Octavio Jones/Reuters/File

A pride section is seen in a gift shop at the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando, Florida, July 30, 2022. The company's stand on LGBTQ+ issues has been criticized by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Proposal 6 of the proxy statement for this week’s annual meeting at Bank of America reads like many proposals routinely pushed by progressive shareholders. It calls for the bank to split the CEO and board chairman positions between two people rather than concentrating power in the hands of a single person. 

Nearby on the ballot were other proposals from outsider shareholders to curb fossil-fuel loans and to examine racial equity in the bank’s operations.

But Proposal 6 didn’t come from progressives.

It was sponsored, instead, by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a conservative nonprofit in greater Washington that is a leader in the fight against environmental, social, and governance – or ESG investing. For decades, progressives have used ESG shareholder activism to convince corporations to support everything from greenhouse gas mitigation to gay rights. By copying their tactics and even the language of their shareholder proposals, conservatives hope to convince American corporations to stop supporting liberal causes.

“The corporations have swung too far to the left politically and unnecessarily and improperly,” says Paul Chesser, director of corporate integrity at the conservative policy center. “We’re not calling for them to embrace conservative politics…. We’re calling upon them to just stay out of these divisive political issues.”

What’s underway is a messy fight for the soul of the corporation. ​​In the end, the battle may reveal how much of ESG is enduring, how closely it aligns with traditional profit motives, and whether boundaries between business and political activism are being redrawn –​ ​and, thus, how much the corporation has changed in recent years.

While conservative criticism of ESG initiatives has been building for several years, the movement was pushed on the national stage a year ago after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to punish Disney for opposing a Florida ban on sexual orientation and gender identity instruction in public schools. The governor tried to strip the entertainment giant of its special status as a governing body for the land around Disney World, got outmaneuvered by the company, and is now fighting to control future land development around the theme park. On Wednesday, Disney sued the governor for “weaponiz[ing] government power.”

Sarah Silbiger/Reuters

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at The Heritage Foundation's 50th anniversary Leadership Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, on April 21, 2023. Disney has sued Mr. DeSantis for allegedly weaponizing government against the firm.

A backlash on political and financial fronts

The conservative backlash is playing out across two fronts. First is shareholder activism. Conservative shareholder proposals surged last year after Peter Flaherty, the CEO and chairman of the conservative legal and policy center, brought in Mr. Chesser to direct shareholder advocacy. The number of anti-ESG proposals jumped by 60%, by one count, and the center itself had 10 of the top 12 conservative shareholder proposals that garnered more than 5% support, according to Morningstar.

These proposals, like this year’s Proposal 6 at Bank of America, can be hard to distinguish from ones that liberal ESG proponents use. At Boeing, the group is pushing for an audit of the company’s risks from doing business in China. Getting a proposal on the ballot also allows the sponsor to speak. And in the case of Bank of America’s Tuesday annual meeting, Mr. Chesser used his three minutes to publicly detail the conservative center’s opposition to the bank’s chairman and CEO, Brian Moynihan.

He criticized various bank loan programs targeted at non-white customers. Whereas the bank defends such programs for reversing decades of little to no access to capital for people of color, Mr. Chesser calls them racist because they leave out white people. Proposal 6 failed with a still respectable 26%, according to preliminary results from Bank of America. 

The second front is led by Republican states. Last month, 19 governors from Florida to Alaska announced an alliance to push back against President Joe Biden’s ESG agenda. “The proliferation of ESG throughout America is a direct threat to the American economy, individual economic freedom, and our way of life, putting investment decisions in the hands of the woke mob to bypass the ballot box and inject political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance, and the everyday economy,” they wrote.

Many of those states have pulled state pension and other funds from big investment houses, such as BlackRock, saying they want to get the best possible return, unfettered by social decisions.

Conservatives’ frustration is palpable. For more than three decades, progressives have used shareholder resolutions to push companies on a host of issues, from climate change to transparent reporting on political spending to diversity and inclusion. They were such a small group, whose shareholder proposals initially got little support, that conservatives could safely ignore them.

Tom Brenner/Reuters

Demonstrators listen to speakers from the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter during a rally calling for banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects, in Washington, March 21, 2023.

But as the movement grew, mainstream investment houses began to view ESG as a line of business that could be profitable. They began to snap up ESG mutual fund families and other investing pioneers and started to create ESG portfolios for a much larger audience. The big investing houses, such as BlackRock and Vanguard, began to back some of the ESG shareholder proposals and corporations could no longer ignore the results.

Generational shifts

Also, in recent years, millennials and their successors, known as Gen Z, have told pollsters that they feel inclined to purchase goods and services from companies that share their values. High-profile companies that deal directly with consumers, sensing a business opportunity, began to speak out on issues relevant to this key consumer segment. While older Americans might be skeptical about issues such as climate change and gender equity, these younger consumers view them as important.

