Trump's healthcare surprise is a heart-stopper
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
This red state is reeling as GOP attacks its own voters
Just this month, the state agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) announced the implementation of new restrictions that are expected to take food assistance away from thousands of West Virginians — including older adults between 55 and 64, veterans, parents of teenagers and former foster youth.
More than 60,000 West Virginians received notices that their health insurance premiums will be skyrocketing on Jan. 1, 2026, given ongoing uncertainty around whether Congress will extend tax subsidies that make ACA Marketplace plans affordable for people who do not receive health coverage through their jobs. And the only hospital in Greenbrier County just announced it will no longer provide labor and delivery services.
What do these concerning developments have in common? They are all part of the fallout from the passage of Congress’ “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted earlier this summer, which all four of West Virginia’s members of Congress voted for.
That legislation contained the largest cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in the nation’s history, which will result in tens of thousands fewer West Virginians having access to these programs. It includes the new restrictions that will take food assistance away from parents and veterans in the coming months. For the households impacted, health care and groceries will become even more difficult to afford, as they already grapple with rising costs and a slowing economy.
But that’s not all. The bill also slashed Medicaid and SNAP by shifting federal program costs onto state budgets, and lawmakers will now have to come up with tens of millions of state dollars in upcoming years to plug holes in Medicaid and SNAP.
Other components of the legislation impact reimbursements and funding streams for health care providers, which is why some hospitals and clinics across the country are trimming services and even consolidating or closing their doors in anticipation of lower reimbursements and a higher volume of uncompensated care when more patients are uninsured.
While officials at the Greenbrier Valley Medical Center didn’t explicitly blame the federal legislation, they noted the reorganization would give them access to a higher level of reimbursement in order to make the hospital more sustainable. Our elected leaders should be working to expand health care access in rural parts of the state, not rubber-stamping policies that result in less accessible care. Now families in Greenbrier County and surrounding towns will have to travel farther for treatment and staff may lose their jobs or be forced to transfer farther away for work.
What the legislation shockingly did not contain, despite the prioritization of windfall tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy (80 percent of the tax benefits go to the top 10 percent richest households), was an extension of the tax credits that help hardworking West Virginians — mainly self-employed, small business owners and their employees, and retirees — afford health coverage on the marketplace. That explains the sticker shock many are experiencing now while shopping for health coverage for January.
These are all the very real results of the Big Beautiful Bill, despite assertions from the legislation’s supporters that the impacts are delayed or that band-aid provisions like the Rural Health Transformation Program will dampen the harms.
While some of the effects are already here, there is much more pain to come in the form of deep cuts to Medicaid both via eligibility restrictions and more federal cost shifts onto states, higher costs for West Virginians with student loan debt, and higher energy prices due to the repeal of affordable, clean energy programs.
These changes don’t only hurt the West Virginians who directly utilize these programs, but also the rest of us when our community hospitals reduce services, job losses in the health care and energy industries weaken our economy, and more of our community members experience hunger and suffering.
It’s not too late for West Virginia’s members of Congress to say enough is enough and address the affordability and economic crises created as a result of the Big Beautiful Bill. They can still roll back these harmful changes — but they must acknowledge that the harm is here. For many of us, it’s already undeniable.
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Every political calculation now says this hapless Dem must go
Enough Senate Democrats caved last night to the Republicans that it looks likely that the shutdown will end — but without the Democrats achieving their goal of restoring Obamacare subsidies.
It was an astounding show of the Democrat’s lack of discipline in the face of total Republican discipline. It revealed Chuck Schumer’s inability to keep Senate Democrats together and Trump’s ability to keep Senate Republicans together.
I’ll be surprised if Schumer survives as Senate Minority Leader.
Overall, the Democrat’s cave is a huge mistake.
First, Democrats hold all the cards. As even Trump admitted after last Tuesday’s blowout, voters chose Democrats across the board because of the shutdown. It’s clear that voters are blaming on Republicans.
Given this, why in hell should Democrats cave?
Second, Senate Democrats never voted for Trump’s Big Ugly bill that removed the Obamacare subsidies (among many other travesties) because Republicans used a process called “reconciliation” which allowed them to pass the Big Ugly with a bare Senate majority and no Democratic votes.
So now that Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage, why would they give it up?
Third, while it’s obvious that some Americans are hurting right now because of the shutdown, caving to Republicans won’t end the hurt because Trump and his lapdogs continue to assert that they have the power to slash whatever programs they don’t like.
Republican leader John Thune assured Senate Democrats that he’d give them a vote on Obamacare subsidies sometime in December, but this is a near-worthless promise. Even if the Senate voted to continue to subsidies, the Republican-controlled House is unlikely to allow a vote on them.
Even worse, there’s no guarantee that Trump’s White House will go along. In fact, it’s clear that the White House will dig in on all sorts of programs Democrats support. Do Senate Democrats really believe that Americans will hurt any less when government is reopened and Trump and his sycophants and lapdogs can hack away at whatever programs they dislike?
Finally, because of the Democrat’s cave, premiums under the Affordable Care Act are likely to soar starting in January, which is likely to cause many young and healthier people to exit from the program — forcing those who remain to pay even higher premiums or not get coverage at all. In other words, Trump and his Republicans will have found a backdoor means of eroding or ending a program they’ve been targeting since Trump first came to power in 2016.
I admire Senate Democrats’ soft hearts but not their soft heads. I hope there’s still time for them to regain their mettle.
- Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
- Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.
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These Jan 6 lawyers should not be allowed near a courtroom — never mind a school district
Here’s a lesson for the public schools to teach parents: “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be lawyers at the Thomas More Society.”
You may have heard that Kirkwood School District, in Missouri, was recently threatened with a lawsuit over a three-minute LGBTQ+ History Month video shown to middle schoolers last month. Some parents complained.
The Chicago-based Thomas More Society swooped in with an eight-page demand letter threatening years of federal litigation and “substantial attorney fees” unless Kirkwood caved to their demands — all in the name of “protecting” the school district’s children from exposure to non-heterosexual subject matter.
This uncivil society has fancied itself for two decades as a guardian of morality. Not merely to advance homophobia, but to defund public libraries, shutter abortion clinics and otherwise seek to redefine America in the most unChristian manner imaginable.
But it was the group’s spectacularly failed attempt to overthrow American democracy as leading election deniers that best defines its notion of right and wrong. And that best illustrates the threat it poses to the rest of us.
