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Opinion
The 'Blue Wave' Will Mean Nothing Without New Leadership
Voters didn't deliver a majority just to watch Democrats perform helplessness. It’s time to reject corporate-backed leadership before this wave hits a wall.
Nov 12, 2026
As an elder millennial, I remember the “Blue Wave” of 2006-2008 well. I remember feeling like young people had really accomplished something, and that there was something to hope for. I also remember the gnawing defeat that followed when Democrats all but squandered the opportunity.
The American people expect this “Blue Wave” to destroy the status quo politics that are robbing them of dignified lives. But if House Democrats continue to perform helplessness and elect Hakeem Jeffries, that wave will encounter a massive seawall and lose its force.
Hakeem Jeffries' donor network represents everything a progressive majority should stand against. Reporting from Sludge reveals that his top backers include major Wall Street investors, cryptocurrency interests, defense giants, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—corporate players with a direct financial stake in how aggressively Congress regulates the private sector.
If Democrats hand Jeffries the gavel without a fight, they will squander this opportunity and, yet again, betray the American people.
Among these ties, his relationship with the defense sector is particularly alarming. This cycle alone, Palantir’s head of government affairs contributed over $44,000, while Anduril’s CEO and COO poured nearly $150,000 into Jeffries’s fundraising committees. This comes alongside over $1 million in earmarked campaign funds channeled through AIPAC, despite Jeffries publicly downplaying direct PAC contributions.
The danger here is that these financial ties have immediate foreign policy consequences. In September, Iran reported capturing an Anduril underwater drone in the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the Navy trying to do damage control, the reality remains: an Anduril weapon was deployed in a conflict Jeffries himself had previously condemned as "unlawful." All the while, the very executives profiting from that technology were fueling his rise to the speakership.
This financial dependency directly shapes his policy stance and a pattern of stalling and evasion. In March, less than a week after branding the war in Iran illegal, Jeffries deflected when asked if he would block additional war funding, claiming Democrats would "cross that bridge when we get to it." By June, he reversed course, arguing Democrats shouldn’t spend another dime.
Voters deserve to know whether the defense executives funding his campaigns influenced that three-month delay. A leader who hesitates to halt an illegal war while taking campaign cash from weapons manufacturers is indefensibly corrupt, and ought to be disqualified from the speakership.
That same failure to hold the line reemerged on Tuesday during a critical vote on executive oversight. The House voted 211-204 to refer Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to committee, effectively killing the resolution. Eleven Democrats—all of whom are funded by AIPAC—were conveniently absent. While several blamed traffic delays and police escorts, reporting from Common Dreams revealed they missed the floor vote to attend a fundraiser for Elect Democratic Women, an AIPAC front group.
A future speaker who is so bought out by military contractors and corporate interests that he can’t whip his members for a vote of this magnitude is not ready to lead investigations into one of the most corrupt administrations in modern history. The American people deserve more than yet another farce.
Voters are much smarter than they’re given credit for. A PBS poll found that voters believe that the economy, our state of democracy, and government corruption are the top issues facing our country. They know exactly what’s happening and what’s at stake.
Yet, they’re supposed to believe that a compromised Jeffries speakership will set an agenda that roots out corruption? I can assure you: They don’t. That sharp skepticism is why over 1 million people have signed a Change.org petition demanding House Democrats deny Jeffries the speakership and elect someone who truly represents the people.
If Democrats hand Jeffries the gavel without a fight, they will squander this opportunity and, yet again, betray the American people. I sure as hell wouldn’t want that to be my legacy. And House Democrats should feel the same way.
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From 'No Hate' to 'Celebrate': It's Time to Change How We Fight for Trans Rights
After the passage of four anti-trans ballot initiatives in the 2026 midterms, it's time to loudly affirm that trans lives matter.
Nov 12, 2026
“I don’t want boys competing with my daughter.” “There are biological differences.” These were responses I got while canvassing in Spokane, Washington for the “No Hate in WA State” campaign against two anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans ballot initiatives, I-001 and I-638.
I had hoped these misinformed perspectives weren’t widespread, but the election results prove otherwise. In Spokane county, which is supposed to be a blue dot in Eastern Washington, the tally as of November 7 showed only 34% of voters rejecting hate by voting against I-638, the anti-trans sports ban.
Post-election, we’ve been celebrating how anti-trans hatemongering by Republican candidates nationwide didn’t have the potency it has in the past. This is fantastic, but we’ve paid less attention to persistent transphobia in the electorate. Two red states (Arizona and Nebraska), and two blue states (Washington and Colorado), passed repressive anti-trans sports bans in the midterms. As one organizer noted, “Voters punished the politicians who used trans people as a wedge, then voted to take away trans people’s rights when asked directly.”
Can we work toward a future in Washington where we reject anti-trans laws because they hurt trans people?
In contradistinction to our reputation as a LGBTQ+ positive state, the measure in Washington is the worst of the four in that it requires girls to prove their “biological sex” via expensive hormone testing or invasive physical exams. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson acknowledged that he campaigned more aggressively against other ballot initiatives saying, “I’ve got to focus my time on where I think I can have the biggest impact.” That’s disappointing, especially in an election where we saw real leadership from candidates like Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed who refused to throw trans folks under the bus.
The strategy of the No Hate campaign wasn’t to directly address transphobia, but to focus on how the initiatives hurt all kids. For I-638, we leaned into talking about the invasive sex exams that ALL girls would be subject to in order to play sports. This argument seemed to have a lot of traction—you could literally see people’s faces distort imagining their daughters, nieces, or granddaughters having to drop their panties for genital checks. However, it seems that repulsion wasn’t enough to overcome transphobia.
Encountering transphobia at one door, I also found myself saying that there are only a handful of trans girl athletes, suggesting the threat is purposely overblown. Others have talked about how this is a “culture war” issue and trans kids are being scapegoated to distract us from real threats—rising inflation, wars, corruption, and so forth.
While all of this may be true, it doesn’t address anti-trans myths, hate, and transphobia. I thought about the trans students I have come to know at Eastern Washington University. Would they want me to argue that their numbers are too small to count, that we should worry more about harm to “real” girls, or that their ability to play sports (or use bathrooms) is simply a distracting “cultural” issue? Are they wondering when people will fight anti-trans initiatives by centering them, by insisting that trans lives matter?
I am relieved that Washington voters rejected 2 of the 3 horrendous hedge-fund-Heywood backed initiatives, but this makes the passage of I-638 even harder to face. I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about what went wrong. As a professor of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality studies, I know part of it. We haven’t done enough to educate the public about transgender people. As evidenced by my canvassing experiences, I know I didn’t do enough.
This ban on trans student athletes will have terrible impacts stoking anti-trans discrimination, bigotry, and violence. It says to trans youth and adults that Washingtonians don’t think they should exist. And that’s true even if we find legal or bureaucratic ways to keep the initiative from being implemented.
I want to do better. I want our state to catch up to others in rejecting the scapegoating of transgender people. Can we work toward a future in Washington where we reject anti-trans laws because they hurt trans people? Can we move beyond baseline pleas for tolerance? Can we articulate the truth about how we all benefit from the richness transgender, non-binary, and two-spirit folks bring into our world?