Suddenly, conservatives were seeing corporate America, which they thought backed their side (some 70% of CEOs and corporate board members are Republican), appearing to go “woke.” “Conservatives were asleep and they conceded the battlefield to the left,” Mr. Chesser says.

ESG critics argue that investing, say, state pension funds according to such principles is not living up to one’s fiduciary duty because something other than maximum profit is guiding investing decisions. The studies on ESG results are mixed. Theoretically such companies might outperform because they’re less likely to get sued for pollution or unequal pay for women. In practice, however, ESG mutual funds often exclude profitable sectors of the economy, such as alcohol, tobacco and guns. These exclusions make it hard for ESG funds to keep up with more general funds. On Tuesday, Louisiana launched an investigation into a climate change coalition to see whether two of its members, mutual fund giant Franklin Templeton and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, had breached their fiduciary duty to investors.

The case for ESG as a fiduciary duty

But that charge may be hard to make stick because the ESG movement is much bigger than a collection of progressives who invest according to their values. A larger group of businesses and investors appear to be using ESG principles to assess the risk of their portfolios and businesses. They may disagree with progressives on, say, climate change policies. But they view it as their fiduciary duty to take into account the threat it might pose to business operations and in the form of climate regulation.

“If you look at the representative retail investor … it seems like they’re using the ESG factors to generate wealth rather than [forgoing] wealth to save the environment or something along those lines,” says Edward Watts, an accounting professor at Yale University who has studied investor behavior around ESG news events.

“We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients,” Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in his letter to shareholders last year. 

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, speaks during an interview with CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, April 14, 2023. He says his firm's focus on sustainability is driven by capitalist, not environmentalist, concerns.

Corporations have shifted – but more shifts to come?

Such moves come against the backdrop of a recent sea change in the way many corporations view their role in society. In contrast to the narrow view that corporations exist only to make their shareholders money, popular from the 1980s onward, corporations have returned to an older and broader view that companies exist to serve all their stakeholders, including employees, customers and their communities.

“The markets have already shifted,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a leading nonprofit in shareholder advocacy. In 2019, the Business Roundtable officially embraced this idea of stakeholder capitalism, followed by the World Economic Forum a few months later. “The companies who are adopting justice and sustainability are the ones who are succeeding. They’re the ones customers want to have loyalty with. They’re the ones who investors want to invest in. They’re the ones who are going to thrive in the next five, 10, 20 years.”

Nevertheless, the rising pressure from the right appears to be yielding results. In December, investing giant Vanguard announced it was pulling out of the Net Zero Asset Managers group, which envisions a zero-emission economy by 2050. Bloomberg News reported that 11 major banks and money managers were adjusting their ESG communications to clients, sometimes avoiding the term in red states while playing it up in blue states. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 63% of Americans don’t want companies talking about social or political issues.

“The chilling effect of this anti-ESG movement may be that CEOs and boards are just not publicly talking about this as much,” says Fran Seegull, president of U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, which as an organization defines impact investing broadly to include strategies like ESG investing. “But we believe that the work of addressing ESG risks and opportunities is still getting done among businesses and investors because if you look at the constraints of the planet, if you look at the reality of a tight labor market, if you look at the driving forces that are shaping our macroeconomic and geopolitical environments, you need to take ESG factors into account. Corporations are taking this seriously.”

Both sides face political risks. For the left, climate goals can look out of touch when war-related oil shortages require more fossil fuel production, not less. For the right, the move to get corporations out of politics may require government intervention that makes some conservatives nervous.

Governor DeSantis’ moves to use state power to punish Disney risks tarnishing his pro-business image. When Kentucky initiated an investigation to see if local banks were using ESG investing principles and had signed on to the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking alliance, the Kentucky Bankers Association sued Kentucky’s attorney general, calling it government overreach.

In between are the companies themselves, simultaneously accused of being too woke and not progressive enough. How they navigate the rising political clash will say much about the staying power of ESG. 

“They’ve been under siege already without us being there,” says Mr. Chesser of the legal and policy center. “Now it’s going to be us opposing the left and us opposing when we think the corporations are improperly engaged in divisive politics. Maybe it complicates things for them a little bit more but, you know, it should have happened a long time ago.”

Peering through the jet window at overcast skies as Beijing’s outskirts emerge below, I run through a mental checklist.          

Before leaving the United States to return to China, I took two COVID-19 tests instead of the one required – just in case. Ditto for the Chinese customs health declaration. I updated the electronic form while changing planes in Taiwan to make sure it wouldn’t expire.    

Having lived in China under its draconian “zero-COVID” policy, I am programmed to arm myself with extra documentation to get through China’s multilayered pandemic control bureaucracy.         

Now, all that bureaucracy has gone. Last December, China’s leaders abruptly lifted many of the restrictions amid mounting social unrest and economic stagnation. China’s doors would open wide to the world, its leaders pledged.

But after three years of mandatory quarantines, mass testing, and lockdowns – would China really be back to “normal,” I wonder? What would that look like? What would it feel like?           