Kids need to be protected from adults like this.
In 2020, the Thomas More Society created something called the Amistad Project — after updating its bylaws to include “election integrity” as part of its mission statement.
It launched lawsuits in multiple key swing states Donald Trump lost — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona — all of which were dismissed or tossed out after courts found serious procedural or constitutional flaws.
In December 2020, it sued in federal court seeking to block Congress from counting electoral votes on Jan. 6. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg rejected the motion, writing that the suit “rests on a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution. It would be risible were its target not so grave.”
Risible is judge-speak for “Stupid on stilts.”
The Amistad Project was run at the time by Phill Kline, a former Kansas state attorney general whose resume included having had his law license suspended in 2013 for what the Kansas Supreme Court termed “clear and convincing evidence” that Kline committed 11 separate ethics violations.
The Court’s findings included that he misled a grand jury, provided false testimony, and illegally obtained confidential medical records during his investigations of abortion providers. The Court cited his “dishonest and selfish motives” and noted his “inability or refusal to acknowledge” his misconduct. He would ultimately lose his appeals at the U.S. Supreme Court, at a reported cost of $600,000 to Kansas taxpayers.
Great guy. I have no idea what he’s doing now. But during the scandalous post-2020 election effort to thwart democracy, he personified the Thomas More Society’s idea of an upstanding and morally impeccable attorney.
There are quite a few other examples of attorneys who have been associated with the society and whose service — like Kline — speaks volumes as to the group’s high standards of virtue.
There was Jenna Ellis, whose meteoric rise from a traffic-law attorney in Colorado to the height of Trump World culminated in a criminal guilty plea for aiding Trump’s fake‑elector scheme and a public censure for repeatedly misrepresenting the 2020 election. (To be fair, Ellis deserves our compassion as a survivor of close exposure to Rudy Guiliani’s flatulence and runaway hair dye.)
There were lesser known stalwarts like Erick G. Kaardal — identified as “Special Counsel” for the Amistad Project in the December 2020 election‐lawsuit filings. A federal judge referred him for possible disciplinary action after describing his complaint as “a sweeping Complaint filled with baseless fraud allegations and tenuous legal claims.”
The list goes on. But you don’t need deep research to understand the grotesque nature of the Thomas More Society. The demand letter it sent to the Kirkwood School District on behalf of a handful of aggrieved parents speaks for itself:
“Based on our track record of First Amendment victories and fee recoveries across the country, those amounts are likely to be substantial.”
Nice school district you have here. It would be a shame if something bad happened to it.
At this point, it’s fair to wonder what sort of moral outrage might be so heinous as to offend the sensibilities of the openly heinous themselves? Must be pretty gruesome, right?
Fortunately, there’s no need to speculate. The demand letter specifies some of the atrocities perpetrated at Kirkwood. Here it is (but I must warn you these bulleted items might not be appropriate for children to see):
- “Years ago” being “openly LGBTQ+ was difficult and dangerous” and “everything changed” for the good during the “Stonewall Uprising,” thanks in part to “brave activists like Marsha P. Johnson [a self-identified ‘drag queen’] and Sylvia Rivera [a self-identified ‘transvestite’],” which led to “speak[ing] up” for “LGBTQ+ rights” across the world.
- The “Christopher Street liberation day march” was the first “Pride parade” that served as a way for self-identified LGBTQ+ individuals to “step out of the shadows” and “show the world who they were,” because “being yourself is something to celebrate, not hide.”
- “Pride” is about “being proud of your identity.”
- “Pride month” is “celebrated” with “parades, festivals, and flags full of bright colors.” The rainbow flag was created as a “symbol of love, acceptance, diversity, and hope.”
- Newer versions of the “Pride flag” include the “progress pride flag” adding “black and brown to highlight the inclusion of people of color,” along with “pink, blue, and white to include the ‘trans’ community.’ This evolution shows that the movement is growing and working hard to include everyone.”
- “The Pride community today is a huge and amazing group”; “it’s a supportive family.”
- “Pride reminds us to[:] Be proud of who you are[,] Stand up for fairness and equality[,] Support Others” [as also displayed in illustrated text on the video], “no matter who they love or how they identify.”
- “It started as a protest, and today it’s also a celebration of courage, history, and community.” “Supporting ‘Pride’ means supporting equality, kindness, and the right to be yourself.”
- “HAPPY LGBTQ+ HISTORY MONTH” [shouted by student-narrators in unison, and as further displayed in illustration on video].
Dear reader, I apologize if it has offended your sensibilities to see — in raw and uncensored form — the subversiveness that was inflicted upon innocent children in Kirkwood. Certainly, it’s understandable that it might offend your religious beliefs.
Especially if you’re possessed by whatever demons haunt the nice people at the Thomas More Society.
- Ray Hartmann writes on Substack at Ray Hartmann's Soapbox.
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Democrats hold all the cards — and they're being really stupid
At this hour, enough Senate Democrats seem willing to cave to give Republicans the 60 votes they need to end the shutdown without agreeing to Democratic demands to restore Obamacare subsidies starting next January.
IMHO, this is really stupid.
Democrats hold all the cards. As even Trump admitted after Tuesday’s blowout, voters chose Democrats across the board because of the shutdown — which voters are blaming on Republicans.
Given this, why in hell should Democrats cave?
Senate Democrats never voted for Trump’s Big Ugly bill that removed the Obamacare subsidies (among many other travesties) because Republicans used a process called “reconciliation” which allowed them to pass the Big Ugly with a bare Senate majority and no Democratic votes.
So now that Democrats finally have some bargaining leverage, why would they give it up?
Yes, some Americans are hurting right now because of the shutdown. But do Senate Democrats really believe that Americans will hurt any less when government is reopened and Trump and his sycophants and lapdogs can hack away at whatever programs they dislike?
I admire Senate Democrats’ soft hearts but not their soft heads. I hope there’s still time for them to regain their mettle.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
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This cruelty was so monstrous it's barely fathomable. Trump is inspired
America has always been proud of its ingenuity: our capacity to invent, to innovate, to solve. But among our most consistent inventions is one we never admit to but the Trump administration is now proudly highlighting: the machinery of cruelty.
Generation after generation, we refine it, disguise it, and call it something noble: “law and order,” “family values,” “national security.” Each era congratulates itself for its moral progress while quietly perfecting the tools of human suffering.
