asserted The Guardian. Additionally, he suggests that a successful candidate could only gain power through lawful elections but then can only exercise it unlawfully by declaring a state of emergency. This certainly aligns with the rhetoric of US President- elect Donald Trump about using military force against perceived enemies within the country. The influence of Curtis Yarvin is really very evident in discussions among the appointees of US President- elect Donald Trump which includes Michael Anton, who has been appointed to a senior role in the state department, noted The Guardian. As the political landscape shifts, the anti-democratic proposals of Curtis Yarvin are increasingly reflected in the actions and ideologies of emerging leaders within the Republican Party. 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Curtis Yarvin who is a pretty prominent figure in the neoreactionary movement is eventually gaining traction among the key members of the upcoming administration of US President- elect Donald Trump specifically influencing US Vice President- elect JD Vance. What is the actual ideology of Curtis Yarvin? The ideology of Curtis Yarvin which views liberal democracy as a ‘decadent enemy’ actually promotes a vision of governance that favors autocracy over democratic principles. ET Year-end Special Reads An Indian's guide to moving abroad as the world looks for 'better' immigrants The year of the HNIs: How India's rich splurged in 2024 (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )Oklahoma open primary proposal gets mixed reaction