Purged: Liz Cheney’s sacking

Hello and welcome to The Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Shashank Joshi, filling in for Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Denmark took in thousands of refugees from Syria's civil war over the past decade, but they're less welcome than they used to be. The Danish government insists that Damascus is safe enough for many of them to return. And in a pandemic, we all want comfort food and comfy clothes, so why not cuddly fonts? Comic Sans might make you wince, but businesses are turning to typography to put on a friendlier face. First up, though, The Republican Party has delivered a message to Liz Cheney: you're fired. Yesterday, she was ousted from her position as the third-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives. The sole representative from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney was Republican nobility. The daughter of a former vice president, she had a staunchly conservative voting record. But in recent months, Ms. Cheney had insisted vocally and repeatedly that former President Donald Trump lost the November election and was responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol.

Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president's crusade.

Her position had drawn the ire of Mr Trump, who has attacked her repeatedly.

And we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We got to get rid of them. We got to get rid—

Her removal shows just how enduring Mr Trump's grip on the Republican Party is, with worrying implications for the health of the two-party system.

She's committed what's become heresy in the Republican Party. It's not about policy. It's not about ideology.

James Bennett is a visiting senior editor at The Economist.

What she did was she insisted that Donald Trump actually lost the 2020 election, which, of course, in fact, he did. And as a result, Donald Trump has singled her out repeatedly and essentially demanded her head. And yesterday the Republicans gave it to him.

James, Donald Trump has been gone for 5 months. This is history. Why has she been ousted now?

Well, Shashank, Donald Trump is not gone. He's a little bit less vocal than he used to be. He dominates the airwaves to a lesser extent. He's been banned from the big social platforms, but he still retains tremendous control of the Republican Party. This was somewhat in question after the January 6th insurrection. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, stood behind Liz Cheney originally. This Republican Party is a very big tent. Everyone's invited in. She survived a vote in the caucus pretty easily back in February. But last week he said he'd had it with her and he supported her removal yesterday. He has gotten impatient with her for insisting on the truth. Liz Cheney's view is they can't move on as a party, and in fact, they can't serve American democracy if they continue to undermine the electoral system. Kevin McCarthy just doesn't want to have that conversation. He wants to keep Donald Trump happy and make sure that Donald Trump will put his shoulder to the wheel in electing Republicans in 2022. For all these reasons, he's just trying to essentially shut Liz Cheney up.

Who is replacing Ms. Cheney and what does that tell us about the direction of the party?

Most likely, she will be replaced by a congresswoman from New York named Lee Stefanik. Stefanik is actually, by Republican standards, a moderate. Unlike Liz Cheney, she broke with Donald Trump on a number of his legislative priorities, including his number one legislative achievement, which was the tax bill. She voted against it. But she has one very big thing going for her, which is that she has remade herself as a staunch ally of Donald Trump, and she's been zealous in spreading misinformation about the election. So on the one thing that's turning out to really matter among Republicans right now, which is fealty to Donald Trump, you know, she scores very high.

So what does this say about Donald Trump's enduring level of control over the party that he once led?

Donald Trump not only remains the most important figure in the Republican Party, there's just nobody else who comes remotely close who can challenge him right now. And so much of what's driving this shush-shunk is simply fear among Republican legislators. Donald Trump's control over a large majority of the base of the party is absolute, and a lot of Republican congressmen are living in fear of getting challenged in a primary by a candidate supported by Donald Trump. And as a result, they're kind of falling all over each other to assert their own loyalty to him. You know, this is something that Liz Cheney is going to face now. There are already Republicans lining up to challenge her, and Donald Trump has made very clear that taking her out as the representative from Wyoming is among his top priorities.

Where does all of this leave the Republican Party as a political force, do you think?

Joe Biden has put forward the most ambitious legislative agenda we've seen from a Democratic president. Really since the 1960s. And there has been considerable Republican opposition, but there really hasn't been consistent, clear criticism or a clear alternative put forward, in part because the Republicans are so preoccupied with talking about Donald Trump. And that's really gonna prevent the party from moving forward. They basically have Donald Trump and the culture wars to define them. And that was proved in the last election cycle not to be a winning combination.

James, a lot of Republicans have stood by Ms. Cheney. Some are even threatening to split off from the GOP, to leave the party altogether. Is there any risk here of a split?

There's not a real history of successful third parties in American politics. It is, I think, unlikely that you'd see a whole new party formed. I think they're more likely to see a struggle inside the Republican Party in coming years. And Liz Cheney's made very clear she intends to be a leader of that fight.

So if a third party isn't viable and one of America's major parties is in thrall to its former leader who is spouting misinformation, Where does that leave the two-party system as a whole?