From the actuarial tables that justified the deaths of Black people a hundred years ago, to the silence that let gay men die in the 1980s, to the unmarked vans prowling our streets today, the design remains the same. The faces change; the purpose — upholding straight white male supremacy — never does.
While many Americans are shocked by the cruelty and brutality of Trump’s/Miller’s/Vance’s ICE and CPB thugs against Hispanics in the United States, such attempts to “purify” the country are really nothing new. Hopefully, though, our response to them will be different this time.
One of the most shocking things I learned when I was writing The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich was how much American policy was driven by white men in power who were trying to decrease the Black population, both by deportations, like James Monroe tried, and through actually genocidal domestic healthcare policies.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, the vice president of Prudential Insurance, Frederick L. Hoffman, published a widely cited “scientific” book claiming that Black people were so biologically inferior that they would “eventually die out.” He argued that if white society simply refused to extend medical care, social support, or public health infrastructure to them, their extinction would “occur naturally.”
It was an extraordinary act of pseudoscientific cruelty: a man with corporate and political power using the language of statistics and medicine to rationalize genocide by neglect. Hoffman’s 1896 Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro — one of the best-selling books of the early 1900s — became the actuarial and intellectual foundation for denying healthcare to Black Americans to this day, giving white policymakers cover to block public health investment while claiming to be guided by “data.”
Hoffman’s claim is why there’s a 20% hole in traditional Medicare: it was created at the demand of white racist southern senators so elderly Black people — who couldn’t afford the 20% co-pay — wouldn’t show up in the then-whites-only hospitals and doctors’ offices.
That same brutal logic — intentional genocide by state action or inaction — reappeared when the AIDS crisis erupted in the 1980s. The Reagan administration’s response to the disease was defined by silence and contempt. As tens of thousands of mostly gay men got sick and died (several of them close friends of ours), America’s bigoted President Reagan refused even to utter the word “AIDS” throughout his presidency.
— His press secretary laughed, from the official White House podium, about gay men dying .
— Conservative pundits like Pat Buchanan called the disease “nature’s retribution” for “immoral” homosexuality, and Senator Jesse Helms successfully banned federal funding for educational materials about safe sex and AIDS that he said might “promote homosexual activity.”
— William F. Buckley Jr. (who also wrote about the supposed genetic inferiority of Black people) proposed tattooing people who had AIDS so they could be identified, discriminated against, and segregated from the rest of us.
The message from Republicans in power was unmistakable: the queer victims of HIV were morally defective, they deserved their excruciatingly painful deaths, and the government had no duty to save them.
It was Hoffman’s calculus all over again, dressed up in the language of religion and “family values” instead of racial eugenics.
Now that same monstrous pattern is repeating itself both along our border and border towns, as well as across the interior of the United States. The logic of white racial and cultural superiority reflected by Republican rhetoric has today metastasized into open brutality.
The so-called Kavanaugh stops — made possible by a morally evil shadow-docket ruling written by Brett Kavanaugh for the corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court — have effectively given Trump’s agents permission to seize and detain people based solely on the color of their skin or the way they speak, just like the Klan could do in the Old South.
Under this blatantly unconstitutional decree, masked federal goons can snatch anyone they choose, hold them without due process, and claim they’re “immigration suspects.” There are already reports of U.S. citizens, including fathers and mothers driving their kids to school, being pulled from their cars, cuffed, and dragged away by men in black or camo tactical gear with no badges and no warrants.
One video shows a terrified child screaming as her father — a US citizen, brutalized in broad daylight — is shoved into an unmarked van, because he looked Hispanic. They then kidnapped the terrorized child and held her for much of the day.
This is not law enforcement. It’s state terror. As Adam Serwer famously wrote, “The cruelty is the point.” Stephen Miller and his colleagues in the Trump White House appear to have designed these policies precisely to maximize fear and suffering.
During Trump’s first term he bragged to colleagues that family separation worked as “deterrence.” Children were warehoused in cages, parents deported without them, and about a thousand have vanished to this day through a shadowy network of pop-up “Christian” foster homes that vanished after they got the kids from the Trump administration.
The trauma was — and is — intentional, an explicit message to would-be brown-skinned migrants that America would destroy their families if they came here. Now Trump, et al, are expanding that same logic nationwide, empowered by corrupt white Republicans on a Supreme Court that has abandoned the Constitution in favor of hateful, bigoted ideology and obedience to the party that appointed them.
What we’re witnessing right now is the third great chapter in a grim American tradition: define a population as “lesser,” withhold or weaponize care, legalize and expand harassment, and watch the consequences unfold — people brutalized, children traumatized, citizens terrified — while pretending they’re inevitable and the cause is noble.
Hoffman’s statistical analyses justified abandoning Black Americans to early death by refusing them healthcare. Reagan’s silence and cuts to government funds allowed a generation of gay men to die untreated. And Trump’s immigration machine now turns suffering into policy.
In each case, the people inflicting the harm claim moral superiority — that they’re protecting the “real” America from impurity or invasion — while what they’re really doing is institutionalizing cruelty and brutality as governance while being cheered on by their bigoted white supremacist base.
This is not hyperbole. When a Supreme Court packed with rightwing ideologues uses an unsigned opinion to strip away constitutional rights and green-light racial profiling, we’re no longer operating under a system that respects equal protection under the law.
When federal agents are masked, unmarked, unaccountable, and armed, snatching US citizens and peaceful protestors off the street, we’re living in a police state. And when our national conversation treats all that as normal, we’re back in Hoffman’s world; the world where suffering isn’t an error to be corrected but a strategy for how the powerful maintain straight white male supremacy.
We have to call this what it is: cultural — and sometimes physical — genocide by design. Hoffman’s eugenics, Reagan’s homophobic hate, and Trump’s xenophobia are all the same disease in different generations.
They rely on public apathy, and on the willingness of good people to look away. Each time, the target group changes, but the mechanism remains: withhold care, strip rights, justify suffering, and declare it “justice” for straight white men and a society that claims they should exclusively be in charge.
The outrage of the Kavanaugh stops isn’t just about immigration or policing. It’s about whether the United States still recognizes limits on government power.
It’s immoral. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s exactly the kind of bureaucratic evil that once hid behind actuarial tables and “family values.” Rightwing leaders in past fascist regimes have used it to justify the wholesale destruction of a people.
We must not let history repeat itself again. We know where this road leads: to children in cages, to communities terrorized, to hospitals turning patients away, to families burying their dead while officials shrug.