The pilot lands and taxies to the gate. When attendants open the cabin doors, no health officials board the plane to inspect us. It is the first of many things that, happily, do not happen.            

The terminal is no longer filled with “da bai” or “big white” – the hazmat-suited workers who used to herd travelers to cubicles for deep-nostril COVID-19 tests, corral them for hours of screening, and then take them on long bus rides to mystery hotels for quarantine behind alarm-triggering doors.           

Fingerprinting is back, but customs and immigration procedures are otherwise unremarkable. No one looks at my two COVID-19 test reports. I hail a taxi and head for the Monitor’s bureau in downtown Beijing.            

At midafternoon, traffic is already heavy – a big change from “zero-COVID” days, when lockdowns turned vast cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, each home to over 20 million people – into deserted ghost towns.            

“This traffic is actually light,” the driver tells me. “Just wait until rush hour!” Asked about masks, he answers nonchalantly: “You can wear one or not – it’s up to you.”

No more COVID-19 test lines                      

The next morning at the Beijing apartment block that houses the Monitor’s bureau, a loud pulse of Chinese electronic dance music rises from the central courtyard.             

A large fair is underway, with live music, games, booths for local businesses, vendors selling crafts, specialty foods, and even cars. A clown twists balloons into animal shapes, while children do the limbo and a few adults dance.

This scene would have been unimaginable a few months ago. Back then, most gatherings were banned and life in residential compounds was dominated by daily COVID-19 directives carried out by neighborhood committees – the lowest branch of governance in China. Committee members in hazmat suits acted as enforcers – advising residents when to test, regulating who came and went, and imposing lockdowns as needed. Each morning, I would look down into the courtyard below to see how long the COVID-19 testing line was.     

Now, I head downstairs to check out the market, sampling Chinese pastries and talking with vendors.   

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

From her stall at a Beijing fair, Iris Liu, head of Beijing Infinity International Travel Service, hands out toy airplanes to children on April 22, 2023. Her business was effectively shut down when China closed its borders to tourists three years ago.

Iris Liu is handing out toy airplanes to children and promoting her travel business, which she is working to revive after it was effectively shut down when China closed its borders to tourists.                 

“I was lucky – I got pregnant” at the start of the pandemic, says Ms. Liu, head of Beijing Infinity International Travel Service. “So of the three years China was closed during ‘zero-COVID,’ I spent one in pregnancy and two taking care of my son.”                    

But after living on her savings and scrimping to get by, she’s now urgently looking for customers. China is “opening up gradually,” she says, explaining how Beijing is relaxing controls according to its relations with different countries. The government reinstated tourist visas and began allowing group tours last month.             

The revival of people-to-people exchanges comes as China’s top leaders engage in a flurry of diplomacy to shore up Beijing’s influence and woo foreign business. The country’s image suffered during the pandemic; they are broadcasting a simple message: China is back.

Beijing busy again              

Venturing out into the city by bicycle, I immediately notice how alive the streets feel as I weave between delivery carts, cars, other cyclists, and pedestrians.               

Construction workers and suited businessmen, shoppers and young movie fans snapping up tickets to this week’s Beijing International Film Festival – all bring a sense of drive to the streets of the capital.   

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

Children and adults enjoying a playground located on an ancient Beijing “hutong,” or alley, in the capital’s Chaoyang District, April 24, 2023.

Parents crowd around a gate to pick up their children from kindergarten – a school that was closed when I was here last. Countless small businesses, from noodle shops to bathhouses to boutiques – have reopened since the dark, somber days of winter when the city hunkered down as it was engulfed by a wave of illness.               

A resurgence of consumer spending has buoyed China’s economy, which bounced back during the first quarter of this year with 4.5% GDP growth – the fastest rate in a year. The International Monetary Fund projects China’s economic growth will surpass 5% this year. 

I meet friends at a hot-pot restaurant jammed with diners. No longer do I need to register to enter the restaurant by scanning my individual health QR Code – an app on my cellphone that tracks my location and rates my COVID-19 health status as green (normal), yellow (must test), or red (must quarantine). Curious, I check and see if my code still works – it does, and it is green.

Inside, no one except for the waitresses and waiters are wearing masks. Beijing relaxed its stringent mask mandate two weeks ago, no longer requiring the face coverings in most indoor settings, including public transportation.             

Gathering around steaming cauldrons of broth, the diners are enjoying the lively atmosphere – Chinese call it renao, literally “hot and noisy” – and a man at the next table calls out to ask if we’ve eaten here before.

Getting back to being social             

It strikes me just how much such interactions had been dampened in recent years by social distancing mandates and propaganda-stoked fears of infection, which in China meant weeks of quarantine and carried a significant stigma.

Whether it’s with a group of old men playing chess on the street corner who invite me to sit down beside them to watch the game, or with a Chinese professional woman whom I meet in the neighborhood and spend hours getting to know over tea – there is a revived and refreshing spontaneity to social contacts.             

