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Opinion
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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Stephen Miller's Ascendancy Ushers in a New and Dangerous Moment for the US
The next two years will either be the last, desperate gasp of fascism in America or the pivot to the point of no return. And that outcome is going to be dependent on what we do now—together—as moral, patriotic, and clear-eyed Americans.
Nov 10, 2026
Well that was an awesome 48 hours of joy and relief.
While no surprise, the ascent of Stephen Miller to chief of staff, sitting sidesaddle with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, ushers in a new and dangerous moment for America. At this point, President Donald Trump is simply their useful idiot.
My take: Miller saw the numbers—the writing on the wall for the midterms. The margins were too wide, too significant to try to overturn or fight.
The American public must see strength and “fight” from the leaders they elected to put down this fascist threat once and for all.
So time to shift strategy—and just ignore the outcome altogether.
A smart person once told me that power in America is not given, it’s taken.
If I were Stephen Miller, this would be my plan:
- Hope that that fear, laziness, and incompetence from both the Democrats and the defeated, beaten-down Republicans (who hate him!) could pave the way for a great escalation of fascism in America.
- Make a deal with the tech oligarchs and corporate media that they can’t refuse—from a money and assured pardon point of view. In doing so, shore up the surveillance state and control information flow to the public.
- Bet the rest of the business community and most institutions would go along to protect themselves, even if they are holding their noses. Essentially a continuation of the capitulation of powerful institutions across the board that we have witnessed over the last two years.
- Finally, double down on stamping out dissent. Erase the elation and replace it with FEAR. Create real costs for those leading dissent.
While I realize this doesn’t paint a rosy picture and we have barely recovered from our champagne-induced hangovers—to be honest, what other play does Mr. Miller have?
So how do we fight back?
- Time to stop celebrating. Sorry. Celebration is complacency. Miller is counting on us to lie in our feather beds of self-satisfaction while he doubles down. Remember: evil, not stupid.
- The newly elected Congress needs to demonstrate its absolute strength—zero appeasement. The American public must see strength and “fight” from the leaders they elected to put down this fascist threat once and for all. If they don’t, Americans will get scared, and they will fall silent.
- The legislative branch can and must *create cost for capitulation*. Only when the cost of working with Trump outweighs the benefit will business and institutional behavior change.
- Fear is Miller’s sharpest weapon. Leaders of the opposition must double down on visual, public, fearless opposition to whatever comes next. We must continue to be brave to spread courage.
The next two years will either be the last, desperate gasp of fascism in America or the pivot to the point of no return. And that outcome is going to be dependent on what we do now—together—as moral, patriotic, and clear-eyed Americans.
Put down the champagne and buckle up.
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Defeating Schumer and Jeffries Is a Fight That Matters
We’re not just fighting Trump and MAGA. To keep the promises candidates made in the 2026 elections, we’ll have to take on the Democratic establishment, corporate greed, and powerful institutions.
Nov 10, 2026
We’ve spent most of the last decade under MAGA occupation or the threat of it. Donald Trump removed any pretense that our government works as it is, or that our checks and balances are enough. So voters keep asking for fighters: people who’ll stand up for them, demand affordability and accountability, and restore democracy. The problem is, if you don’t know who you’re fighting, it’s easy to mistake opponents for friends.
That confusion is rearing its ugly head right now in the fight over who’ll lead Democrats in the House and Senate. On one hand, you have Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer: deeply unpopular, mistrusted, the face of a broken Democratic brand. On the other, you have insider logic that says they’re not to be questioned. They’re the next leadership.
In late October, before the election, we ran 30 polls in 11 states. In every one, more voters wanted someone else than wanted Jeffries as Speaker or Schumer as leader. Schumer never topped 14% of likely voters. Jeffries never topped 23%. Even among Democrats, 59% want someone other than Schumer.
Now we’re going to run another set to show that support for Jeffries and Schumer is still nearly non-existent, especially where seats flipped. The new members and the Progressive Caucus need to know their districts are behind them. These polls, these petitions, this is how we tell them we’ve got their back.
Among newly elected members like Darializa Avila Chevalier, Melat Kiros, Donovan McKinney, Claire Valdez and Chris Rabb, and progressive leaders like Maxwell Frost, Ro Khanna, AOC and Rashida Tlaib, the worry is palpable. This is the first of many fights, and the first test of whether we’ve actually sent fighters to Washington. We’re not just fighting Trump and MAGA. To keep the promises these candidates made, we’ll have to take on the Democratic establishment, corporate greed and powerful institutions. People with power and money don’t want to give it up. Unless we pull it from their death grip, we won’t get this country back on the right path.
A healthcare system that works, enough housing, modern infrastructure built at speed and scale, a foreign policy that stops participating in genocides and blowing up children’s schools: that’ll take courage, it’ll take conviction, it’ll take risk. Some people will probably lose their seats.
When I first worked for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she took that risk. She did a sit-in in the Speaker’s office. Now she’s doing whiteboards telling us why standing up to leadership isn’t reasonable. That’s not because the people in these jobs are bad. The jobs are built to be pressurized containers. They’re built for conformity: wait your turn, keep your head down, keep your mouth shut. They’re built to make you forget you represent 700,000 people back home, that you’re their voice, and that you matter.