Hoffman — a Republican who openly celebrated the death of FDR — thought Black extinction would come naturally if white men in power simply withheld care. Reagan thought the gay community would vanish if government refused to help. And Trump’s America First ideologues continue to argue that nonwhite people will “self-deport” if the state makes life unbearable enough as they welcome white South Africans.
In every case, the goal is erasure of “undesirable people” through pain.
We have the power to stop it, but only if we refuse to normalize it. Every senator, every judge, every journalist, every citizen must confront the reality that the machinery of cruelty is running again in our names.
Once a nation accepts pain as governance, democracy becomes performance and compassion becomes treason. Republicans have perfected the unthinkable. The only question left is whether America will finally refuse to justify it.
Silence is complicity. Outrage is the only moral response, and action the only cure. Tag, you’re it!
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Trump will drown America with this wild new fantasy
In yet another display of the same divisive rhetoric that defined his first term, US President Donald Trump has once again pulled the United States into the crosshairs of global instability, this time by saber rattling over Nigeria’s complex ethnic and religious conflict. Trump not only threatened to slash US aid, but he also said he might order “fast and vicious” military strikes against what he calls “Islamic terrorists” slaughtering Christians. Aside from the fact that Trump is wrong, he is ranting xenophobic ideas, platforming American exceptionalism, and demonstrating a blatant disregard for the lives of millions caught in the cross fire of what is simply a resource war with colonial-era grudges.
Let’s be clear: The violence taking place today in Nigeria is heartbreaking and must end. Boko Haram’s extremism, clashes between farmers and herders, and general hooliganism have claimed over 20,000 civilian lives since 2020. It is true that Christian communities in the north-central regions have suffered unimaginable horrors as raids have left villages in ashes, children murdered in their beds, and churches reduced to rubble. The April massacre in Zike and the June bloodbath in Yelwata are prime examples of the atrocities taking place in Nigeria. These incidents are grave reminders that the international community must pay more attention to this crisis.
But Trump’s response is crude and wrong. Painting all Muslims as genocidal monsters is not the answer. Calling Nigeria a failed state ripe for American liberation is not the solution, especially since the data shows otherwise. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more Muslims than Christians have been targeted in recent years. Boko Haram has massacred worshipers in mosques, torched markets in Muslim-majority areas, and threatened their own co-religionists.
The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity. Instead, it’s a devastating cocktail of poverty, climate-driven land disputes, and radical ideologies that prey on everyone and not just any distinct group. By framing Nigeria’s conflict as an existential threat to Christians alone, Trump is not shining a spotlight on the victims. Instead, he is weaponizing right-wing conspiracy theories to stoke Islamophobia, the same toxic playbook he used to fuel his ban on Muslims, and which left refugee families shattered at America’s borders.
Americans must reject Trump’s imperial fantasy and instead demand congressional oversight on any military action.
Nigeria’s leaders are right to be astonished and furious. Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said he was “shocked” over Trump’s invasion musings, while President Bola Tinubu decried the religious intolerance label as a distortion of their “national reality.” Even opposition voices, like Labour Party spokesperson Ken Eluma Asogwa, admit the government’s security lapses but reject Trump’s extermination narrative as baseless fearmongering.
Trump should indeed be viewed as a warmonger, seeking every opportunity to sow discord and destruction in his wake. He sees every crisis as a photo op for his machismo and self-promotion. His first term was a disaster and now, in his second term, he wants to unleash drones and troops on Africa’s most populous nation, destabilizing a key partner in counterterrorism and migration management.
Unilateral strikes will only inflame the conflict’s root causes like resource scarcity and ethnic tensions. If anything, Trump’s misguided ideas to resolve the crisis will only exacerbate it by creating new waves of refugees and sowing even more discord throughout Nigeria. The country needs real solutions, not Trump’s wrong-headed conspiracy theories. He should be saving those who are vulnerable, not bombing them into submission.
A real solution would involve surging humanitarian aid to displaced families, partnering with the United Nations and African Union for joint security training, and pressuring Nigeria’s government through incentives, not threats. Real strength is in building bridges. Trump shows his weakness by building bunkers.
The Nigerian crisis is a clarion call for the world, but especially for America. Trump’s rhetoric is not just wrong; it is a betrayal of American values. Americans must reject Trump’s imperial fantasy and instead demand congressional oversight on any military action. America must recommit to a foreign policy that heals rather than divides. The world is watching, and for the sake of Nigerian lives and the American soul, we must not allow Trump to drag America into a quagmire of his own making. Nigeria deserves better.
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This law could force Fox News to flee the US
In 2021, following MAGA’s J6 storming of the US Capitol, media columnist Margaret Sullivan observed that such orchestrated violence could not have happened without Fox News. She wrote, “The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol … could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of [Fox News hosts] Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage.”
Fox News didn’t deny that it platformed Trump’s stolen election claims after knowing them to be false, nor could it after Dominion Voting brought the receipts. In the run up to J6, Fox anchors laughed to each other that Trump’s and his supporters’ election claims were “ludicrous” and “totally off the rails”(Tucker Carlson); “F’ing lunatics” (Sean Hannity); “Nuts” (Dana Perino); “Complete BS” (Fox Producer); “Kooky” (Maria Bartiromo); “Mind Blowingly Nuts” (Fox VP); and that, “There is NO evidence of fraud. None” (Bret Baier).
And yet, to the American people, Fox hosts said the opposite, relentlessly, and kept at it until the manufactured outrage crescendoed in the J6 attack.
Fox is normalizing and selling Trump’s police state
In 2025, Fox is at it again, this time parroting Trump’s false claims about immigrants, crime, and ICE. As Trump’s masked agents commit widely documented atrocities in Democrat-run cities, Fox hosts call ICE protesters “domestic terrorists,” while platforming false claims that ICE officers have “federal immunity“ for their crimes.
Last week, when Kristi Noem claimed that “No American citizens have been arrested or detained” by ICE agents, Fox News and affiliates ran the entire segment with no fact checks and no clarification. It is well publicized and well known that more than 170 American citizens have, in fact, been tackled, arrested and detained illegally by Noem’s ICE agents. When Fox showed a masked, male agent slamming a 5-foot-tall woman onto the concrete, Fox’s Laura Ingraham ran the clip praising ICE’s excessive violence with, “good job.”