And as people come out of their pandemic shells, they are reflecting on the profound experience they’ve just lived through – and wondering what the future may bring. They are asking questions and comparing notes – like the man who sat down next to me at the tiny neighborhood haircut shop, down a traditional alley, or hutong, near where I live.          

“Do you think China’s COVID policy was correct?” he asks me, engaging in a free-flowing back-and-forth as we sit side by side in the barber chairs.                 

For some Chinese, the pandemic was a traumatic ordeal; long, unpredictable lockdowns harmed their mental health and stirred a desire to leave the country. Others defend the government’s harsh COVID-19 policy as the best approach for China.

But all of us have a new chance to explore these topics, and many more. It’s an opportunity captured in the unmasked smile of a stranger – that invitation to strike up a conversation, say hello, or simply smile back.

Cheney Orr/Reuters

An aerial view of the Tennessee State Capitol after state Rep. Justin Jones was reinstated, following his expulsion along with fellow state Rep. Justin Pearson, in Nashville, April 11, 2023. Their rule-breaking protest on the state House floor on March 30 is what precipitated the expulsions by the Republican-controlled chamber.

The view from state Rep. Greg Martin’s fifth-floor office in downtown Nashville looks over the Tennessee Capitol. But right now, staring through the window from a nearby chair, he’s looking for another building.

“I don’t even know where City Hall is,” he says. “I’m sure it’s close.”

It’s out of sight, two blocks away.

Those two blocks might as well be two hundred miles. As Representative Martin and the state government busily debate bills to increase the state’s influence over the city – adding state seats on the airport and sports authority, altering city tax policy – he’s not talking to the city government. He’s never met a member of the council. They’ve never stopped by.

“I’m not going to go seek out Nashville just because the capital happens to be here,” he says. “But if they’ve got something that they want to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”

The disconnect between these two seats of Tennessee political power is striking. Both city and state lawmakers say they want to hear from each other, yet they’re not speaking. Then this April their relationship, already out of tune, became a cacophony. A mass shooting at a Nashville school led to pro-gun control protests inside the Capitol and the expulsion of two state legislators who represent urban areas and led the chants. Reappointed, they returned to their seats, accompanied by thousands of supporters.

Cheney Orr/Reuters

Rep. Justin Jones leaves the Historic Metro Courthouse after unanimously being reinstated to the state House by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County, April 10, 2023.

Perhaps befitting in Music City USA, this political moment in Tennessee feels like a band breaking up. The state and its capital are thriving. Tennessee is ranked as one of the best states in America in which to do business. Nashville has become a tourist mecca. Their partnership has been crucial to their success.

But over the last 20 years, state and city have been growing apart. Partisan national political issues have crowded out cooperation on local concerns. Gerrymandering has made party primaries the state’s closest elections, while the line between urban and rural areas has become the foundational divide in American politics. Republicans now enjoy supermajorities in both state chambers, and they control the governorship. The only solidly blue parts of Tennessee are Memphis and Nashville, whose council has never been more progressive.

Other red states have difficult relationships with their blue cities – see Texas and Austin, Georgia and Atlanta, or Kentucky and Louisville, whose mayor begged the state for tighter gun laws after a mass shooting this month. In Tennessee, though, the contrast is sharper. A generation ago, the state was defined by its respectful, bipartisan, even gentle politics.

Many Tennessee lawmakers today lament the current lack of civility, the partisanship, and their state’s nationally-covered political chaos. At the same time, they’re hoping the other side – the city or the state – restarts lapsed talks first. The ready-when-you-are tone is fitting for the state and city’s current relationship. Nashville and Tennessee haven’t just become adversaries. They’re strangers.

“Anti-Nashville legislation”

A few weeks ago, Nashville city council member Bob Mendes had grown confused. He was following the media coverage of state bills that would alter his city’s government, and there were so many of them that he’d lost track.

So, he went online and made a spreadsheet with the bills, their number, and their status. On April 11, he tweeted it out: “the slate of anti-Nashville legislation still pending.”

That’s how the city government feels – under attack from the state. “They’re a steamroller and we’re a fly on the pavement,” says Mr. Mendes.

George Walker IV/AP

Senators from the Tennessee General Assembly meet on the floor of the Senate chamber, April 19, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. Republicans have a lock on the state legislature and governorship.

This started last year, when the city council voted against hosting the 2024 Republican National Convention in Nashville, the RNC’s preferred choice. Their decision, city council members say, had as much to do with practicality as politics. There wouldn’t be enough hotel rooms or police officers, and they would have to nix other conventions already booked for that time.

State Republicans didn’t see it that way. And while the Nashville metro government is nominally nonpartisan, the current council is the city’s most progressive ever. Meanwhile, the GOP candidate reliably gets 60% of the Tennessee vote in presidential elections. Republicans hold 75% of the seats in the state legislature – and saw the RNC decision as the city thumbing its nose.