I want to consider what it would be like not just to reject transphobia, but to support and uplift trans athletes for the courage it takes to compete as their true selves in a society that wants to erase them. Research shows that their competition doesn’t stymie or hurt any others, that individual differences and class privilege are more significant factors in advantaging student athletes than gender identity, and that trans athletes can inspire and galvanize their teams.
I am challenging myself and others to move from a message of “No Hate” to a joyful call to “Celebrate” our fabulous fierce trans student athletes—and all trans folks.
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Congress Shouldn't Weaken the Endangered Species Act in the Name of Faster Permitting
For more than 50 years, the ESA has reflected a bipartisan commitment to preventing extinction. Our senators should not trade that legacy for a bill that creates new bureaucratic hurdles and leaves imperiled wildlife with fewer protections.
Nov 12, 2026
America needs development and a transition to clean energy, something we can all largely agree upon. Another thing we agree on is the importance of protecting our shared natural heritage and utilizing bedrock conservation laws to protect it. But the Senate’s Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, or BAAJA, promises expediency through permitting in rubber-stamping development while also posing one of the most sweeping attacks on the Endangered Species Act in the law’s more than 50-year history.
The ESA does not stand in the way of America achieving a clean energy future and increased development. It is one of the world’s most successful conservation laws, credited with saving 99% of listed species from extinction. And it is extremely popular, with the support of 84% of the American public. The Senate’s bill would weaken it at every point of the permitting process.
Supporters of rolling back provisions of the ESA argue that endangered species reviews slow projects down, but evidence says otherwise. A peer-reviewed study of 88,290 US Fish and Wildlife Service consultations over a seven-year period found jeopardy for only two projects, and even in those two circumstances, an alternative was found to allow the projects to proceed in a modified form. Not a single project was stopped. Formal consultations took an average of two months to complete. And informal consultations, accounting for more than 90% of reviews, took an average of two weeks to complete.
With only 120-230 Florida panthers left in the wild, exempting highways from review removes the very tool designed to find solutions before we lose this animal to extinction.
ESA consultation is not a roadblock. It’s how projects move forward while identifying and reducing harm to wildlife. The Senate’s BAAJA fixes a problem that the data shows does not exist and instead will create very real and dangerous problems to species and habitat.
BAAJA would let states take over federal endangered species reviews, called consultations. This could happen even when agencies lack the staff, funding, or scientific expertise to do the work. Species don’t understand state boundary lines. Migratory birds travel across states, making it unrealistic and extremely difficult for a single state to assess a project’s effects on them. States that have become hostile to ESA protections, like Alaska, could attempt to lock in oil and gas development despite protections for animals like polar bears. And without the staff or expertise to conduct efficient consultations, state reviews could easily be slower than the fast federal averages that we have today.
What’s more, certain highway projects and nationwide water-permit renewals would be fully exempt from key ESA safeguards, creating God Squads without the squad process. Roads fragment habitat, and vehicle collisions kill wildlife. For the Florida panther, vehicle strikes are a leading cause of death and their efforts to expand territory are inhibited by roadways that cut through their range. With only 120-230 Florida panthers left in the wild, exempting highways from review removes the very tool designed to find solutions before we lose this animal to extinction. If this bill passed, these highway projects would never even ask the question whether or not they would jeopardize the existence of a species.
Under BAAJA, communities and conservation organizations would have just 150 days to bring certain ESA challenges, down from six years that currently apply. Local cases from around the country would have to be filed in the DC Circuit, and courts would operate on accelerated schedules. Expecting a small community group in rural America to move with the expediency and resources of a corporation is unrealistic, inequitable, and foolish. If the public cannot challenge unlawful decisions in time, the law becomes unenforceable, and harm to wildlife is often irreversible.
The bill also introduces new, vaguely drafted statutory definitions and standards for scientific assessments. Vague and confusing language like this is rife for abuse and could invite lawsuits that slow projects down, which is precisely the opposite of this bill’s stated goal.The language could be interpreted to make it harder for wildlife biologists to act on the best available science, particularly when information is incomplete, which is often the case with rare or elusive species.
This bill also implies that our hard-working federal employees aren’t doing enough. It would shorten the standard formal consultation period from 90 to 60 days without providing any additional agency staffing or funding to meet these shortened deadlines. Cutting the clock without capacity isn’t creating efficiency, it’s telling scientists that they either aren’t working hard enough, or that they should rush through the process, an offensive idea that could lead to less thorough reviews and allow key information to protect endangered species to slip through the cracks.
Real permitting reform is possible, and we can foster development in the US. Investing in agency staffing, enhancing coordination, modernizing technological systems, and giving project developers earlier, clearer guidance are direct paths to improving the process. Gutting one of our most effective and popular conservation laws does the opposite.
For more than 50 years, the ESA has reflected a bipartisan commitment to preventing extinction. Our senators should not trade that legacy for a bill that creates new bureaucratic hurdles and leaves imperiled wildlife with fewer protections.
Contact your senators today and tell them to oppose BAAJA because of its ESA attacks and to keep our wildlife and natural heritage safe for generations to come.
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Mississippi God Bless—and God Bless the Civil Rights Martyrs Who Died for Voting Rights
Blessings should go to those who fought and died struggling for a better future for people across the South.
Nov 12, 2026
I cried tears of joy when I first heard the news of Scott Colom's victory as Mississippi's US Senator. It's historic. But it's also somewhat personal to me. When I was young I l heard the great Nina Simone perform her song "Mississippi Goddam" at the Village Vanguard.
Maybe today, decades later, she could sing "Mississippi God Bless."
But blessings also should go to the civil rights activists who fighting and died struggling for voting rights, some of whom I had loose personal connections with.
James Cheny, Andy Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner were tortured, murdered, and buried in a swamp by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to register black people to vote during Mississippi Freedom Summer. My mother knew Andy Goodman's mother, a psychologist and social activist, so this was a personal as well as political loss for my family.
My wife was a distant relative of Mickey Schwerner and had dinner at his family's home when she was about 15. Mickey introduced her to soul music. After they left, her father, a Republican, said they would never go back since he considered the progressive Schwerner family to be "communists." But this alleged communist gave his life fighting to bring democracy to the Jim Crow south.
My father was also friendly with Dr. Martin Luther King. Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, he chaired the New York chapter of the Southern Conference Educational Fund which raised money for the civil rights movement. I met Dr. King as a child when he had dinner at our home and was inspired by him for the rest of my life.
It may have taken decades for Mississippi to elect its first African American senator in nearly a century. But now, later in life, I experience it as an historic victory for democracy. But also it's a belated victory for Dr. King, James Cheney, Andy Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, and so many others who risked, and even sacrificed their lives fighting for civil rights and voting rights.
The fight isn't over. But today I say this: "Mississippi God Bless."
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Trump vs. the ICC: The Law of the Strong or the Strength of the Law?