By ignoring (or encouraging) ICE brutality, while overstating threats against federal agents, Fox News is, once again, radicalizing viewers with falsehoods.
Fox is also normalizing a police state, grooming the public to welcome the specter of Trump’s secret police in their daily lives. As Trump gears up to invade and oppress citizens in every state with "quick reaction forces" trained to control "civil disturbances" that Trump himself will cause, Fox News will, yet again, be an accomplice to the criminal violence. Only this time, far more than 5 people are likely to die.
Fox has an outsize megaphone
Fox News is the most-watched news channel in the US. It has consistently led the charts in both total viewers and key demographics, over competitors like MSNBC, CNN, and broadcast networks such as ABC and NBC.
In 2020, Pew Researchers found that Fox News viewers are far less likely to diversify their news sources, compared to viewers of other outlets. As a result, a significant portion of the American public consumes unfiltered, un-factchecked Trump propaganda all day, every day. Small wonder we are a nation so dangerously divided. Small wonder that how people feel about ICE depends on where they get their news.
Trump and his rightwing echo chamber specialize in manipulating an uninformed public by fomenting and amplifying hatred. Hatred, of course, sells. But when charismatic leaders pair hatred with a manufactured fear of “other,” unspeakable atrocities follow.
Fox News couldn’t spread lies in the UK, so they left
Before it was repealed in 1987, US broadcast media operated under the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule that required stations to be both balanced and fair. Since its repeal, the U.S. has grown significantly more polarized, a trend supported by multiple studies and metrics.
Today, with Trump illegally threatening the US media Putin-style, American audiences are increasingly turning to British news sources like the BBC for accurate reporting. Independent analysis and media watchdogs agree: British public service broadcasters provide more accurate Trump coverage than Fox News. That accuracy is the by-product of strict impartiality rules enforced by Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator.
Several years ago, when Fox News tried to air in the UK, it could not meet that nation’s impartiality and accuracy standards. Fox found non-biased reporting so challenging that it ultimately chose to stop broadcasting in the UK altogether.
If the UK can require accuracy in the media, so can we
When media in the UK present partisan viewpoints, they are subject to England’s “due impartiality” and “due accuracy” rules, legal mandates that require broadcasters to present multiple viewpoints. The same rules require broadcasters to timely correct significant errors, prohibiting UK channels from serving up one-sided propaganda.
Under the UK’s Communications Act 2003, all broadcasters are also prohibited from airing ‘unjust or unfair treatment’ of individuals or organizations. On matters of major political controversy, the media must present a wide range of differing views on the same topic. Individuals and organizations facing reports of significant wrongdoing are given the opportunity to timely respond (a “right of reply”).
These are not onerous requirements; they are minimal, and, if shepherded by a bipartisan coalition in the US, could go a long way in reducing media bias on both sides. So far, attempts to introduce similar legislation in the US have failed, in part because there is no public outcry demanding it.
It is time to demand it. If we continue to allow propaganda to be sold as ‘news’ to unsuspecting viewers, ideological differences will deepen, legislative gridlock will continue, and political violence from Fox News’ homegrown radicals will continue to worsen and spread.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Trump's house of lies collapses under this undeniable fact
Look, Zohran Mamdani is not the future of the Democratic Party.
I know this is true, because the same was said of Eric Adams. New York City’s outgoing mayor did not live up to his billing. Its incoming mayor (presumably) is almost certainly not going to live up to his. The reason isn’t because Mamdani will become as corrupt as Adams became (though who knows?). The reason is that New York is New York.
Yes, it’s the largest urban center in the country. Yes, its influence cannot be overstated. But what’s good, or bad, for New York isn’t necessarily what’s good, or bad, for America. It may no longer be entirely true that all politics is local, but most of politics still is.
Once you accept the truth of this, all other considerations of Mamdani and the rest of the Democratic Party seem rather dull, as he becomes just another politician in a constellation of politicians who figured out how to appeal to a winning majority in their respective constituencies.
Once you accept that a city isn’t a metaphor for a country, or for a national party, the talk about how he’s dividing Democrats looks kinda stupid. Yes, he calls himself a democratic socialist. So what? Is that going to work in a place like Virginia? Maybe, but probably not. If it did, someone would have tried it. Since no one has, there’s your answer.
Think of it this way. Donald Trump is from New York. His business is based there. He represents the city’s elites. But he’s never won there. Three straight campaigns made no difference. Is anyone going to seriously suggest that, in this context, as New York goes, so goes the country (or so goes the GOP)? No, because that would be stupid.
Yet somehow, seemingly no one thinks how stupid it is to ask if Mamdani is the future of the Democrats, because only the Democrats, never the Republicans, are subjected to that kind of questioning. The reason for this is rooted in the Democratic Party itself, among certain elites who want to prevent it from becoming a fully realized people’s party. And they do this, foremost, by accepting as true the premise of the lies told about the Democrats by Trump and the Republicans.
What lies? First, remember that the number of actual democratic socialists in the Democratic Party (I’m talking about people who choose to call themselves by that name) is vanishingly small. Only two have any kind of national profile. (They are US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Sanders doesn’t really count. He’s technically an independent.)
This stone-cold fact means nothing to Donald Trump. All Democrats, all liberals, all progressives, all leftists, and all socialists, democratic and otherwise, are the name. They are radical Marxist anarchist communists or whatever word salad pops into his soupy brain. There are no enemies to his right. There is nothing but enemies to his left. Does he respect his enemies enough to speak truthfully about them?
No, he lies.
His lies are what certain elites inside the Democratic Party are paying the most attention to. They are not celebrating Mamdani’s success. They are not defending him on the merits. They are not standing on the truth. They are not even standing in solidarity. What they are most focused on is the lies Donald Trump tells, which are magnified by the right-wing media complex, which are echoed by the press corps.
And what they see is either a fight they believe can’t be won or an opportunity to shiv a competing faction within the Democratic Party. Either way requires accepting as true the lies told about their own people, thus making it seem perfectly reasonable to wonder if winning a major election in America’s biggest city is good for the Democrats.
(The answer: don’t be stupid. Of course, it is.)
That these certain elites would rather surrender to lies than fight them tells us their beef with Mamdani isn’t about ideology. (It’s not about whether “democratic socialism,” or any other school of thought, would be appealing to voters outside New York.) It’s about how Mamdani, but specifically lies about him, complicates messaging efforts in a media landscape already heavily coded in favor of Donald Trump, especially of his view of the Democrats, which is that they’re all communists.