“Some of the members of the state House and state Senate got a little upset – more than a little upset,” says Oscar Brock, a Tennessee RNC member and son of former U.S. Sen. Bill Brock. “They’re like, ‘They can’t do that to us.’ They said, ‘We’re going to find a way to punish Nashville.’”

The state government started by cutting the size of the metro city’s council by half. That may seem like mild revenge – even some on the council admit that 40 members can be too many. But the metro government covers a lot of ground. In 1963, Nashville and Davidson County merged their city councils to better manage their growth. For the last 60 years, that choice has helped the city ascend.

A panel of judges put an injunction on that bill last week, but other legislation has followed. The legislature is considering bills that would give the state a majority of the seats on the city airport authority, just under half of the seats on the sports authority, eliminate community oversight boards, and erase a downtown tax that’s helping repay the city’s debt.

George Walker IV/AP

Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons speaks with GOP Rep. William Lamberth on the floor of the House chamber, April 19, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Then, two weeks ago, Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones – who represent part of Nashville – were expelled by the state legislature for protesting with megaphones in the House chamber. In a few hours, the vice mayor had called a city council meeting to reinstate Representative Jones the next Monday, which they did unanimously.

“Since the stuff with the representatives,” says Mr. Mendes, “I think there’s a not universal, but more widespread feeling that there’s not a way to compromise into peace and harmony with the state of Tennessee.”

Interdependence

Former Mayor Bill Purcell has watched this saga from his 19th-floor downtown office, overlooking the river and the football stadium.

That stadium, named for Nissan, is a reminder of the old Nashville way. When then-Republican Gov. Lamar Alexander recruited the carmaker to the city decades ago, the Democratic legislature was supportive. Mr. Purcell, a Democrat, flew with Governor Alexander to Washington while lobbying for the move.

Nissan brought its North American headquarters to Franklin, near Nashville, which inaugurated decades of growth. The city and the state celebrated.

Peter Joneleit/AP

A view of the Tennessee Titans' Nissan Stadium as fans begin to arrive before an NFL game, Dec. 11, 2022, in Nashville. The stadium is a reminder of the old Nashville way, when the parties worked together to woo automaker Nissan to the area.

“The underlying facts of our interdependence remain true,” says Mr. Purcell. “And yet the events of the last week, the events of this last legislative session, the events of this last year are beyond a season of discontent.”

Mr. Purcell is right: The city and state haven’t lost their economic reasons to cooperate. In 2020, Nashville’s share of the state’s GDP was almost 37%, far above that of any other city in the state. Companies are relocating to nearby counties in search of the Nashville brand name, says Jim Cooper, the city’s former congressman.

In years past, the state’s political motives used to be the same. Tennessee is some 400 miles wide and split into three “grand divisions”: west, middle, and east. Having borders on the Smoky Mountains and the Deep South has historically demanded cooperation from the state’s lawmakers. Tennessee could only be governed by coalitions.

That era is over.

After a 140-year gap, Republicans won a majority in the state House 14 years ago. From 1970 to 2018, the two parties traded the governorship. But since 2011, Republicans have controlled the governorship and the legislature. The General Assembly currently has a 75-24 GOP majority in the House and a 33-6 majority in the Senate.

Republicans have consolidated their power through gerrymandering and tight voter registration laws – Tennessee ranks among the worst states in the country for ease of voting and turnout.

The Democratic party in Tennessee, meanwhile, has withered. It’s hard to find many candidates to run in a general election they know they’ll lose, and candidate quality, state Democrats admit, is often low. Over 40 of the Republicans now in the General Assembly ran unopposed last year.

“We need to be able to talk to each other”

That’s the state: under one-party Republican rule.

But it’s not Nashville.

Year after year, the city resembles America’s other pleasantly generic urban centers – new apartment buildings, scooters, coffee shops, upscale restaurants. Talk to a longtime resident and the topic will almost inevitably return to the state of their city, booming and nearly unrecognizable. It’s the Washington suburbs, with honky-tonks.

“We’re an oasis of blue in a red desert,” says Mr. Cooper.

And the recent trend of the city’s Democrats, he says, is not looking past that oasis. Tennessee is a largely rural state, and its rural political machines – like the state farm bureau – are well organized. Politics isn’t a light switch, Mr. Cooper reminds. Nashville is blue, but it still has about 40% of voters who vote red. That share increases the farther outside the city you go.

Downtown Franklin, in neighboring Williamson County, is filled with Civil War memorials and a central Confederate monument. The gunmaker Barrett, which makes one of the world’s deadliest sniper rifles, has a factory 40 miles outside the city.

Alfredo Sosa/The Christian Science Monitor/File

A view of the Confederate Monument locally known as Chip, Jan. 10, 2022, in Franklin, Tennessee.

“Nashville is an incredibly quickly growing city,” says Mr. Brock, the Tennessee RNC member. “Their voters are understandably more progressive than somebody who lives on a farm in Marshall County, Tennessee. There’s a divide, but that divide’s been there for decades.”