Ultimately, the question is what commitment governments and civil society organizations will demonstrate to counter the “might makes right” mentality with the strength of international law.
Nov 12, 2026
US President Trump is fighting the International Criminal Court, whose mission is to prosecute and convict high-ranking suspected criminals who have violated international law and human rights in The Hague. The US government under Trump is now imposing sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court as an institution. This represents yet another attack on global justice.
Trump Imposes Sanctions on Members of the ICC
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has 125 member states and, since 2002, has been prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide—including those committed by high-ranking officials. Like China, Israel, and Russia, the US is not a member of the ICC. However, a clear majority of countries worldwide (125 member states) do support it.
The US government is now not only imposing sanctions on the ICC as an institution but has also previously taken action against members of the court. Thirteen judges and the chief prosecutor of the ICC have been placed on the U.S. sanctions list. The sanctions range from travel bans to the US, restricted access to digital services, and the freezing of assets in the US, to the blocking of credit cards, such as Mastercard. This also affected ICC President Tomoko Akane.
The midterm elections have shown how little support the US public has for US foreign policy that violates international law and is aggressive in nature.
The US opposes the ICC’s prosecution of suspected war criminals because this would allow for the prosecution of US citizens if they commit war crimes in ICC member states.
In August 2026—according to STERN—US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the sanctions against individual ICC members with the disparaging remarks that the ICC is a “corrupt and fatally politicized” court that has “maliciously abused its powers and exceeded its mandate.”
ICC Now Also on the US Sanctions List as an Institution
As of October 9, 2026, the ICC is now also on the US sanctions list as an institution (“Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court”).
These sanctions are already largely in effect and are set to take full effect in early April 2027, although a few individual exemptions still apply.
The sanctions include, for example, a ban on cooperation with the ICC for NGOs, as well as for banks and digital service providers, along with the threat of significant penalties.
One reason for the sanctions could be the arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces charges of serious war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Palestine is a member state of the ICC, which is why this arrest warrant was possible. The ICC’s arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin could also be another reason for the action against the ICC. An arrest warrant was issued against Putin in the spring of 2023 in connection with the abduction of 16,000 children from Ukrainian territory. However, US Secretary of State Rubio is also fundamentally opposed to the international prosecution of war criminals by an independent and supranational organization—as reported by the Legal Tribune Online:
Rubio also openly threatened the court with its demise. "Either the ICC stops its threats, or we will put an end to the ICC," declared the US secretary of state (…). At the same time, he called on American allies to exert their influence on the court.
Eight countries protested shortly after the new punitive measures against the ICC were announced in early October 2026 (Joint Statement of the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) and declared their “unwavering support” for the ICC:
As committed supporters of the ICC, we regret the announcement of sanctions that the United States intends to impose on the Court and firmly reject them… Should these sanctions take effect, however, they will have a significant impact on the Court’s work, its dedicated staff, and their families. They work tirelessly every day to bring those accused of the most serious international crimes to justice and to support the victims.
US NGOs Halt Cooperation With the ICC
One human rights organization after another is now halting its cooperation with the International Criminal Court. They fear the sanctions imposed by Trump. For the ICC judges, the NGOs’ reports were a key source of information on which to base their indictments. The editors of the Dutch investigative journalism platform Investico, Michelle Salomons and Allart van der Woude, report on the effects so far of the announced sanctions:
ICC investigators reportedly receive thousands of tips from aid and human rights organizations every year. This important source for investigative work is now at risk of being destroyed. Of the 25 organizations that have spoken out, 14 have already ceased all cooperation with the ICC due to pressure from the US government. Among them is the major human rights organization Human Rights Watch, based in New York, which is also simultaneously filing a lawsuit against the US sanctions. Six other NGOs have already significantly reduced their cooperation. Several European and German organizations have also curtailed their cooperation with ICC investigators. US NGOs are legally compelled to comply with the sanctions.
First Countries Turn Their Backs on the ICC
EU Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath expresses the EU’s solidarity with the ICC and hopes, before the general sanctions take effect:
The six-month grace period before these measures take effect offers an opportunity for dialogue. In the meantime, we are prepared to support the Court and protect EU companies from the effects of these measures.
ICC President Akane stated on November 2, 2026, before the United Nations General Assembly—via video only, as she was already barred from entering the US—that 34 international arrest warrants are currently outstanding and have not yet been executed by the relevant states. However, six states have since withdrawn from the ICC. The ICC, however, is continuing its work undeterred—according to Akane:
Despite all challenges, the International Criminal Court will continue to fulfill its judicial mandate with full independence and impartiality, acting solely on the basis of the law and the evidence.
Not Letting Civilizational Progress Be Taken Away—A Perspective
The work of the ICC is a continuation of the Nuremberg Trials against Nazi war criminals. It is a civilizational achievement of the international community to have created a supranational legal institution that investigates serious war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch, therefore criticizes this move from a human rights perspective: “By attacking the Court, the US government is jeopardizing justice for victims of human rights violations from Palestine to Ukraine and Myanmar to Sudan.”
Political scientist August Pradetto places the actions against the ICC in a current context:
Putin, Trump, Netanyahu—Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran: Everywhere we see attempts to replace the rule of law with the so-called "might makes right." Putin claims such a supposed right against Ukraine, while Trump does so even more indiscriminately against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and Greenland… If middle powers and those states interested in an international legal order join together to form "coalitions of the willing" and assert the rule of law both among themselves and against the few but powerful violators of the law, a world of international law and multilateralism—albeit one that will by no means be free of conflict in the future—will be preserved. If they fail to do so, the violators of the law will effectively have free rein (“The Law of the Strongest,” from: Rolf Bader (ed.): Peace Requires Courage and Action 2026, pp. 56 and 64).
Demands on the UN and the EU
The European Union must distance itself from and clearly draw a line against the United States regarding its foreign policy, which violates international law. Furthermore, all diplomatic avenues and measures must be utilized to counter the US government’s actions against the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Cooperation between the United Nations and the European Union would also be essential in this regard.
After all, on November 2, 2026, the UN General Assembly in New York criticized the US government’s actions and attempts at intimidation by a majority vote and continued to call on ICC member states to cooperate. Ninety-three states voted in favor of the resolution critical of the US, 13 against, with 36 abstentions.
On several occasions within the EU—including by the Dutch government—calls have been made in this context to protect institutions, companies, NGOs, and individuals threatened by US sanctions through the EU Blocking Regulation.
The EU Blocking Regulation was created to avert or compensate for damage caused by measures taken by a non-European or extraterritorial state by providing a legal framework that could protect those affected. The EU would not allow them to comply with extraterritorial sanctions that extend into the EU. However, the exact consequences, compensation, and measures in this legal context are not comprehensively defined and are, in some cases, controversial.
Julia Duchrow, secretary general of Amnesty International in Germany, nevertheless calls on the EU:
The US sanctions against the International Criminal Court are an attack on human rights and international law. In doing so, the US government is protecting war criminals and treating judges as perpetrators. The European Union must provide a clear response by shielding European companies and citizens from the consequences of the sanctions. As a first step, the EU must activate and expand its Blocking Regulation. The European Parliament must speak out clearly in favor of this today.