Those who are worried about Mamdani’s impact on the Democrats also take for granted the assertion that voters rejected Kamala Harris on ideological grounds – that her policies were out of touch with voters whose main concern was good-paying jobs and lower inflation.
They are ignoring that Harris actually campaigned on so-called working-class issues and that few voters could hear her working-class messaging over the din of Trump’s lies about her. The crisis facing the Democrats is not one of ideology. It’s a crisis of information. Certain elites are pretending otherwise, because it’s better for them if they do.
Mamdani’s victory is a local matter. That is the lesson for certain elites inside the party. It’s also a lesson for their loudest critics.
Certain progressives, let’s call them, believe that Mamdani’s popularity comes from focusing on class (the cost of living in New York). They believe that by doing so, he transcended “identity politics” to amass a following sizable enough to defeat the Democratic establishment.
This overlooks the fact that the establishment, in the form of the DNC and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are backing him. But more important is again the question of ideology. Certain elites think his will turn off voters outside New York. Certain progressive think it will turn them on. They believe a class-based ideology is the unifying force that working people across the country have needed. They just can’t see it, they say, because the establishment gets in the way.
But race and class can’t be easily disentangled, not in America. To many Americans, the idea of government of, by and for the people is a perversion of the “natural order.” It flattens the hierarchies of and within race and class. This belief is bone deep in many of us. It prevents lots of white Americans from being in solidarity with nonwhite Americans, even if they face similar grinding hardships.
Most of all, such thinking overlooks the basics. Many New Yorkers struggle to make ends meet. Housing is too high. Healthcare is too expensive. Food is too much. I trust Mamdani when he says he’s a democratic socialist. But I also trust that he’s not fool enough to believe that struggle is the same as class consciousness. He identified the problem. He asked voters to give him the power to try to solve it.
That’s not ideology.
That’s just good politics.
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This obscenity is the trigger for Trump's downfall
I know what it means to be starved by those in power. As a little girl, if not for my grandparents’ ancient walnut tree that fed us, and not for my grandma’s beloved chickens who laid eggs and now and then were a very special Sunday soup, if not for my sister—just a few years older than me—standing in line at dawn to fight adults for bread, I would have been significantly malnourished. I would watch my sister come home exhausted from those pre-dawn battles with full-grown adults, clutching a loaf of bread that meant we might be a little less hungry than we were the day before.
I never thought I’d see that kind of chosen starvation—the kind that Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu was notorious for—in America. I was wrong.
On November 3, day 33 of a government shutdown, President Donald Trump’s administration said it would provide only partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamp benefits for November. This has a devastating impact on millions of Americans. And, this is after two federal judges ordered the administration to tap into emergency funds to cover food assistance. What’s worse is this partial aid Trump is willing to concede to give might not reach these families for months.
And what was Trump doing as families wondered how they’d feed their children? Posting 24 photos on social media of his newly renovated Lincoln Bedroom bathroom—covered floor to ceiling in black and white marble with (surprise, surprise) gold fixtures—as he headed to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. He has already golfed multiple times during this shutdown and traveled internationally, something other presidents would have refused in order to focus on ending the shutdown that is devastating the country. Millions are unsure about what they’ll eat tonight, and Trump posts about the luxury renovations and packs his golf clubs while the government remains shut down.
Trump wants us to watch him build monuments to himself. Fine. We’re watching. And we’re remembering.
Ceauşescu was similarly fond of gold and glitz while the people starved. Like this Romanian dictator, Trump is demolishing the historic East Wing of the White House to build an over $300 million ballroom, removing commemorative magnolia trees planted in the 1940s for Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to White House aides, Trump spends hours obsessing over marble choices and column styles, even fidgeting with 3D-printed models of the ballroom during tense moments. Watch me, he seems to say. Watch me build monuments to myself while you starve.
Ceauşescu built his lavish palaces that included a golden bathroom with gold-plated fixtures while my sister, a child, stood in line to fight for a half a loaf of bread to feed her family. Trump plasters his social media with a floor-to-ceiling marble bathroom remodel while families across America wonder how they can keep their children from starving.
The Policy Behind the Cruelty
Yes, by now we know full well, the cruelty is the point, it’s policy. The “big beautiful bill” Republicans passed earlier this year delivers massive tax breaks to the ultra wealthy: Starting in 2029, those making $30,000 or less would see a tax increase, while the top 0.1% would receive an average $309,000 tax cut annually, more than three times what a typical American household earns in an entire year. Sixty percent of the tax cuts go to the top 20% of earners, while the bill is coupled with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP that leave low-income Americans worse off on net.
The bill kicks more than 15 million people off health insurance, makes the largest cuts to nutrition assistance in history, and makes higher education less affordable. Congressional Budget Office analysis shows this bill adds over $4 trillion to the national debt while worsening inequality.
Masked Agents, Militarized Enforcement
Meanwhile, billions of dollars are being poured into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, with masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles conducting workplace sweeps and detaining our neighbors outside courthouses, with more than 75% of those booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 having no criminal conviction other than immigration or traffic-related offenses. Trump is choosing to continue to fund, and even increase the funding, for the modern-day Gestapo, ensuring masked ICE agents can continue to brutalize our communities. But we do not have to look at other places to understand what is happening before our eyes. In the 1850s in the United States, the federal government enforced a policy to hunt down and “return” what the government dubbed to be “fugitive slaves,“ people who were formerly and brutally enslaved and who had escaped captivity to flee north. No, we do not have to look at Nazi Germany to understand what ICE is doing, we have to look at our own history.
All of us Americans, who love our neighbors, who care for our families, who love our cities and our country, should see Trump for who he is. He is making a choice. This is a choice about who gets to have resources and who gets to suffer. This is about billionaires running the government and watching the people who actually make this country run—the workers, the families, the communities—go hungry while they build their ballrooms.
When the wealthy choose to watch their neighbors starve, when they fund masked agents to terrorize communities while slashing food assistance, this isn’t leadership. This is corruption masquerading as governance. Ceauşescu did it. Now Trump is doing it. Sending social media messages from his golden toilet while we the people go hungry.
The Walnut Tree Didn’t Ask Permission
They want us to be too hungry, too tired, too scared to fight back. They want us watching marble-bathroom reveals while we worry about our own children’s empty stomachs.
We won’t give them that satisfaction.