What makes that divide different now is that the two sides aren’t competing for each other’s voters. Democrats haven’t been able to build majorities in their old rural strongholds. Republicans don’t need urban voters to remain in power.

The disconnect appears in the bright pockets of blue surrounded by red on Tennessee voting maps each election year. It also manifests in the way city and state governments talk – and members of both parties admit they do it – in tweeted insults or barbed talking points. Either that, or they don’t talk to each other at all.

Because Nashville’s city council is so large – meaning no one member can speak for the entire group – the mayor’s office has traditionally led lobbying efforts in the state Capitol. But when the state first announced its plan to cut the council in half last year, Vice Mayor Jim Shulman walked to the Capitol himself, just to figure out what was going on.

He says he heard the same arguments he’d heard before: that a smaller metro council would be more efficient and that there wasn’t space to negotiate. But he left a message.

“We need to be able to talk to each other, because obviously the legislature is not going anywhere and neither is the metro council,” he says.

City council and state House sessions are no longer national news. The thousands of protesters have left downtown Nashville. The city and the state, says Mr. Shulman, have a chance to consider how their relationship broke apart and whether they can find harmony again.

“The hope is that this is a change,” he says. “This has hopefully, maybe, paved the way to bring about some serious discussions and maybe some real change.”

Aakash Hassan

Workers stand at one end of the Zoji La tunnel in the Ladakh region of India, April 6, 2023. The 8-mile roadway is expected to cost $830 million to build.

From beneath the brim of his helmet, Irshad Hussain watches workers march through icy gusts of wind into the Zoji La tunnel – a project which will be India’s longest road tunnel once completed. Years of experience have taught the safety officer the risks of burrowing into the Himalayas, and he’s keeping a close eye on the workforce to make sure everyone’s wearing their safety gear and following best practices. 

“We are constantly fighting with nature to make this project a success,” he says, “but the real triumph will be completing the tunnel without any of these brave men getting hurt.”

Costing $830 million to build, the 8-mile-long roadway will help provide all-weather connectivity to Ladakh, an Indian territory that shares a contentious border with China. Locals welcome the tunnel, saying it will lower the costs of living during harsh Himalayan winters, but the main driver is national security. 

The Zoji La tunnel – which will cut travel times through the avalanche-prone mountain pass from 3 hours to 15 minutes – is part of a broader infrastructure push in the region, launched after a 2020 border clash killed 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers. It was the deadliest skirmish between the two countries’ armies in more than 50 years, and tensions don’t appear to be waning – making access to the de facto boundary a priority.

Aakash Hassan

The western end of the Zoji La tunnel opens on to Baltal, an uninhabited mountain area in northern India. The tunnel is expected to cut travel times through the avalanche-prone mountain pass from 3 hours to 15 minutes.

“We cannot fight a war with China in Ladakh for more than 10 days in the present situation,” says Harpal Singh, head of the tunnel project. “With this tunnel that will change. Our forces will be able to have better connectivity, they can ferry more men and machinery.” 

Security catch-up

Much of Ladakh sits more than 10,000 feet above sea level, and temperatures here can plummet to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. For around half the year, a combination of bad weather and poor infrastructure means that road connectivity is essentially nonexistent, forcing civilians and military personnel to stockpile everyday supplies.

“The Indian army does lots of logistic dumping in Ladakh for winter,” says retired Maj. Gen. Amrit Pal Singh, who served as the Indian army’s chief of operational logistics for the region. Keeping kerosene, ammunition, and food stocked throughout the winter months has always been a challenge, he says, but especially now that the number of Indian troops in the region has doubled. 

“It is easy for the Chinese because they are sitting on Tibetan plateau,” he adds. “Their infrastructure is way ahead of us.”

With the Indian government anxious to catch up, the construction company in charge of Zoji La tunnel – Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited – has found ways to keep working even in the extreme winter conditions.

Mr. Singh says they keep months of medicine, food, and cooking gas on hand. The company provides 3,000 workers and engineers accommodations near the construction site as well as protective clothes. Work on Zoji La tunnel started just three months after the border clash, and the team has completed about 2.5 miles of drilling so far, with the rest expected to finish by next year. The tunnel should be fully operational by 2026. 

Despite careful preparation, risks remain.

“These mountains are tectonically very active,” says Mehraj Ud Din, geotechnical head of the Zoji La tunnel project. “This all makes our job more complicated as we have to constantly use concrete to create equilibrium after boring.”

Aakash Hassan

Mehraj Ud Din, geotechnical head of the Zoji La tunnel project in northern India, stands by a construction zone, April 6, 2023.

The area also receives heavy snowfall from November to April, and this January, a huge avalanche killed two laborers near the construction site. The incident, which also damaged several machines, suspended work for seven weeks. 

“We have to be always extra cautious,” says Mohammad Altaf, a worker from a nearby village who gets to visit his family once every three months. “Working in this kind of situation needs a lot of skills and dedication.”

