Alex Henderson, AlterNet

While Arizona has evolved into a swing state and California has long since turned deep blue — even though it was a red state back in the 1970s and 1980s — Utah remains overwhelmingly Republican. Donald Trump won Utah by roughly 22 percent in 2024, and a Democrat hasn't carried Utah in a presidential election since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

In an article published by Mother Jones, however, reporter Stephanie Mencimer emphasizes that Utah's staunch GOP voting record isn't preventing Trump and his allies from killing jobs at one of the state's biggest employers: an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) center in Ogden.

"Before President Donald Trump took office in January," Mencimer explains, "the IRS offices in Ogden collectively employed about 7500 people, making the city economy more reliant on the federal bureaucracy than on its famous powder skiing. Everyone who lives in Ogden knows someone who works for the taxman. Husbands and wives, parents and children — IRS employment is often a family affair. But this Western outpost of the federal government lies deep within MAGA territory."

The Mother Jones reporter continues, "Ogden City, home to 88,000 residents, about 30 percent of whom are Hispanic, makes up a small purple dot in the sprawling Northern Utah metro area that's home to some 700,000 people. But about 60 percent of residents who reside in the greater Ogden area voted with the rest of the state last year, solidly for Trump. That support, however, did not spare the city's largest employer."

The IRS was among the many federal government agencies that the Trump administration, with the help of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), targeted for mass layoffs. Others range from the National Weather Service (NWS) to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"In February, Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to the civil service, immediately firing thousands of probationary workers, who had fewer job protections," Mencimer observes. "Then, Musk ­issued his 'fork in the road' e-mail, pushing other federal workers to quit as part of a 'deferred resignation program,' lest they get fired later with no benefits. Those who took the 'fork' were put on administrative leave and paid for not working through the end of September. That attack on federal workers landed heavily on the IRS."

Mencimer add, "By June 4, the agency had hemorrhaged more than a quarter of its national workforce — about 26,000 people. Union officials expected that about 20 percent of the IRS employees in Ogden — about 1500 — would no longer be there by the end of September."

Stephanie Mencimer's full article for Mother Jones is available at this link.

In a Sunday, September 28 post on X, formerly Twitter, Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson echoed President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance's claim that the majority of domestic terrorism in the United States is coming from the left. Jackson posted, "Democrats, calling your political opponents Nazis has consequences. Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year high."

Jackson tried to prove her point by linking to an article by Axios reporter Zachary Basu. But Jackson's critics, including the Daily Beast's Tom Latchem and former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, are pointing out that Basu's reporting doesn't say what she claims it does.

Olbermann tweeted, "Wow! Left wing terrorism is all the way up to one quarter of right wing terrorism. Bad news, lady: your employers are the terrorists."

Latchem, in an article published on September 29, explains, "When one of Donald Trump's most prominent mouthpieces came across an article she believed backed the government's claim that left-wing terrorism is engulfing America, she didn't miss the opportunity to share it online. Unfortunately for the MAGA loyalist, who is at the heart of White House communications, the article cited didn't say anything of the sort."

Latchem notes that Basu's Axios article "did report that left-wing attacks have 'outpaced' far-right incidents so far this year for the first time in three decades — but not that left-wing terrorism is at a 30-year high."

Axios changed the headline for Basu's article and added an editor's note at the end: "This headline has been corrected to reflect that left-wing terrorism is outpacing far-right terrorism for the first time in 30 years (not that left-wing attacks overall are at a 30-year high)."

The article's headline now reads, "Study: Left-wing terrorism outpaces far-right attacks for first time in 30 years."

Basu reported, "Far-right violence has historically been more frequent and more lethal, but plunged dramatically over the first six months of 2025."

Latchem observes, "The underlying study behind the Axios article, from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, found that, through July 4, 2025, researchers logged five left-wing plots or attacks versus a sharp drop on the far right. Yet it also revealed left-wing violence remained far less lethal over the past decade, with 41 attacks and 13 deaths since 2016, compared with 152 attacks and 112 deaths from the right over the same period.

The authors also warned against using the data "as an excuse for a crackdown on legitimate organizations."

Read Tom Latchem's full article for the Daily Beast at this link (subscription required).