Every community that’s ever survived oppression has known this truth: We have to take care of our beloved communities. You share what you have. You build networks of care that the powerful can’t dismantle because they’re not built on their permission.
Start a community fridge in your neighborhood, like many of us did during the pandemic. Organize a weekly soup kitchen. Form a food co-op. Create a network of families who share meals and resources. This is how we survive, this is how we resist.
And then, fed and strong, we organize politically. We vote out every representative who voted to starve their constituents to feed the rich. We primary the ones who won’t fight. We run our own people, people who remember what it’s like to be hungry, to watch your sister fight for bread, to rely on a grandparent’s walnut tree.
Trump wants us to watch him build monuments to himself. Fine. We’re watching. And we’re remembering. Every marble tile laid while children went hungry. Every gold fixture installed while families lost food assistance. Every historic symbol of American’s greatness lying in rubble while more Americans lost access to healthcare.
But we’re not just watching. We need to be building too. Building the mutual aid networks, the political power, the community resilience that will outlast any administration’s cruelty.
The walnut tree that saved my life didn’t ask permission to grow. Neither will we.
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Supreme Court conservatives are about to rain misery on MAGA
The tariffs case pending before the Supreme Court is one of those rare cases where, even as a federal litigator, I hope the Republican majority does the wrong thing.
Against the odds, I’m rooting for a Trump win. Not because I think that’s the correct legal outcome (it isn’t, see below), but because Trump’s disastrous tariffs, if sustained, could deliver a sorely-needed political lesson to Americans flirting with autocracy.
MAGA voters need to experience real and sustained pain in the pocketbook to learn the perils of electing a charismatic imbecile. The other cohort responsible for this mess, 86 million voters who couldn’t be bothered last November, needs to find out what happens when a felon campaigning on revenge and terror isn’t real enough to move them to vote. They may not care about ICE brutality, but they will care about soup kitchen lines when they’re standing in them.
The economic pain is real, and worsening, even after Tuesday’s election blowout. But if there’s any upside to giving nuclear codes to a toddler, it’s that Americans, myself included, are learning an abiding lesson: We’ve been taking our precious democracy for granted.
Trump’s tariffs announced our folly to the world
Trump’s haphazard and sloppy imposition of tariffs confirmed to the world that the US is led by a man who knows nothing about economics, who lacks an understanding of contemporary manufacturing. He has no idea, for example, that car manufacturers rely on global supply chains, using components sourced across multiple countries. If nine components come from nine different countries, taxing the assembling parts each time they go back and forth is asinine.
Because he lacked the curiosity or discipline to learn which US manufacturers would be affected by which tariffs, or which components would become prohibitively expensive due to retaliatory tariffs, Trump first proposed a lazy, across the board tariff formula that foreign media described as “insane.” He said each US tariff would be half the rate of the other country’s tariffs, with a 10% floor. But this was based on eliminating trade deficits, an impossible goal due to differing population sizes, differing economies, trade barriers, and currency differences.
The Constitution vests power to regulate commerce and tax with Congress
Tariffs are not all bad, all the time. Used surgically, they can help strengthen key industries struggling against imports. Precise, agreed, or reciprocal tariffs can also solidify trade partnerships in service to national security.
But even when tariffs make sense economically, which Trump’s do not, how they are adopted matters. The Supreme Court confirmed long ago that all presidential power must stem from either the Constitution or an act of Congress. That means Trump cannot just grab power because he likes how it feels on his fingers.
Plaintiffs challenging Trump’s tariffs before the Supreme Court point out that “Tariffs are taxes. They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them into the U.S. Treasury.” The founders gave taxing power to Congress alone in Article I of the US Constitution which vests Congress — not the President — with the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” Unless Congress clearly and specifically delegates that authority through valid legislation, it remains as written.
Why didn’t Trump involve Congress to begin with?
At the heart of the case, Trump’s attempt to usurp Congressional power over commerce offends the Constitution’s separation of powers, the lynchpin that holds the Constitution and the rule of law together. Because he lacks an appreciation for the US Constitution, Trump seems unable to comprehend the importance, or even the meaning, of the separation and balance of powers.
Having imposed the tariffs by fiat, Trump now claims the tariffs case is “one of the most important cases in the history of our country,” and “literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country,” claiming a Supreme Court reversal of his tariffs could “lead to another Great Depression.”
Economists say Trump’s economic incompetence could trigger a depression or at least a recession, regardless of tariffs. So it appears that Trump’s drama is an early attempt to scapegoat the high court for his own economic malfeasance, because he knows economic collapse is a real possibility.
Trump’s devout prayer for tariffs also invites the question: if he felt so strongly that only tariffs can restore the nation to greatness, why didn’t he pursue them the legal way, and get Congress to pass legislation? Republicans have a majority in both houses, why must he rule by tantrum?
Giving Trump authority to define “emergencies” is in fact a life and death matter
Following Wednesday’s oral arguments, the Supreme Court will consider whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) delegated tariff authority to the president and whether, under the major questions doctrine, the IEEPA did so with a clear Congressional mandate.
The most critical part of the case, as I see it, will be how an ‘emergency’ can be declared. The IEEPA requires an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US that constitutes a national emergency to trigger the president’s powers under the Act. Trump’s top henchman Stephen Miller claims that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is never subject to judicial review, arguing that the president has absolute power in such matters and that “the judiciary is not supreme.”
It’s ludicrous that Trump would try to declare trade imbalances an “emergency,” given that trade imbalances have existed for decades. But far more consequential than tariffs is Trump’s dangerous assertion that he alone can decide when there’s an “emergency” triggering expanded presidential powers.
If the Supreme Court gives credence to this claim, granting Trump the authority to declare any “emergency” he wants, independent of facts on the ground, concern about tariffs, commerce, and the price of cars will seem trite.
If Trump can make up emergencies to expand his own power as he goes along, he will continue to murder people in fishing boats in South America based on suspicion alone, as his masked ICE agents at home start replacing pepper balls with bullets.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Red states spoke truth to power — and MAGA crashed hard
Last week’s column noted the dismal approval ratings for Trump and even worse for Montana’s all-Republican Congressional delegation. Indeed, with one in three (or fewer) Montanans approving the delegation and the record low national approval of the president, it seemed like the propaganda about how great everything is was, well, running into the hard wall of reality.
Then came Tuesday’s elections and the reality-TV president and his gobbling MAGA sycophants nationwide went down hard as the voters “just said no” to the anger, lies, and aggression spinning out of the White House.