Boon for the region

Ladakh is home to roughly 300,000 people, spread across an area the size of West Virginia.

“All-weather connectivity was a long-pending demand of our people,” says Konchok Stanzin, a local councilor.

During the coldest months, prices of gas and food skyrocket, and travel is largely limited to air routes, which also become more expensive. At times, he says, the one-hour flight from Ladakh to New Delhi could cost the same as a flight from New Delhi to New York. 

“After the tensions escalated on the border, many developmental projects are being carried out,” he says. “We are seeing many roads and bridges coming up.”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

In January, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated 28 infrastructure projects aimed at strengthening the border, including the Zoji La tunnel. It’s not just about the number of projects, but also the pace. A year after the clash on the border with Chinese troops, India established “centres of excellence” for the government’s Border Roads Organisation to speed up the construction of more than 30,000 miles of dual-use roads and bridges, as well as 19 airfields and four tunnels. These projects are mostly near, or leading to, the disputed border with China.

Some security experts say India’s infrastructure push could irk China and provoke further conflict. But former Indian army officer Amrit Pal Singh sees this as a reason to double down on construction.

“China has used India’s infrastructure development near the border as an excuse to escalate conflict and make incursions,” he says. “In this kind of situation, we have to react and cannot let them take any piece of our land.”

Sajid Ali, a research scholar from the town of Kargil in Ladakh, believes the tunnel and other infrastructure projects will be a boon for the region.

“Those people who can afford it usually move out of Ladakh during the winter season,” he explains, but all-weather connectivity will allow for increased tourism, regular supplies of essentials, and access “to better health care facilities throughout the year.”

“It will be a dream come true for us,” he says.

As a child in London in the 1980s, Agnes Soyode-Johnson spent her weekend mornings with her siblings, watching cartoons like “Scooby Doo,” “Dennis the Menace,” and “Inspector Gadget.” 

The child of Nigerian immigrants, she rarely stopped to think about why so few of the characters looked like her. Then, in 1992, she saw a movie that changed everything. As Aladdin and Jasmine rode their magic carpet over an Arabian desert kingdom singing about a new world, Ms. Soyode-Johnson marveled at their dark hair and brown skin. 

“I loved it so much because I could relate,” says Ms. Soyode-Johnson. “I felt seen.” Fast-forward three decades. Ms. Soyode-Johnson – now a TV producer living in Lagos, Nigeria – was trying to keep two toddlers busy during a global pandemic. Her house echoed with the songs and squeals of her kids’ favorite TV shows: “Cocomelon,” “Peppa Pig,” “PAW Patrol,” and as in her own childhood, she noticed that all the shows her kids watched were from the West. She wanted her children to feel as she had when she saw “Aladdin” all those years ago. So she created “OmoBerry,” a YouTube cartoon that features a cast of young characters from across Africa.

The popular program is part of a larger movement by African animators to make shows that reflect the experiences of the continent’s children. Many, like “OmoBerry,” are self-published on YouTube and other free platforms, sidestepping the need for support from big Western animation producers.

“Children’s literature is a socializing agent and it’s important for young ones of every color and creed to grow up seeing fictional characters who look and sound like them, and whose world mirrors their own,” says Joyce Nyairo, a Kenyan cultural analyst who’s currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin.

Carlos Mureithi

Nigeria-based Agnes Soyode-Johnson is the co-creator of the “OmoBerry” cartoons. “African kids deserve this ... and there is a market for it,” she says.

But for African kids, that’s often easier said than done. Only recently have major Western media companies like Netflix and Disney started to create animated shows for and by Africans. 

“Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes,” a series about a 7-year-old African girl who has superpowers in dancing and martial arts, premiered on Disney Junior last month. And Netflix is developing a series called “Supa Team 4” about a team of teenage superheroines in Lusaka, Zambia.

In the meantime, however, many African parents, like their counterparts around the world, are turning to YouTube. Children’s content is a big profitmaker for the platform, with “Cocomelon” ranking as one of the most viewed channels in the site’s history.

African animators have tapped into a particular subset of this market called “edutainment,” which combines classic kids’ TV storylines with lessons about topics like science, history, and manners. Think “Dora the Explorer” teaching Spanish vocabulary, or Count von Count on “Sesame Street” helping generations of kids learn their numbers. And now, there are the young people of the cartoon “Ubongo Kids,” who teach math and science as they solve mysteries in their Tanzanian village. And Super Sema, a Kenyan superhero who uses powers boosted by science and the arts to save her village from a villain.

“OmoBerry,” meanwhile, has four main characters, who are all Nigerians between the ages of 5 and 7. They are joined by a supporting cast from around the continent on adventures that address topics such as manners, math, and African history.

In an episode called “Egyptian Pyramid Song,” “OmoBerry” characters visit Egypt to learn how pyramids were built.

“Ancient means old,” the characters sing. “From long long ago / When the rest of the world was in doubt / Africa figured it out.”