What, you know, is a little scary right now about political life in America is that in many ways, the two parties are operating with completely different sets of facts and operating in different realities. And how you bring politicians of both parties back into conversation where there's an agreement on what the actual terms of debate are It's a huge challenge for the society right now.

Given all of that, given that situation, is there anything that can be done to bring the Republican Party back into the fold, back into the realm of truth and shared consensus reality?

Traditionally, when a party goes down a wrong path like this, what ultimately brings them back to reality is electoral defeat. Because it's in the ashes of a real electoral defeat that they begin to ask themselves fundamental questions and to rebuild. Donald Trump lost only narrowly in the Electoral College last time around, though he was soundly defeated nationally. A couple of serious electoral defeats might force the Republicans to reckon with whether they are, in fact, going down the wrong path here. The problem is that, again, historically, the party out of power tends to pick up seats during the midterm elections. And right now, that looks like the probable outcome in 2022. And we may be waiting for a couple more election cycles for the Republicans to choose a new path. They've failed to win a majority of the popular vote in a presidential election in 5 of the last 6 cycles. And even that hasn't been enough to make them fundamentally rethink the direction of the party. So we may have a while to wait here.

James, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have moved to Denmark since fleeing the civil war. Now, the Danish government wants to send some of them home. It claims that Damascus, Syria's capital, is safe enough for the refugees to return. Denmark is reviewing the cases of hundreds of people to whom it previously granted protected status.

This is a fairly extreme position for the Danish government to take.

Margaret Kadifa writes about foreign affairs for The Economist.

For years, Syrians have had their refugee cases accepted almost automatically in many parts of the world. And Denmark is now the only country in Europe to rescind refugee status like this for people from Syria.

It's going to surprise a lot of people to learn that Damascus is considered safe. Is that really the case?

Well, the Syrian government is now in control of Damascus, so that part of the country hasn't seen active fighting for about 3 years. So one could argue that Damascus is safer, perhaps from the civil war, than other parts of the country. That said, the NGO Human Rights Watch says that Syrians who go back could face torture or detention. The regime of Bashar al-Assad might see the fact that they fled the war as a sign of disloyalty. And on top of that, parts of Damascus are still completely destroyed from previous fighting. And so some of these refugees might be told that they need to return to a home that doesn't exist anymore.

So given all of that, the risk of persecution, the potential loss of their homes, can the refugees remain in Denmark on on those grounds?

So unfortunately, no. There are basically two ways to get refugee status in Denmark. The first is because someone faces individual persecution because of who they are, for example, their religion or their political views. Now, the threshold of sending someone back who faces individual persecution is quite high. The other way to get refugee status in Denmark is to show that you're fleeing indiscriminate violence. Now, the threshold for sending those people back is much lower. So this second group is a group whose cases are being reviewed. If Denmark concludes that there's no longer a war in the Damascus area, then in theory, these people's claim to protection no longer exists. And I should note here that Denmark has admitted thousands of Syrian refugees, and this review only applies to, at this point, about 1,000 of them. So a small minority.

Has anyone actually been sent back just yet?

Since 2019, the Danish government has taken away residency permits for more than 200 people, and this includes about 100 just in 2021 alone. Now, there is an appeals process, and the appeals board so far has sided with refugees some of the time. The problem for Denmark is that they can't actually send Syrians back right now. Denmark and Syria don't have diplomatic relations, so Denmark can't arrange for a flight for for people back to Damascus. Refugees who lose their permission to stay in Denmark are basically left with two options. One option is they could be held in an immigration detention centre in Denmark. The other option is they could leave, and they could either try to go to another European country and try to claim asylum there, or they could end up going back to Syria.

Margaret, when people think of Denmark and other Scandinavian governments, they possibly think of left-wing, immigration-friendly government. Is that not the case in Denmark these days?

The current government in Denmark has been in power since 2019, and it's taking a harder line perhaps than an outsider would expect on immigration in general. So the ruling party is a left-wing party, the Social Democrats, and they've actually come out with a policy saying that they want a cap on the number of what they call non-Western immigrants in the country. And in fact, in January, the Prime Minister said that she had a goal of having no asylum seekers in Denmark. What typically happened is refugees that were fleeing something like a civil war, they usually ended up staying in Denmark or other European countries long enough that they could go through the channels to apply for permanent residency. So even if circumstances changed back at home, they ended up staying in the country that they moved to. What seems to be changing in Denmark is that Denmark is vigorously reviewing the statuses of these people with this temporary residence in the country. With what appears to be the goal of sending more of them home.

And what is it that's driving this hardline position?