Chief among Tuesday’s most decisive rejection of the president and his unending threats of retribution was the election of 34-year old Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s next mayor. He was vilified as a “lunatic Communist” by Trump, who threatened to cut off federal funding for the city if he was elected.
Yet Mamdani cruised to victory — and he didn’t pull any punches in his victory speech, saying: “After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.
“In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. New York will remain a city of immigrants — a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
“Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light.”
Nor was he alone in securing victory by speaking truth to power as MAGA candidates and issues fell by the wayside nationwide. Far from being just a “blue state” rejection as claimed by the GOP, a sheriff who embraced ICE was defeated in Pennsylvania; progressives won all the open seats on Texas’ third largest school board; Georgia elected its first Democrats to the Public Service Commission since 2007; the Republican supermajority in Mississippi no longer exists for the first time since 2012; Colorado approved higher taxes on households with more than $300,000 income to fund free school lunches; and Maine voters rejected a MAGA initiative to make voting more difficult and did so by a whopping 60%
Surely given their already terrible approval numbers, Montana’s GOP Congressional delegation — and governor — should be having second thoughts about their unquestioning support for everything that splurts from Trump’s mouth and his cadre of wealthy, racist and hard-hearted cronies.
Denying Supplemental Nutrition (SNAP) funding for low-income families while blaming Democrats isn’t working since it’s the GOP that controls all three branches of government but can’t seem to govern.
Then there’s the job cuts, which are up a whopping 175% since the same time last year with more than a million jobs lost since Trump took office.
The takeaway? It’s long past time for our governor and congressional delegation to get back to being “public servants” rather than MAGA puppets — or come next election, they’ll likely be joining their ousted fellow MAGAs on the loser’s bench.
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Voters are acting like they were scammed — they should know Trump wasn't alone
The Democrats won big Tuesday. Here are nine thoughts.
- It’s a good thing when the Democrats win. There are some who would have you believe the opposite is true. As the New York Times Pitchbot said: “Zohran Mamdani won. So why does it feel like he lost.” He didn’t lose. Neither did statewide Democratic candidates in Virginia, Georgia and New Jersey. Neither did Democrats in towns and cities across America. It was a blue wave that suggests more blue waves to come. Democrats won by unexpected margins and in unexpected places (eg, Bristol, Connecticut). That’s good. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
- Those who would have us doubt the goodness of electoral victory are typically invested in the idea that there are deep, perhaps irreconcilable, differences between Democratic factions. Though the Republicans got shellacked, they are not being asked to rethink their future. Axios reported that it’s the Democrats who must settle a “civil war over the best way to move forward after its crushing losses in 2024.” Do they choose to moderate Democrats or “leftwing” Democrats? It sounds reasonable. It might even sound noble. It’s not. It’s phony.
- Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York, and Abigail Spanberger, the governor-elect of Virginia, are very different Democrats who certainly disagree on policy. That is not a weakness. It’s the strength found in a multi-racial ideologically heterodox organization like the Democrats. Each candidate amassed winning coalitions according to the conditions of their constituencies. That’s all they were thinking about. That’s all any of the winners was thinking about. No one was thinking about whether they speak for the entire Democratic Party in its fight against Donald Trump. That Axios is pretending otherwise is why its reporting about “civil war” is actually concern-trolling.
- I would guess, if left to their own devices, a moderate like Spanberger and a progressive like Mamdani could work things out if given sufficient motivation. I think the problem comes when Democratic leaders stop listening to each other and start privileging the perspectives of people who do not have the interests of their party, or those of the people they represent, foremost in their minds. By that, I mean a Washington press corps that has internalized the idea that the Republicans are the only legitimate leaders as well as the idea that the Democrats, even after they win, must seek the Republicans’ consent before using the power they have legitimately earned.
- Some centrist Democrats confuse compromise with consent. This prevents them from using the power they have to solve problems that they have told voters they would solve. That, in turn, makes them look weak in comparison to Republicans, who never seek the consent of the Democrats, which in turn, triggers a crisis of faith. Donald Trump has created conditions in which fighters ranging from Mamdani to Spanberger are trusted while middle-of-the-road centrists who can’t decide whether to join the fight open themselves up to contempt from both sides.
- Some centrists, and perhaps some progressives, believe they will benefit from a backlash. They will interpret last night’s results as what political scientists call “thermostatic politics” (think: pendulum swing). But the intensity of the blue wave suggests something else. Many voters seem to be reacting as if they were scammed. Every single county in Virginia shifted left, even the whitest, western-most ones. In New Jersey, the Democratic candidate wiped out gains Trump made with Black and Hispanic voters. G Elliott Morris said the best explanation is “that voters didn’t know what they were getting with Trump 2.0 last November, but now they do — and they don’t like it." But they didn’t know because our media has been so thoroughly corrupted. It sold them vibes. What they got was fascism.
- Pollster Tom Bonier put it this way: “None of this is complicated. The GOP ran on affordability in 2024. They gave sanctimonious lectures on cable news on election night about how ‘the silent working class majority’ had spoken. Then they governed as reckless authoritarians, punishing the working class.”
- But it is complicated. If voters really are punishing the Republicans for breaking their promise, they would have wanted to know that Joe Biden presided over the world’s greatest recovery from the covid. Wages were up, debts were down, employment was rarely higher. They would have wanted to know the cost of food and energy was getting back to normal. (Perhaps they would have wanted to know more about Kamala Harris’ plan to prosecute price-gouging.) They would have wanted to know, but didn’t, because they could not hear over the din of Trump’s lies or the media’s obsession with a recession that never came (not to mention reporters making fetish of Joe Biden’s age). If voters are acting like they were scammed, they should know Trump wasn't alone. The media scammed them, too. And the Democrats should never play nice with scammers.
- If what we are seeing were normal “thermostatic politics,” we could expect Trump to modulate. He won’t. He’s going to break more laws, steal more power, take more bribes and keep grinding the working class to dust. His party won’t back off, either, not when it can cheat. (“We have a very favorable election map on the Republican side,” Mike Johnson said today, “And it will be more favorable when all the redistricting stuff is done.”) Voters held Trump and the Republicans accountable last night but they are now pretending voters did no such thing. And as they have since Trump came on the scene, reporters are going to play along. That’s why it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans, who must rethink their future. Failure isn’t a problem for the GOP, but victory is for the Democrats.
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