Jimmy Kimmel drew the wrath of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr in response to the late-night host's comments on the murder of MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and the suspect in his shooting: 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson.

Kimmel argued that the suspect was part of the MAGA movement, not a leftist as President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others on the far right are saying. The late-night host never condoned the killing in any way, but rather, argued that the suspect had a MAGA ideology rather than a leftist ideology.

Disney, in response, suspended Kimmel's show indefinitely.

Now, according to Daily Beast reporter Cameron James, "America's largest ABC affiliate group," Sinclair, is saying that Kimmel must make a "meaningful personal donation" to Kirk's family.

"Media giant Sinclair also wants the comedian to 'issue a direct apology' to Kirk's family, claiming his suspension is not enough," James reports in an article published on September 18. "Kimmel has been suspended in a wave of MAGA anger, disguised as grief and decency, over comments made by the TV star about the murdered right-wing activist. Sinclair also announced they will air a tribute to Kirk in Kimmel’s Friday-night time slot this week, and are offering the special to all ABC affiliates to air over the weekend."

James adds, "Sinclair's Vice Chairman Jason Smith called Kimmel's comments on Kirk 'inappropriate and deeply insensitive at a critical moment for our country.'"

In an official statement released on September 17, Sinclair said it "will not lift the suspension of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network's commitment to professionalism and accountability."

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Throughout Pete Hegseth's months as defense secretary for the second Trump administration, his relationship with Pentagon officials has been tumultuous. And according to CNN, that includes his relationship with U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

In an article published by CNN on September 12, reporters Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen and Haley Britzky explain, "Hegseth's tactics can be ruthless. In April, following a series of leaks he believed made him look bad, Hegseth fired three senior Pentagon officials — two of whom were close friends that had worked with him for years — and publicly accused them of being leakers. Those accusations were never proven. Hegseth also threatened senior Pentagon officials, including then-Acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Chris Grady, with polygraph tests and leak investigations."

The CNN journalists continue, "Hegseth refused to sign off on a promotion for 34-year Army veteran, Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, who had been serving as the director of the Joint Staff, because he believed he was leaking to undermine him and had been too close to retired Gen. Mark Milley, a fierce Trump critic, sources said. Grady and Sims both denied the accusations, which weren't proven, sources said. Sims is set to retire soon."

According to Bertrand, Cohen and Britzky, it didn't take long for Hegseth to become resentful of Driscoll, who, sources told CNN, is much easier to get along with than the former Fox News host.

A Pentagon source, interviewed on condition of anonymity, said of Driscoll, "He's non-threatening, he's charming, he's not explosive like Hegseth is. He's just a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy. The better Driscoll looks, the worse it is for Hegseth."

Another Pentagon source, also quoted anonymously, told CNN, "If Driscoll starts getting too prominent, or too favored, it makes it a lot easier politically to just let Hegseth go somehow or find an offramp."

Bertrand, Cohen and Britzky report, "Hegseth's wariness of Driscoll is emblematic of his larger fixation with undermining or removing anyone he perceives as a threat to his public image and standing with Trump, regardless of their expertise or experience, a dozen current and former officials told CNN. Questions about Hegseth's longevity in the job have swirled almost from the beginning of his tenure. And Driscoll's name was increasingly brought up, including inside the White House, as a possible replacement for Hegseth after a series of high-profile missteps by the defense secretary in the spring — to Hegseth's great irritation, sources said."

Read the full CNN article at this link.

After MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah on Wednesday afternoon, a long list of centrist Democrats, liberals and progressives wasted no time wholeheartedly condemning the attack — from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to former President Joe Biden to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who is originally from the U.K., tweeted, "Charlie Kirk called me a 'lunatic' and a 'prostitute' and demanded I be deported. Nothing, nothing, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don't know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can never be the response to political disagreements."

On Fox News, however, far-right host Jesse Watters had a threatening tone when he called for retaliation against Kirk's critics.

Watters told viewers, "They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. And what are we going to do about it? Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible….. This is unacceptable, and it has to stop. And it has to stop now. And everybody's accountable. And we're watching what they're saying on television and who's saying what. The politicians, the media, and all these rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now…. This is a turning point."