The government argues that these non-Western immigrants struggle to find jobs or they don't integrate well into Denmark. And so what Denmark should do instead is support foreign aid programs that help people closer to where they are. Some commentators say this is pressure on the ruling party from the far-right Danish People's Party. So the Social Democrats who are leading the governing coalition, they're competing with further right parties for working-class voters. Now, the Social Democrats deny that, and they say that this is just sensible immigration policy. This is not about politics. And I should add that there has been domestic resistance to this plan. There was a protest outside of the Danish parliament last month, for example, where people in Denmark made it clear that this was not what all of them wanted.

Could this be a sign of things to come in Europe more broadly?

So it's too early to know if other European countries are going to follow Denmark's lead, but it's safe to say that many of them are watching to see what happens. Sweden, for example, is no longer automatically accepting Syrian refugees, and the reason why they're saying is that there is improved security in the Damascus area. And I think one of the really concerning things is that the vast majority of the refugees from Syria are not in Europe at all. They're in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey. And those countries that are closer to Syria, when they see Denmark do something like not accept these people, then poorer countries may ask why they should.

Margaret, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Times of crisis can lead to monumental changes in art. The eruption of an Indonesian volcano in 1815 caused freakish weather throughout the world, inspiring a new genre of Gothic fiction. Modernism was jump-started by the shock of the First World War and then fuelled by the second. But these innovations aren't just visible in the fine arts. Even the items we see on a daily basis, from restaurant flyers to phone packaging, have been stamped by history through their typography. The pandemic has made the fonts that brands use friendlier, Arthur House writes for 1843, our sister magazine.

It might seem like an incredibly minor change, but typefaces play a more important part in articulating brand identity than any other design element.

Arthur, what's so important about fonts?

Typefaces are the visual equivalent of tone of voice, and I think we understand that instinctively. We wouldn't write a party invitation in Times New Roman any more than we would write a heartfelt apology in Comic Sans. So fonts are a powerful way for a brand to establish their personality and dictate the kind of relationship that they'd like a consumer to have with them.

So if fonts are getting friendlier, what does that look like in practice?

Well, it's rounder, softer, more expressive typefaces. This trend started a few years ago with companies that had a very self-consciously playful identity, things like Duolingo, the language learning app, and Mailchimp. But it's really picked up during the pandemic, and there's a common theme, which is these curved lines and rounded shapes. Curves and circles, I'm told by a neuroscientist I spoke to, convey softness, mildness, and even friendliness, whereas more rigid angular shapes suggest solidity and authority and even harshness. And there may well be deep evolutionary reasons for why we associate those sentiments with those shapes. So one example of this is O2, the telecoms company, which is in the process of dropping Frutiger, which is the sort of banal humanist sans font that it's used since 2002, for a new bespoke font called On Air, which is all about rounded corners and supposedly calligraphic elements. It's quite a subtle effect, but the rounded Shapes at the bottom of the letter strokes subliminally remind the reader of a human touch.

So if fonts are such an easy way for brands to make themselves more approachable, to change their personality, why hasn't this been happening for longer?

Brands have been stuck in a typographic rut, and it's been the internet's fault. So if you go back to the '90s and early 2000s, brands had to choose between a few default fonts, things like Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times. Then circa 2009, 2010, there was a digital revolution in typography. Suddenly you could use any font on a website. All of a sudden brands, they wouldn't be seen dead using these old default fonts. They wanted bespoke fonts, but interestingly, they all tended to gravitate towards the same cold, utilitarian, geometric aesthetic, which hasn't really changed for the last 10 or 12 years. 2009-10 was the same time as things like the iPhone were coming out, and it was deemed that in order to be legible across various screen sizes and resolutions, you needed these type of cold utilitarian fonts. But legible doesn't necessarily mean memorable, and that's very important for brands. Hard fonts to read can actually be more memorable. In 2018, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology designed a typeface called Sans Forgetica, which omitted parts of letter strokes and required the brain to fill in the blanks. Supposedly, this allowed text to be recalled more easily, although this claim has been disputed. But either way, functional fonts are on the way out, rounder, more expressive, friendlier fonts are on the way in.

And what is it that's broken that rut? What has led to this change?

Well, during the pandemic, of course, we've all been spending far more time at home, and I think that has signaled a shift in our aesthetic tastes away from the cool Scandinavian minimalism that has been a bit of a trend over the last few years towards something much comfier, cosier, maximalist. We want our homes to be somewhere that is comfortable to spend time, and perhaps brands have a sense of that. So it could be that these fonts are the typographical equivalent of comfy tracksuit bottoms.

Arthur, thank you.

Thank you.

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