Overall, there is widespread outrage in the European Parliament and the European Commission over the threat to the ICC. EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Kaja Kallas called for the withdrawal of the threatened US sanctions and reaffirmed that the EU would take all necessary measures to protect the work of the ICC.
Conclusion
The US government is attempting to undermine a transparent legal process—one independent of individual national interests—against individuals who are to be charged with the most serious crimes under international law and crimes against humanity. The ICC serves as a peacekeeping force due to the deterrent effect of the criminal proceedings it threatens to initiate. High-ranking individuals will certainly think twice about whether they want to risk an international arrest warrant from the ICC—even if this will undoubtedly compete with other considerations and interests. The midterm elections have shown how little support the US public has for US foreign policy that violates international law and is aggressive in nature, particularly with regard to an attack on Iran. Whether the actions against the ICC are also part of this rejection remains to be seen.
Even if the midterm results do not yet signal the end of Trump’s US presidency, they are likely to raise hopes for a swift end to this catastrophe for democracy and world peace. The sanctions against the ICC have sparked global outrage.
As early as 2025, a total of 79 states had publicly criticized US sanctions policy and expressed support for the ICC. On October 15 and 16, 2026, the 27 heads of state and government of the EU also declared their support for the ICC and spoke out in favor of “the effective protection of international courts and their officials from any threats or sanctions.”
With the UN General Assembly’s resolution, the number of states condemning the US sanctions had already risen to 93 by November 2026.
Ultimately, the question is what commitment governments and civil society organizations will demonstrate to counter the “might makes right” mentality with the strength of international law. On the one hand, this involves upholding just normative standards; on the other hand, it also concerns the interest of states and state alliances in not allowing themselves to be dominated by any great power, either now or in the future. The size of the defense budget and the threat posed by the military must not determine whether human rights and international law are upheld. This is what is at stake—and nothing less.
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Hegseth Impeachment Debacle Latest Example of Jeffries' Awful Leadership
Coach Hakeem Jeffries did not have enough players on the field and Team Trump scored a touchdown. It is as simple as that.
Nov 11, 2026
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday night, with a 211 to 204 margin, voted to refer the impeachment charges against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to a committee, allowing Republicans to slow the process so that the current Congress would not be able to take them up. There are procedural options that would allow impeachment to be brought up again, but these are very unlikely.
The political reality is that Hegseth will continue as Defense Secretary for the near future. Indeed, the House’s failure to impeach Hegseth only builds his political capital with President Donald Trump.
As expected, House Republicans closed ranks behind Hegseth. What was not expected was that 11 House Democrats failed to show up to vote. If you do the simple arithmetic, it is clear that had the Democrats showed up the House would have been able to consider the impeachment charges against Hegseth. As the New York Times reported on November 10:
The action spared Republicans a vote on whether to impeach Mr. Hegseth on eight separate charges, including violating the Constitution to wage war in Iran and elsewhere without congressional authorization, flouting laws to mitigate civilian casualties and abusing his power by retaliating against a senator for public statements.
If the impeachment process continued, it would not have ended Trump’s ability to wage war against without congressional approval. However, combined with last week's weeks Democratic midterm elections it would have sent a powerful signal to both Trump and to the world at large.
A large part of life is showing up to do our jobs. As Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointed out soon after the impeachment, when she was working in a restaurant, she had to clock in every day. While I certainly hold the 11 missing Democrats responsible for their actions, the bigger question is about Congressman Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership role while in the minority, and next year when he hopes to become Speaker of the House.
You do not have to be a historian or political scientist to understand that as the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries’ prime responsibility is to make sure that his Democratic members show up to vote. It is like a football coach making sure that he has 11 players on the field. Well, Coach Jeffries did not have enough players on the field and Team Trump scored a touchdown. It is as simple as that.
Understandably, House Democrats are feeling euphoric about last week’s Blue Tsunami. However, they do need to be clear-eyed about the task ahead of them. The Democrats in Congress will need all their political skills, to push back against Trump’s war with Iran and prevent other foreign and domestic disasters. Reversing the Medicaid cuts from the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” will be a major issue on the domestic front along with addressing the affordability crisis. In under two years, the Trump administration has done untold damage to America’s domestic and international needs.
The conventional wisdom is that Jeffries will not be seriously challenged for leader when the Democratic caucus votes for a nominee for House Speaker at a party meeting on November 18. Up until the Hegseth impeachment debacle, I would agree that there would not be a serious challenge. Things have changed. Fundamental questions must be asked and answered before the House Democrats choose their leader. The stakes are too high for America for the Democrats to not have their best leader in charge.
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Hegseth Still Needs to Go—And No Free Pass for Whoever Comes Next
An impeachment built on war powers and the laws of war would be a historic breakthrough for accountability—a step toward removing officials for abuses too often treated as part of the job.
Nov 11, 2026
Pete Hegseth still needs to be run out of town. And when he goes, he should make history. But it matters what kind.
History has a habit of remembering scapegoats as footnotes, a name attached to a failure the system quietly outlived. Hegseth shouldn't be that. For waging war without congressional authorization and presiding over grave violations of humanitarian law, let's make him a precedent, not a sacrificial lamb.
On Tuesday evening, House Republicans voted to prevent even that first step toward accountability. By 211 to 204, the House sent the impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, effectively shelving it. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY.), who brought the charges, was the only Republican to oppose the maneuver.
Tuesday's vote postponed accountability. It did not answer the charges, and it should not end the organizing.
The campaign must continue now, with a demand that the new Congress revive impeachment in January. And it must reach beyond Hegseth. Removing him would deserve celebration. But a victory like this can arrive dressed as an ending. You stand in the kitchen after the guests have gone, the plates still out, and think: How nice, but now that's over...
It isn't.
What Would be New
Only two Cabinet secretaries have been impeached: William Belknap in 1876 and Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024. Neither case was about war.
Massie's articles are different. They concern Hegseth's conducting of the Iran War without congressional authorization, his continuation of hostilities after Congress directed an end to them, and his dismantling of safeguards meant to protect civilians. Another article concerns extrajudicial killings in the campaign against suspected drug boats, including attacks on shipwrecked survivors.
An impeachment built on war powers and the laws of war would be a historic breakthrough for accountability—a step toward removing officials for abuses too often treated as part of the job.
The Campaign to Impeach Hegseth Should Set a New Standard
The effort to impeach Hegseth must become a sustained campaign to block anyone who would continue the same abuses. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz are already being floated as possible successors. If the principles behind impeachment vanish at the next confirmation hearing, accountability becomes a politically important but ultimately skin-deep showpiece.
Democrats and everyone else demanding Hegseth's removal need to start talking now about the standards they will apply to his successor. What conduct disqualifies someone from running the Pentagon? What decisions will senators examine? We should not wait for a nomination to discover that the coalition had agreed on a departure, but not a change of direction.
Hegseth's Successor?