Courtesy of Ere Akinrinmade

Fara Akinrinmade voices Chiamaka, one of the main characters in “OmoBerry,” at a recording session at Digitrack Studios in Lagos, Nigeria, in September 2022.

Fara Akinrinmade, a 10-year-old who voices one of the show’s children, Chiamaka, says she feels good when she sees a character like her that looks like her, has hair like hers, and speaks like her.

“I’m sure that if I met her one day in real life, I could really relate to her and we could be best friends,” she says.

Drawn to Nigeria

Ms. Soyode-Johnson always felt a strong connection to Nigeria. Her mother, who moved to the U.K. in the 1960s, was very passionate about ensuring that all of her six children knew their identity and made a point of taking her children to Nigeria on holidays.

So even as Ms. Soyode-Johnson built her life as a television producer in the U.K., she always felt “a part of me was missing,” she says. In 2013, she moved to Nigeria, and soon became a decorated producer of a Nigerian web series.

But it was becoming a mother that made her see the opportunity in African animation. 

Carlos Mureithi

Ayomide Oluwole, an “OmoBerry” editor, pauses at his home studio in Lagos, Nigeria, in February. Staff members are also located in South Africa and the United States.

“It was just really important for my kids to be able to experience an inclusive environment in the content that they watch, knowing that that wasn’t something that I was able to experience growing up myself,” she says.

She decided to tackle this gap. She partnered with two colleagues in the entertainment industry – Gbenga Ajetomobi, a Nigerian 3D animator, and Charlie Buffin, an American entrepreneur – and started Limitless Studios. “OmoBerry” was their first project. 

“Paving the way for others”

The partners first raised money from family and friends in 2020 before launching the show the following year. So far, they have raised a total of $1.2 million for the show, mostly from venture capital firms.

This money goes to paying for a team of 25, largely in Nigeria but also as far afield as South Africa and the United States. They include animators, a scriptwriter, and an early learning expert.

“OmoBerry” aims to be profitable in the next year and a half, Ms. Soyode-Johnson says, and currently generates revenue mainly from YouTube ads. 

But it also has content licensing deals with other streaming platforms and sells branded merchandise in an online shop. Limitless Studios also recently signed a deal with Platoon, a music distribution company owned by Apple, to distribute “OmoBerry” music.

As of late-April, the “OmoBerry” YouTube page has 183,000 subscribers and its videos have garnered more than 65 million views.

“We just hope that OmoBerry is paving the way for others within the space to realize, ‘Okay we can do this. African kids deserve this … and there is a market for it,’” Ms. Soyode-Johnson says.

Reuters

People in Saint Petersburg, Russia, gather at a bus stop near an advertisement for joining the Russian army.

Few people in Russia speak out against the war in Ukraine these days. Repression of almost all dissent has tightened. Yet more than half of Russians want peace, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center. That quiet sentiment is finding new forms of expression, not so much in words as in action.

Take, for example, an initiative by many Russian citizens to help Ukrainian refugees travel to Europe. A similar American-style underground railroad assists young Russian men in fleeing the military draft. More than 300,000 were able to leave last fall during the first wave of conscriptions.

One of the few remaining activist groups fighting for civic rights, OVD-Info, filed a complaint this week with the Constitutional Court. The complaint seeks to overturn a law that bans people from speaking out against the invasion. The legal plea has little chance of success; Russian courts are not independent. Yet the action at least draws attention to the official terror on dissent.

Another type of action is the unexpected popularity of a new book, “The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended,” by exiled Russian scholar Alexander Baunov. Now in its fourth printing, the book is about the return of democracy to three European countries (Spain, Greece, and Portugal) in the late 20th century after periods of dictatorship. The parallels to the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin are obvious.

Simply buying the book is a political statement, writes the author in The New York Times. “Russians have not stopped asking questions about what comes next,” he says.

Street protests against the war were suppressed soon after the invasion in February last year. But many Russians still signal their opposition in public, from tattoos to graffiti to yellow ribbons. To get around media censorship, new forms of news distribution have sprung up.

“The Kremlin failed to destroy civil society,” writes Grigory Okhotin, co-founder of OVD-Info. Many groups that were banned continue their work in different ways. “Hundreds of thousands of people, despite all the risk, have continued to support public structures and take part in their work as volunteers,” he states.

Mr. Putin has been fighting a second war in Russia itself, writes Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Foreign Affairs, “and this war is unlikely to go away even if the conflict in Ukraine becomes frozen.”

More than a year into the war, dissent by many Russians is a cry for their country to be based on individual rights rather than displays of national power, says Mr. Okhotin.

Mr. Putin still seems secure in the Kremlin. But, according to Damon Wilson, the president and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy, “History tells us the most repressive and seemingly secure regimes can crumble, brought down by ordinary people demanding freedom.”

For now, Russians are making those demands in new and fresh ways, living in the truth of their inherent rights.