Watters called for the right to "avenge Charlie's death" — a comment that journalist Pete Twinklage found especially disturbing.

On X, formerly Twitter, Twinklage posted, "this is spectacularly dangerous rhetoric. the Murdochs need to bench Watters immediately. vowing to 'avenge' Kirk's horrific assassination instead of calling for calm is beyond irresponsible. the country is a tinderbox and this lunatic is juggling dynamite and matches."

Watters' comments are generating a lot of discussion on X.

New Jersey-based Kim Hurdman tweeted, "Why would the Murdoch’s bench him? They installed him. The entire network promotes this mindset and ideology. Telling people their political opponents are enemy[.] They spent 40 yrs getting fabulously wealthy telling older white pp who to be afraid of and who to hate. Get real."

Journalist Jessica Durkin posted, "Meanwhile MSNBC is apologizing up and down because Matthew Dowd said the truth on that channel that Kirk speaks hate."

U.S. Marines veteran Gene Frenkel tweeted, "MSNBC fired Dowd.. Watters deserves the same."

Another U.S. Marines veteran, Paul Nun, commented, "Jesse Watters made an entire career around stoking division. He failed to mention the Republican terrorist who murdered Democratic politicians a few weeks ago."

X user Martin Judd remarked, "Murdochs have just announced the most radical far-right son will run the place. So he is not going to be of any help."

Journalist/author John L. Valentine wrote, "This punk isn't going to do anything but run his mouth. He's a TV warrior. Brave behind his desk. He'll leave the violence he's trying to incite to others. His call for more violence won't end the violence. It'll only exacerbate it."

Although libertarians and never-Trump conservatives often attack President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement as extreme, white nationalist Nick Fuentes is criticizing MAGA and the second Trump administration for being too moderate.

Fuentes accused then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) of betraying the white race by marrying an Indian-American woman, Usha Vance. A far-right Catholic, Fuentes has also called for a modern-day version of the Spanish Inquisition. Fuentes, whose followers call themselves Groypers, founded the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) as a white nationalist alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

But in an article published on Sept. 9, The New York Times' Robert Draper observes that even though Fuentes makes Trump administration officials uncomfortable, they are afraid to openly criticize him.

"The footprint of the oratorically proficient late-night streaming show host has not dwindled in the least with his tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of alienated young male conservatives followers known as Groypers — a nickname derived from an alt-right meme," Draper explains. "If anything, his anti-Israel, anti-immigrant, anti-transgender and anti-civil-rights views seem to have gained new currency during the second Trump administration. There is now growing alarm among leading conservatives about Mr. Fuentes, who routinely tests the cultlike devotion of his young male fans by savaging their patriarchal figure, President Trump, for not being right-wing enough."

Draper adds, "In the process, he has emerged as one of the loudest voices on the right to turn on the president."

The Times reporter quotes Fuentes as saying of Trump, "When I was a teenager, I thought he was a Caesar-like figure who was going to save western civilization. Now, I view him as incompetent, corrupt and compromised."

In one of his social media posts, Fuentes wrote, "Trump 2.0 has been a disappointment in literally every way, but nobody wants to admit it."

According to Draper, however, the Trump administration isn't pushing back.

"Asked to comment on Mr. Fuentes' remarks," Draper reports, "White House officials declined. Current and former members of the Trump administration as well as outside advisers would not be quoted for the record about Mr. Fuentes out of fear, they said, of inviting online attacks from him and his zealous followers. Three of them mentioned the sudden ubiquity of Fuentes-related clips circulating in their social media feeds."

Draper adds, "Certain metrics attest to Mr. Fuentes' surge. Since his X account was reinstated by Elon Musk 16 months ago, the number of his followers appears to have grown from roughly 140,000 to more than 750,000. His 'America First' streaming show viewership on Rumble has quintupled to around 500,000."

Matt Dallek, a historian at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., warns that Fuentes is becoming more "prominent" — not less.

Dallek told the Times, "Fuentes represents the cutting edge of a right-wing racism that has surged over the past decade during the rise of Trump. And it's clear that he's becoming more prominent because these bigger influencers are now fighting with him."