Think of Mike Waltz's record as a bill of particulars. Count one is Yemen. As national security adviser, he convened the Signal group where officials discussed the March 2025 strikes. Airwars documented reports of at least 224 civilians killed during the campaign in less than two months. Most people remember the chat for the journalist accidentally included. The killing of civilians was the bigger crime.
Count two is the law of war. Asked in April about President Donald Trump's threat to destroy every Iranian power plant and bridge, Waltz defended such attacks as “perfectly acceptable in the rules of land warfare.” Legal experts writing in Just Security explained the distinction he obscured: Individual facilities may qualify as military targets, but destroying an entire category of infrastructure would be unlawful and “most likely is a war crime” by some of those involved.
Someone who helps organize war, supplies excuses for unlawful attacks, and resists public scrutiny is not a clean break from Hegseth.
Count three is accountability. Asked in a Foreign Policy interview whether Americans deserved a fuller accounting of US losses and mistakes, Waltz replied, “I don't know a country that exposes its military's mistakes.” Exposing them during a conflict, he added, would be “quite foolish.”
Someone who helps organize war, supplies excuses for unlawful attacks, and resists public scrutiny is not a clean break from Hegseth.
Make the Pentagon Florida Again?
The war DeSantis is most famous for is the culture war. An appeals court found his restrictions on university teaching about race and gender violated professors' free-speech rights. His “Alligator Alcatraz” detention site drew a federal watchdog's finding that it failed to meet numerous federal and state standards. These things matter when considering who should run an agency as sprawling as the Department of Defense.
There is also Guantánamo. As a Navy lawyer there, DeSantis advised a commander that hunger-striking detainees could be force-fed. Providing legal permission for coercion is not the human-rights qualification we should want in a defense secretary.
His Cuba record extends the concern beyond the prison. In Congress, DeSantis cosponsored legislation that would have barred easing travel and trade restrictions. UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan has warned that US sanctions substantially worsen Cuba's humanitarian situation, affecting food security, healthcare, and education.
In 2021, DeSantis also encouraged Cuba's military to overthrow its government, telling younger officers they could “live in the history books.” That was a clear endorsement of regime change.
One Standard, Every Confirmation
The point isn't which party a nominee belongs to or how they present themselves on TV. Did they help wage unauthorized wars, enable attacks on civilians, or give legal cover for cruelty? Those questions should organize a campaign: public demands, pressure on senators, and confirmation hearings that examine decisions rather than simply reward a more polished tone less likely to be lampooned on Saturday Night Live.
That standard has no party exemption. Biden-era officials who armed and defended Israel's devastation of Gaza must face it too. The UN's independent Commission of Inquiry has found that Israel committed genocide and called on states to stop transferring weapons that may be used for genocidal acts. Congress must refuse to confirm nominees whose records include egregious violations of human rights or the laws of war.
Tuesday's vote postponed accountability. It did not answer the charges, and it should not end the organizing.
Impeachment would establish the principle. The confirmation fight tests whether anyone intends to enforce it. The peace movement's task is to build a campaign strong enough to do both.
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Palestinians Deserve More Than a Place in the Headlines—We Deserve a Place on Stage
Macklemore's Free Palestine Tour helped create something that is often missing from the way Palestine is discussed: a space where people could encounter Palestinian culture and voices and turn their concern into action.
Nov 11, 2026
Macklemore says he is struggling to find arenas willing to host the US leg of his Free Palestine Tour. The news is a jarring contrast to the packed arenas I have just returned from across Dublin, Paris, and London—and a reminder of how contested the space for Palestinian expression remains in the United States.
That contrast is familiar to Palestinians. For years, being Palestinian in public has felt like an exercise in bracing. You stand in the cold behind barricades, and you wait to see who's going to get filmed, flagged, or fired just for asserting that children deserve to live. Your advocacy is routinely treated as a crime or a threat, until the anxiety of speaking out feels like the baseline cost of caring that children shouldn't be killed.
Then, in the space of one week, I stepped out of that cold and into three roaring arenas for the Free Palestine tour. For once, we weren't at the periphery asking to be heard. We were right in the middle of it, surrounded by joyous sound and a sea of keffiyehs. Palestine wasn’t an uncomfortable subject being squeezed into the conversation. It was the reason 20,000 people turned up in London, night after night.
We’ve seen an entire people be reduced to the images of their suffering. Humanitarian aid and bearing witness to those atrocities is essential. But Palestinians are not simply people to be rescued or mourned.
When the tour was announced, I was excited because I knew what it could mean for the cause that I've dedicated my life to. I work with UNRWA USA, and I co-founded Gaza Soup Kitchen, two of the organizations that the shows were raising money for. We all got an early heads-up, and the excitement was real. Part of it was the proceeds; part of it was finally being attached to something culturally relevant, exciting, and, I'll be honest, cool. After years of working to keep Gaza in the conversation, it was extraordinary to see what happened when a musician with a mic and a genuine willingness to take a risk brought that conversation into the center of popular culture.
Macklemore’s own story is part of why the tour mattered. He was dropped from Ed Sheeran's US tour after he'd spoken up for the Palestinians on stage. Rather than retreat, Macklemore built his own stage, invited others onto it, and sold out shows in cities worldwide. That's the power of solidarity.
In Dublin, Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, and an Irish audience with a long tradition of standing with those fighting for their freedom filled the room. In Paris, some of the people from the day's street protests spilled into the arena. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, spoke to a room of music fans. That combination was part of what made the tour so unusual. Music wasn’t simply the entertainment between political speeches. It was what brought people together in the first place. It created a space where political engagement didn’t have to feel like an obligation or an argument. You could participate, learn, listen, and celebrate at the same time.
This is also the thinking behind UNRWA USA's upcoming What We Carry: Music, Memory, Home tour. This month, we’re bringing Palestinian music and storytelling to Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC. The events will feature artists including MC Abdul and Alana Hadid, with comedian Mo Amer being honored at the New York show for using his platform to transform how audiences see Palestinians, refugees, and immigrants. The tour is designed to do more than tell people about the emergency in Gaza. It invites them to encounter Palestinian stories through music, memory, and lived experience, and then gives them a direct way to support UNRWA's humanitarian relief.
That connection between culture and action is deliberate. Humanitarian organizations are often asked to make the case for support through statistics, urgent appeals, and descriptions of need. Those things matter. But people also need to encounter the human beings behind the numbers: their voices, their humor, their music, their memories, and their determination to remain connected to home. Culture can open a door that an appeal for donations alone might not. And once people walk through it, there must be a meaningful way to turn solidarity into support.
At the Gaza Soup Kitchen table in London, I handed out stickers until we ran out. People kept coming up to ask how they could donate. They came from all walks of life and different generations. They wanted to do something, and suddenly a door opened. This is what cultural moments can do that traditional advocacy sometimes struggles to achieve. They can take people from feeling something to doing something. A concert can bring people into the work of activism that might never otherwise have found their way there. And it can give them a community in which to stay.
We’ve seen an entire people be reduced to the images of their suffering. Humanitarian aid and bearing witness to those atrocities is essential. But Palestinians are not simply people to be rescued or mourned. We are people with a culture, a history, a future, and a right to live full lives. Our children deserve to see that reflected back at them.
