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The Conversation USA

What happens when leaders have loyalists in charge of men with guns: Lessons for the US from Nicaragua, Syria and other authoritarian countries

  • Written by Joe Wright, Professor of Political Science, Penn State
imageSyrian army special forces in 2005, wearing pictures of their president, Bashar Assad, his father, Hafez, and brother, Basil, on their uniform, stand guard at a Lebanese military air base.Patrick Baz/AFP via Getty Images

In what’s been called a “Friday night massacre” at the Pentagon, President Donald Trump removed six top...

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  1. The sun is setting on government transparency in Florida – and secrecy creep is affecting the rest of the US, too
  2. How the color of St. Patrick’s Day went from blue to green
  3. George Washington, a real estate investor and successful entrepreneur, knew the difference between running a business and running the government
  4. Taking a leap of faith into imaginary numbers opens new doors in the real world through complex analysis
  5. DEI initiatives removed from federal agencies that fund science, but scientific research continues
  6. The dark parallels between 1920s America and today’s political climate
  7. The fear of deportation hangs over unauthorized workers trying to fight exploitation, but all workers in the US have rights
  8. The FACE Act was enacted to protect reproductive health clinics − here’s why its history matters today
  9. Ann Arbor’s sustainable energy utility aims to build the electric power grid of the future − alongside the old one
  10. 5 ways schools have shifted in 5 years since COVID-19
  11. Is ranch dressing a liquid or a solid? A physicist explains
  12. America is becoming a nation of homebodies
  13. 5 reasons veterans are especially hard-hit by federal cuts
  14. Daylight saving time and early school start times cost billions in lost productivity and health care expenses
  15. How Trump’s $2B court battle over foreign aid could reshape executive authority
  16. Pause in aid has introduced uncertainty into Ukraine’s military planning − forever changing its war calculus
  17. NIH funding cuts will hit red states, rural areas and underserved communities the hardest
  18. ‘Pac-Man with a ponytail’ proteins regulate everything from night vision to heartbeats – studying what GRKs look like could improve an array of drugs
  19. What Amazon MGM’s creative control over the James Bond film franchise means for the future of 007
  20. Exhausted by the news? Here are 6 strategies to stay informed without getting overwhelmed − or misled by misinformation
  21. The US has pardoned insurrectionists twice before – and both times, years of violent racism followed
  22. Beyond AI regulation: How government and industry can team up to make the technology safer without hindering innovation
  23. Knocking down abandoned buildings has a lot of benefits for Detroit − but it’s costly for cities
  24. Why getting the numbers right isn’t enough for pollsters to be credible in today’s polarized climate
  25. Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – there are ways you can help save them
  26. How 18F transformed government technology − and why its elimination matters
  27. Anger is a flow of emotion like water through a hose − at work, it helps to know when to turn it up or down and how to direct it
  28. DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power
  29. As tuberculosis cases rise in the US and worldwide, health officials puzzle over the resurgence of a disease once in decline
  30. What’s that microplastic? Advances in machine learning are making identifying plastics in the environment more reliable
  31. Why Muslim American nonprofits are taking steps to build trust with donors during Ramadan
  32. Death by firing squad set to resume in the US – but no matter the method, all means of execution come with a troubling history
  33. Philly’s street fentanyl contains an industrial chemical called BTMPS that’s an ingredient in plastic
  34. The US energy market has its troubles, though it may not be a ‘national emergency’
  35. Carolina wildfires followed months of weather whiplash, from drought to hurricane-fueled floods and back to drought
  36. The child boss in ‘Severance’ reveals a devastating truth about work and child-rearing in the 21st century
  37. Supreme Court sides with San Francisco, requiring EPA to set specific targets in water pollution permits
  38. COVID-19 is the latest epidemic to show biomedical breakthroughs aren’t enough to eliminate a disease
  39. Learning ethics − one Marvel movie at a time
  40. USAID’s history shows decades of good work on behalf of America’s global interests, although not all its projects succeeded
  41. Influencers have trouble figuring out their tax obligations − and with good reason
  42. Trump is the kinglike president many feared when arguing over the US Constitution in 1789 – and his address to Congress showed it
  43. A potential $110B economic hit: How Trump’s tariffs could mean rising costs for families, strain for states
  44. Extreme heat silently accelerates aging on a molecular level − new research
  45. Gifts from top 50 US philanthropists rebounded to $16B in 2024 − Mike Bloomberg; Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin; and Michael and Susan Dell lead the list of biggest givers
  46. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs advises the president on use of America’s military power
  47. How the hidden epidemic of violence against nurses affects health care
  48. How Trump’s second term might affect the market and your finances
  49. Many more Denver teens have experienced homelessness than official counts show
  50. Out-of-balance bacteria is linked to multiple sclerosis − the ratio can predict severity of disease