The Bulwark's Will Sommer, commenting on Sommer's reporting in a post on X, formerly Twitter, noted, "NYT profile of Nick Fuentes as a growing threat to Trumpism includes this telling detail — Trump officials refused to criticize Fuentes because they feared attacks from his groyper army."

Read Robert Draper's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

Billionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found to have died by suicide in a jail cell on August 10, 2019. But in recent weeks, conspiracy theorists have been focusing on a minute of security camera footage that was reportedly missing.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed the footage was taped over. But according to The Guardian's Richard Luscombe, that footage has been found — thus contradicting Bondi's claim.

"The video was in a cache of material, including 33,000 pages of records relating to the disgraced financier and former Donald Trump associate, released late on Tuesday, (September 2) by the U.S. House Oversight Committee," Luscombe explains. "The panel has been looking into Epstein's August 2019 death at Manhattan’s Metropolitan correctional center. In July, the same month as a government review confirmed Epstein died by suicide, the FBI released hours of surveillance footage taken from outside Epstein's jail cell on the night he died."

Luscombe adds, "Observers quickly realized from time stamps that a block of one minute, from 11.59pm to midnight on 10 August, was not there. Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell at 6.30am."

This development is generating a lot of comments on X, formerly Twitter.

Attorney Phil Hooloway tweeted, "EPSTEIN: 'experts found the clip released by the DOJ was chopped from at least two separate video segments and strung together using Adobe Premiere there was no lapse in footage-contradicting Pam Bondi's explanation that the last minute of footage is deleted every night.”

X user Hunter Hogan posted, "The missing minute from Epstein's prison footage – the one Pam Bondi said didn't exist – was just released. It reveals a group of guards right by Epstein's cell, doing something strange. Force Bondi to testify, fire her, and LOCK HER UP."

Another X user, Ed Pageau, argued, "Release of ‘missing minute’ of Epstein video contradicts Bondi claim cameras stopped recording - The Guardian. Bondi is paid to lie and help Trump get revenge on anyone who opposes his authoritarian agenda. Christians don’t do this."

Former litigator Viva Frei commented, "They found the missing minute from the Epstein cell footage. It’s immaterial, except Fox News seems to be leveraging it to highlight the inaccuracy of the statement from Pam Bondi explaining the missing minute. I've been saying it for a while: Pam Bondi should be fired. I think that is now in the works, that Fox got the memo, and they are now softening up the general public to that eventual outcome. It would also explain Andrew Bailey entering the scene."

Military veteran Robert Clark posted, " Is there ANYONE in this s— administration that isn't a compulsive, pathological liar?"

Former Middle East correspondent Richard Hall tweeted, "Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Blows Up Pam Bondi’s ‘Missing Minute’ Explanation."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

President Donald Trump was serving his first term when Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both political science professors at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, outside Boston, wrote their 2018 book "How Democracies Die."

Levitsky and Ziblatt took a close look at former democracies that fell into authoritarianism, and they drew a distinction between outright fascist dictatorships and countries that technically have voting rights but are heavily rigged in favor of one particular party.

Seven months into Trump's second presidency and seven years after his book with Ziblatt, Levitsky examined the state of U.S. democracy during an interview with The Guardian.

In an article published on Labor Day 2025, The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt notes that Levitsky "does not believe Trump is a dictator in the truest sense" but rather, is promoting a system that has opposition in name only.

Levitsky told The Guardian, "Technically, in political science terms, no, he's not a dictator. The United States, I think, is collapsing into some form of authoritarianism. But it has not consolidated into an outright dictatorship."

Levitsky points out that in the 21st Century, many authoritarian governments are what he calls "hybrid regimes" — for example, Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro.

Orbán doesn't embrace the 20th-century fascist model of Italy's Benito Mussolini or Spain's Francisco Franco. And leftist Maduro doesn't follow the communist model of North Korea or the old Soviet Union. Yet Hungary and Venezuela are no longer truly democratic.

Levitsky told The Guardian, "They're authoritarian, in that they're not fully democratic. There's widespread abuse of power that tilts the playing field against the opposition. So nobody would look at Turkey and say: 'That's a democracy.' But they're not what I would call a dictatorship. And that's what I think the great danger is in the United States."