I pulled my daughter into the arena through a video call. She's 12, into music, and into advocacy work. She's hardly ever seen those two things in one place. She was taking every second in, her all-caps reaction to everything telling me I'm officially cool now.
She's the reason I went, and a night like that gave us something to share that wasn't just grief. I want Palestinian kids to grow up seeing their identity in the music, the art, the clothes, and the humor they already have. Palestine can be edgy. Palestine can be rebellious. It can be funny, creative, and joyful. It doesn't have to be seen through rubble.
Macklemore didn't solve Palestine's problems. No concert will. But he helped create something that is often missing from the way Palestine is discussed: a space where people could encounter Palestinian culture and voices and turn their concern into action. At a time when even finding a venue for that kind of expression in the United States is proving difficult, the importance of creating and protecting these spaces feels even greater.
That’s what I want my daughter, and all Palestinian children, to remember—the sound of thousands of people singing, dancing, and celebrating alongside them. The knowledge that their identity belongs in the world and they have every right to take up space in it.
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Control of Congress Has Shifted, But Doug Collins Is Still Wrecking the VA
Collins has proved to be President Donald Trump’s worst VA Secretary ever; his main goal is faster privatization of the nation’s largest public healthcare system.
Nov 11, 2026
If any Trump appointees lose their posts, as part of a midterm cabinet reshuffling, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins is not likely to be among them.
Unlike controversial former colleagues, already sacked as the heads of the Homeland Security, Justice, and Labor Departments—or Pete Hegseth, the next to go?—Collins keeps his own head down. He does the president’s bidding, without personal drama or political scandal.
This low-profile Air Force Reserve chaplain is a clean-living Southern Baptist minister, small-town lawyer, and former congressman from Georgia. When the Senate confirmed him last year, there was no need for a tie-breaking vote like the one JD Vance cast to push Pete across the finish line as secretary of defense.
VA defenders, inside and outside the Beltway, need a damage control agenda that will restrain—rather than enable—further White House attempts to defund and dismantle our best working model of socialized medicine.
The far more affable Collins won Senate approval with the bipartisan support of 22 Democrats! They included Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a military veteran whose own son is a VA patient and, sadly, were joined by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC).
Expanded Outsourcing
Collins has proved to be President Donald Trump’s worst VA Secretary ever; his main goal is faster privatization of the nation’s largest public healthcare system. The likelihood that he will control the third largest federal agency budget and second largest departmental workforce, for another two years, is not good news for 9 million VA patients.
By the time any Democrat replaces Trump in January, 2029, Collins will have diverted far more than $46 billion annually from the VA's direct-care budget to a network of 1.7 million private sector providers and four healthcare companies who administer it.
Just two months ago, he awarded new contracts to the latter worth $1 trillion, over the next decade (if not cancelled or curtailed by a future administration). As a result, industry giants like United Healthcare and Humana will be profiting from further outsourcing of VA care that is costly, unnecessary, and not favored by veterans themselves.
VA defenders, inside and outside the Beltway, need a damage control agenda that will restrain—rather than enable—further White House attempts to defund and dismantle our best working model of socialized medicine. Otherwise, more VA staffing and budget cuts, plus facility closings, in the VA’s own system of 1,380 public hospitals and clinics around the country will be happening soon.
Reinforcements on the Way
Those most motivated to lead the charge against Secretary Collins on Capitol Hill in 2027 are newly elected pro-labor progressives, with personal experience in public healthcare systems, either as patients, their family members, caregivers, or administrators
Thanks to their successful campaigns against MAGA supporters, these VA defenders now include: former Army paratrooper Richard Ojeda in North Carolina; former Marine drill instructor JoAnna Mendoza in Arizona who has been treated for military sexual trauma at the VA; former Army surgeon Adam Hamaway, a Gaza war critic from New Jersey, who once operated on a helicopter pilot injured in Iraq named Tammy Duckworth, now Senator from Illinois; and Fred Wellman from Missouri, a West Point graduate who began rallying fellow vets against Trump six years ago through the Lincoln Project.
Last but not least is VA privatization critic Mitch Berman, “who spent over a decade serving veterans, active duty service members, and their families as a VA nurse”—and now represents conservative Republican Paul Ryan’s old district in Wisconsin. Any of the above could help energize a House Veterans Affairs Committee, where playing footsie with Collins (and his Biden administration predecessor) has gone on for too long, to the detriment of real agency oversight.
On the SVAC, the Democrats’ defense of our nation’s largest public healthcare system would be much improved by adding new Senators from either Michigan, Maine, and Iowa. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the just elected Michigan public health specialist and Medicare for All advocate, would be following in the footsteps of his big financial backer, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Or El-Sayed could be joined by Troy Jackson, the former logger who ousted five-term Senator Susan Collins with Sanders’ support; as a state legislator, Jackson long championed the cause of Maine National Guard members who suffered Agent Orange exposure during their Vietnam-era training but were later deemed ineligible for compensation and healthcare.
In Iowa, its newly elected Sen. Josh Turek is not only the son of a Vietnam veteran but one who suffered birth defects due to his father’s Agent Orange exposure. As a wheelchair athlete, Turek played alongside disabled vets and worked with them in sports rehabilitation programs. He has pledged to “end unnecessary wars that put American lives at risk” and insure that “veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service get the care and benefits they need.”
Ready, Fire, Aim
A recent report from Democracy Forward—by two former VA officials—provides plenty of ammo for new members of Congress to use in a long-overdue counteroffensive against Collins. As Josh Jacobs, a former VA undersecretary under former President Joe Biden, and Nicole Nedd, a past director of the agency’s national workforce management program, report:
The VA has lost approximately 30,000 employees through attrition, early retirements, deferred resignations, firings, and other departures. These staff had institutional knowledge and skills that cannot be quickly replaced. The staff who remain are bearing an unsustainable burden. Morale has deteriorated, and there is growing evidence that employees feel unable to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation—a condition linked to more errors and worse patient outcomes.
In their indictment of Collins, entitled "Ready, Fire, Aim," the authors warn that “the choices being made now by the Trump-Vance administration—at the White House and within VA’s own leadership—will adversely shape veterans’ care for a generation.”
Road Map for Fighting Back
Nobody new or old inside the Beltway—whether in Congress or veterans’ advocacy organizations—will get much done by themselves, without the pressure of grassroots opposition to cuts in VA care and benefits.
Paul Reickhoff, an Iraq War veteran who helped found Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) two decades ago, believes that “both parties are looking for quiet ways to control VA disability spending, which now tops $118 billion a year for 5.1 million disabled veterans.”
This fall, Reickhoff’s new group, Independent Veterans of America (IVA), backed candidates like Navy Veteran and former National Guard member Dan Osborn, who distanced themselves from both major parties. Unfortunately, Osborn suffered a second narrow defeat running as a labor-backed independent candidate for the US Senate from Nebraska.
Reickhoff fears that “career political operatives” in Washington are still floating “budget options” which include “cutting benefits and raising minimum disability rating thresholds.” To stop these changes, veterans have to “build the media and organizing muscle to mobilize fast when veterans’ benefits are on the line.”
Fortunately, veterans’ groups, across the political spectrum, had a major victory earlier this year when they blocked the misleadingly named “Take Care of America’s Veterans Act” (TACVA). Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and Progressive Veterans of America all sounded the alarm about this Collins-backed bill pushed by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.).
TACVA would have helped 50,000 former service members—whose careers were cut short due to medical problems—collect both their military pensions and VA disability benefits. But, as Common Defense political director Naveed Shah warned last summer, this multi-part bill was heavily booby trapped. If enacted, hundreds of thousands of other veterans would have been adversely affected.
According to Shah, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, it would have “cut $57 billion from our future tinnitus and sleep apnea claims, tripled the VA home loan fee, allow disability appeals to be decided in bulk rather than on the merits of each veteran’s record, enable more layoffs that threaten the quality of VA care, and lay the groundwork for handing VA facilities over to private operators.” (Lame-duck Republicans may make a second attempt to pass TACVA, in similarly problematic form, before January.)
Grassroots Defense of VA Care
Veterans for Peace (VFP) has long been the most reliable first responder whenever veterans’ care has been threatened. VFP’s “Save Our VA” campaign has generated thousands of letters to members of Congress about privatization-related problems, too often downplayed or ignored by VSOs which take healthcare industry donations. VFP members have personally lobbied many members of Congress or their staffers on VA issues.
A newer Common Defense campaign—called “VA Not For Sale”—has sponsored VA-focused lobby days in DC and town hall meetings in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and other states. CD and the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI) also collaborated on a just-issued report called "The Privatization Playbook," which documents the whole sorry history of bipartisan support for costly and unnecessary VA outsourcing since 2014.
In California, members of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and VFP have joined forces with active and retired VA caregivers to conduct weekly anti-privatization pickets and rallies at their local facility in Sonoma County.
Next year, there should be hundreds of events like this, in far more locations around the country. And, before it’s too late, more protests should target the costly and defective overhaul of VA medical recordkeeping hat’s occurring on Collins’ watch.
Stopping Oracle’s Roll Out!
As Ace Allen, a now retired VA medical oncologist, warned last spring in The Kansas City Star, in every place where the VA’s existing system has been “modernized” by Oracle-Cerner, the result has been serious disruption of patient record handling and widespread demoralization among VA caregivers forced to use an inferior system. As a result, “huge numbers have quit or retired early.”
During the president’s first term, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner helped Oracle-Cerner get a no-bid contract to replace what Allen calls a “custom built, publicly owned electronic health record (EHR) system that was refined over decades by VA clinician-coder teams to support clinical care, not maximize revenue.”
A contract originally estimated to cost $10 billion has now ballooned to $32 billion in the same “cost-over-run” fashion as infamous Pentagon projects like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. That’s why Steve Friday, an Air Force veteran, VFP member, and former VA social worker in Michigan, is helping to rally foes of Oracle-Cerner around the country through StopTheRollout.org.
According to Friday, this grassroots initiative “brings together clinicians, VA employees, veterans, advocates, union members, and others who understand what is happening and are willing to act.” They are scouring contracting records; publicizing inspector general and GAO reports on Oracle-Cerner system failures; and sharing whistleblower information, from patients and providers, with members of Congress willing to hold Collins responsible for already occurring patient safety threats.
As Friday explains his involvement—and the stakes for everyone—“the VA, for all its problems, still demonstrates that we can publicly fund and deliver healthcare rather than turning every patient into a source of profit. Losing that,” he says, “would hurt veterans, workers, and the larger struggle for healthcare as a human right.” Thanks to last week’s midterm election results, this caregiver perspective will soon be much better reflected on Capitol Hill.
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Will the Democrats Embrace the Class Politics That Powered Their Midterm Victory?
A populist class agenda is badly needed. And the only way it breaks through will be when working people build their own political organization and demand it.
Nov 11, 2026
“The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom. Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them.” —Senator-elect James Talarico
Why does Texas Democrat Talarico see left politics as different from class politics?
After all, if left has meant anything at all historically, it has meant meant fighting for the bottom against the top. The 19th-century Populists envisioned a new economy built around cooperatives instead of the Robber Barons. The Socialist Party, in the first decades of the 20th century, called for public ownership of a range of private enterprises. The Nonpartisan League in North Dakota called for state ownership of grain elevators and banks during and after WWI.
As my colleague, historian Michael Merrill puts it, radical class politics is about moving to a “people-first rather than a profit-first economy.”
The left also has been in the forefront on the battle to end to segregation and secure full equality for women, but its central project was always a significant transformation of the capitalist economic system—one that would shift power away from concentrated wealth and toward working people.
But now Talarico, along with millions of voters, view the left as something other than class politics. When voters say the Democrats have moved too far to the left, they are often thinking about abortion, transgender athletes in sports, affirmative action, calls to abolish the police, guns, enforcement of the southern border, and abortion. These voters generally are not defining economic populism as “too left.”
Or as Talarico writes:
The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power. So their cable news networks and their social media algorithms tear us apart.
They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion so we don’t notice they’re defunding our schools, gutting our healthcare, and cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It’s the oldest strategy in the world: Divide and conquer.
Why Isn’t the Top-Bottom Framework Central to the Democratic Party?
Over the past 40 years, the Democratic Party, with a few prominent exceptions such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has shown little commitment to dramatically changing capitalism.
They have not even united around prohibiting elected officials from trading stocks and bonds while in office—a reform that polls have consistently shown attracts broad public support. One would think the Democratic attacks on corruption (“accountability”) would start at home.
Because of the choices the Democratic Party has made in the last 40 years, it is no accident that the public meaning of “the left” has increasingly come to be defined by liberal positions on social issues rather than focused on programs to transform economic power.
The party also has shown little desire to curtail the power of Wall Street, create publicly owned banks, or break up large corporate monopolies and cartels. And it makes no calls for building cooperatives or nationalizing key pieces of our infrastructure like utilities, or even prohibiting private equity companies from buying up single-family homes.
Most importantly, Democrats have not embraced a guarantee of a job at a living wage for everyone who wants to work, with public employment available when the private sector falls short. Nor have they succeeded in raising the federal minimum wage above $7.25 an hour, where it has stood since 2009. And they have repeatedly failed to reform labor law so that working people can more readily join unions.
Rather, the Democrats, led by the Clintons, become identified with pro-corporate trade deals that ripped apart the industrial heartland, leaving struggling workers and broken communities behind.
Because of the choices the Democratic Party has made in the last 40 years, it is no accident that the public meaning of “the left” has increasingly come to be defined by liberal positions on social issues rather than focused on programs to transform economic power.
Even in this landslide congressional election, 59% of white non-college graduates supported the Republican candidates while only 40% favored the Democrats.
The Race-Class Narrative (RCN)
Identity politics has also changed how economic issues are framed within the Democratic Party. Top operatives and liberal donors embedded a new “race-class narrative” into policy discussions.