Similarly, Kim Lane Scheppele, a sociology professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, told The Guardian that Orbán, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have gone to "great lengths" to avoid looking like "20th Century dictators."

Scheppele observed, "If you think of dictators as, you know, tanks in the streets and large numbers of military people saluting the leader, and big posters of the leader going up on national buildings, all that stuff does remind everybody of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia and all, and Mussolini's Italy."

Nonetheless, Scheppele finds Trump's actions extremely troubling.

Scheppele told The Guardian, "If I was hesitating before, it's this mobilization of the National Guard and the indication that he plans to overtake resistance by force that now means we're in it…. He's really planning a military, repressive force, to go out into the streets of the places that are most likely to resist his dictatorship and to just put down the whole thing by force.”

Read Adam Gabbatt's full article for The Guardian at this link.

In the 2018 midterms, health care proved to be a very strong issue for Democrats and a terrible one for Republicans.

Democratic strategists hammered President Donald Trump and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) relentlessly on their efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, and that messaging worked: Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives with a net gain of 40 seats. And some Democrats argued that their party would have picked up even more House seats had Republicans not gerrymandered congressional districts so badly.

Now, with Trump seven months into his second presidency, Democratic strategists are hoping that health care will once again be a major liability for Republicans. And according to Lauren Egan, a reporter for the conservative website The Bulwark, the Trump Administration and GOP lawmakers are giving Democrats a lot of political ammunition to use against them — from Obamacare to steep Medicaid cuts to turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevents (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"The descent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into an agency of anti-vaccine agendas and organizational chaos…. has created additional fodder for Democrats already keen on campaigning on health care in 2026," Egan reports in an article published by The Bulwark on August 31. "The topic has been emphasized by several Democrats over the past few days. Sen. Patty Murray said it was 'dangerous' for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to remain in power and called for him to be fired."

Democrats, Egan stresses, are pounding Republicans over chaos at the CDC as well as on "health care costs."

"Democrats are already attacking Republicans for passing Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' that cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which could leave nearly 12 million Americans newly uninsured and unable to afford basic health care," Egan explains. "When Republicans return to D.C., they will face pressure to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies, which were created with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and are set to expire at the end of the year…. Some Dem officials and health care advocates see parallels between the upcoming midterms and the 2018 cycle, when the party focused its campaigns on Trump's failed attempt to repeal Obamacare. The difference this time around is that Republicans actually succeeded in passing their legislation."

Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care, believes that health care will be a toxic issue for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

Woodhouse told The Bulwark, "I do think it's gonna be a health care election, but I think it's gonna be wrapped into this whole issue of affordability. There's a wicked brew here that is amassing against Republicans, and it's all self-inflicted. They've committed political suicide."

Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, told The Bulwark, "Affordability will continue to be a major theme of the election, and health care is probably Exhibit A in that conversation. I think it has its own power because it is literally about taking care of yourself and your family. It has an emotional pull, and any impacts of that have the ability to punch through the information bubble that you happen to be in."

Lauren Egan's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was once among the most popular Republicans in New England, enjoying landslide reelection victories during the 2000s and 2010s and picking up a lot of support from Democrats, moderates, centrists and independents. But Donald Trump's presidencies have taken a toll on her popularity, and Collins was recently booed during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Nonetheless, Collins stands up to Trump at times. She voted "no" on his "big, beautiful bill," and on Thursday night, August 28, Collins called out one of the president's recent moves as unlawful.

Trump is trying to take back almost $5 billion that was approved for foreign aid, using a method known as "pocket rescission.”

The Daily Beast's Sarah Ewall-Wice reports, "The rare move is when the president asks Congress to cancel funds so close to the end of the fiscal year that the funding expires before it can be used, whether Congress acts or not."

Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, in a statement, "Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law."

Ewall-Wice notes, "Trump attempted so-called 'pocket recessions' during his first term but ultimately backed down. The last time it was used was about fifty years ago.

The senator pointed out that the Government Accountability Office had already found such rescissions to be illegal and argued that only Congress has the power of the purse, but Trump's budget office pushed back.

Read the full Daily Beast article at this link (subscription required).