Evan Barker, in Nothing Left, her revealing account of life inside the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, describes how universal economic policies came to be framed through racial categories. A proposal to improve Social Security, for example, would be presented as a way to help low-income Black and Latino workers, rather than simply as a universal policy that benefits all working people.
As Barker puts it:
RCN is inherently divisive because it racializes economic problems. It pisses off people who aren’t included in the struggling category because they might be struggling just as much as the group deemed as struggling. Bernie didn’t racialize economic issues when he ran in 2016, which is why he won a lot of WWC people over who later converted to becoming Trump voters.
Economic policies should not ignore racial inequality, of course, but a problem arises when universal economic demands are presented in ways that appear to divide working people into competing categories of deserving and less-deserving groups.
Add in the controversies over pronouns and the use of “Latinx” as political litmus tests, then even universal policies such as Medicare for All can be viewed not as programs that benefit everyone, but rather as part of an agenda that puts the interests of minorities and immigrants ahead of everyone else, paid for by white working-class taxes.
Who Will Champion Class Politics?
The failure of Democrats to make the protection of working people from corporate power its central political mission has opened the door for Republicans to seriously claim that they—not the Democrats—are the champions of working people.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who is widely discussed as a potential presidential candidate, has become a vocal supporter of raising the minimum wage, strengthening workers’ rights to collective bargaining, and changing the tax system to benefit wage earners. It is striking that issues once identified so strongly with the Democrats are now championed by a Republican.
Talarico showed that top-bottom politics can be heard in Texas. Here’s his vision:
We must get big money out of our politics so no billionaire or trillionaire can buy our elections.
We must unrig this economic system that only benefits the top 1%.
We must pass universal healthcare so no one goes bankrupt just because they get sick.
We must invest in our teachers and our students so every underdog has a fighting chance.
We must end these corrupt forever wars that are driving up prices and killing our brave men and women in uniform.
And here’s my check-list of pro-working-class legislative actions:
- Will the Democrats immediately prohibit their members from trading stock and bonds while in office and then support legislation to include criminal penalties for violations?
- Will the Democrats immediately prohibit their members from taking corporate money?
- Will the Democrats quickly pass legislation to raise the minimum wage substantially and tie it to inflation?
- Will the Democrats prohibit Wall Street from buying up single-family homes?
- Will they pass the PRO Act which would greatly facilitate labor union organizing?
- Will they call for a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use that money to reduce fuel costs and subsidize healthcare?
- Will they call for price controls on food cartels and big Pharma?
- Will they demand legislation that would restore cuts to Medicaid and allow anyone to opt into Medicare?
- Will they call for a tax on AI computing power to provide public sector jobs for laid-off workers and reimburse consumers for rising utility costs?
- And will the Democrats support a path to citizenship for undocumented workers who have been here three years, paid their taxes, and not committed felony crimes?
Even if the Republicans filibuster each of these into the ground, or Trump vetoes all of them, the effort would demonstrate to working people that the Democrats have the guts to take on the corporate elite in their behalf.
“Accountability” Is so Much Easier
One would hope these people-first policies would now become central to tackling the “affordability” crisis, but already there is much talk about the need for the Democrats to be seen as moderates.
The centrists will certainly try to lower fuel prices by ending the war in Iran, and they will try to contain health insurance costs by renewing the Obamacare and Medicaid subsidies. But an anti-corporate economic crusade to attack the root causes of “affordability” is likely a bridge too far. It will make their wealthy backers uncomfortable.
It is far easier to go after the Republican criminals and hucksters. You can subpoena, investigate, and impeach.
It’s so much harder to go after the oligopoly of power. It will take an enormous fight to modify the Wall Street-corporate wealth extraction system that produces endless job precarity, making it nearly impossible to lead a decent life. It’s safety to focus on “accountability.”
But that populist class agenda is badly needed. And the only way it breaks through will be when working people build their own political organization and demand it.
Many, many progressives would love to see the Democrats become the party of Talarico, and Bernie, and AOC. I fear they will be heartbroken…. yet again.
(You can hear me rant and rave on Jason Small’s Blue Collar News Podcast. And you can catch my version of building a working-class political movement in A Party of Our Own.)
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Veterans Reclaim Armistice Day for Peace
Armistice Day, November 11, is a day for solemn reflection, prayer, and the ringing of bells—a day to recommit ourselves to ending the wars at home and abroad.
Nov 11, 2026
Armistice Day, a national holiday on November 11, is now celebrated as Veterans Day. Understanding why requires us to recall World War I and its aftermath.
World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the “Central Powers”—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the “Allies”—mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and—from 1917—the United States. The war was unprecedented in its slaughter, carnage, and destruction. Over 15 million people were killed, both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded.
The fighting between Germany and the “Allies” ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” This was a moment of hope for world peace. There was also a sense of great tragedy. Many people prayed that Armistice Day would serve as an eternal warning never to repeat the past. Then came the even greater carnage of World War II (1939-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953).
“Veterans want an end to endless wars.”
In 1954, national veterans’ organizations American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) successfully pushed the Congress to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a day to honor those who fight in war, thus turning the holiday’s original meaning on its head. It is notable that that the American Legion and the VFW have a well-established records of cheerleading for US wars.
The national organization Veterans For Peace (VFP), in contrast, is dedicated to “exposing the true causes and costs of war,” and to “restraining our government from intervening, overtly or covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations” (from VFP Statement of Purpose).
For over a decade, the 41-year-old veterans’ organization has been working to Reclaim Armistice Day as a day dedicated to ending war once and for all. Veterans For Peace chapters lead Armistice Day activities all around the country, many incorporating the ringing of bells at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.”
Veterans For Peace Is Calling for an End to the War on Iran
“The US-Israeli war on Iran is illegal, immoral, and dangerous for the whole world. It must end immediately,” said Michael McPhearson, executive director of Veterans For Peace. “Veterans want an end to endless wars,” McPhearson continued. “Here in the US, we want ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the military out of our communities. We want peace at home and abroad.”
No More US Bombs for Genocide in Gaza
Veterans For Peace is calling for an end to US arms shipments to Israel. The Trump administration plans to deliver powerful 2,000-pound bombs to Israel as part of an upcoming arms deal, weapons that prompted such concerns about the possibility of mass casualties in Gaza that the Biden administration paused their delivery two years ago.
“When US bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end” said VFP vice president Joshua Shurley.
Will the US or Israel Use Nuclear Weapons Against Iran?!
Two nuclear-armed states, the US and Israel, are waging war against a non-nuclear-armed state, claiming without evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Now there is talk about whether the US or Israel may actually use nuclear weapons against Iran. The possibility of nuclear war is being normalized. What is wrong with this picture?
Veterans For Peace has developed a “toolkit” of useful Armistice Day resources and provides resources for military personnel and families who are looking for legal alternatives to participating in illegal wars or war crimes.
Armistice Day, November 11, is a day for solemn reflection, prayer, and the ringing of bells—a day to recommit ourselves to ending the wars at home and abroad. Let’s reclaim Armistice Day!
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