It makes no common sense to put two deeply unpopular people in charge who won’t embrace the solutions most likely to help Americans quickly and show we have bigger, bolder ideas than Republicans. You can’t negotiate leadership into being different people. As long as they hold that power, people with bigger and better ideas will be subservient to it.
That’s why I’m excited to see people and organizers all across this country begging the people they just elected to stand up and fight for them, even against their own party’s establishment. I hope they get brave enough. We need a united party, but not one united behind people who want to time travel back to 2014 or 2015. That’s the road that led us here: Donald Trump, a strongman wannabe dictator, elected twice because people are rejecting the status quo in ways too few understand.
You might hear there aren’t enough of us, that we need to elect more progressives first. But there are nearly a hundred members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. If even half of them said no, not this Speaker, we want someone like Ayanna Pressley, Joe Neguse or Maxine Waters, someone else, that’d be plenty to block Hakeem Jeffries. The Progressive Caucus is one of the biggest caucuses in the House. It just doesn’t act like one. It doesn’t vote like one. It doesn’t pressure like one. It doesn’t fight like one.
So when we say we need fighters, this is what we mean. This is that time.
I know it’s exhausting. I’m finishing this email at 1:30 in the morning. Trust me, I hear you. But this is a fight that matters. And even if we don’t win it, we’re building the muscles. This exercise is worth the effort. I think it’s a fight worth having.
Help support the effort to do the polling and organizing work necessary to wage this battle. Visit A Fight Worth Having today.
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10 Reasons Chuck Schumer Should Not Be Senate Majority Leader
The voters have spoken. They want more than a change in which party controls Congress—they want a change in direction, a break from politics as usual, and leaders willing to challenge entrenched power.
Nov 10, 2026
Democrats have just won back control of Congress, delivering a major rebuke to Donald Trump and his policies. But now comes another critical question: Who should lead the new Democratic majority? Let’s look at the Senate.
Chuck Schumer has been in Congress for nearly 46 years—18 in the House and almost 28 in the Senate. He has led Senate Democrats since 2017 and is already declaring that he expects to be reelected majority leader.
But the public is clamoring for new leadership. A recent NBC News poll found that just 13% of voters view Schumer favorably! While most sitting senators seem reluctant to oppose him, eight newly elected Democratic senators—Abdul El-Sayed, Peggy Flanagan, Troy Jackson, Juliana Stratton, Adam Hamilton, James Talarico, Chris Pappas, and Annie Andrews—have either openly opposed Chuck Schumer or withheld their support. And there is a possibility that Senator Van Hollen will put his hat in the ring.
In addition to 10 reasons that Hakeem Jeffries should not be the next Speaker of the House, here are 10 reasons why Schumer should not lead Democrats in the US Senate.
1. He continues to defend Israel
Few issues demonstrate the growing divide between Democratic leaders and their progressive base more clearly than Israel.
Schumer has described himself as a Shomer Yisrael, a guardian of Israel, pledging to fulfill that role “unflinchingly, unstintingly and with all of my strength.” In a March 2024 Senate speech, delivered as Israel's assault on Gaza was provoking worldwide outrage, Schumer declared, “We love Israel in our bones,” and described establishment of the state of Israel as one of the most heartfelt causes of his life.
He has condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and encouraged states to take action against boycotts of Israel.
According to OpenSecrets, Chuck Schumer has received more than $1.7 million in campaign contributions from pro-Israel interests over his congressional career, placing him among the largest recipients of such funding.
In July 2025, as images of starvation and mass civilian suffering in Gaza horrified the world, Bernie Sanders forced Senate votes on resolutions blocking certain weapons sales to Israel. In an extraordinary shift, a majority of Senate Democrats supported restrictions on those transfers. Schumer voted against both resolutions.
Schumer has criticized Netanyahu and Israeli settler violence, yet he continues to support weapons sales to Israel and has not called for ending the nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid—something that, ironically, both Trump and Netanyahu have suggested. Nor has he publicly opposed Section 1217 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would deepen U.S.-Israeli military integration through joint weapons research, technology development, and defense production.
There’s no way Schumer would lead the Senate in carrying out what the voters want: An end to support for Israel.
2. His career is deeply intertwined with Wall Street, corporate donors, and PACs
Schumer's relationships with wealthy donors are among the most consequential features of his political career. Representing New York, the center of American finance, he has cultivated close ties with Wall Street executives, major banks, investment firms, and powerful corporate interests. His 2022 reelection campaign raised nearly $38 million, including hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs and employees associated with financial giants Blackstone, KKR, and BlackRock.
These connections go far beyond campaign contributions. Between 1989 and 2010 alone, Schumer received nearly $9 million from the securities and investment industry. In 2007, he helped obstruct efforts to close the notorious carried-interest loophole, which allows wealthy private-equity managers to pay preferential tax rates on certain earnings. That same year, he championed proposals to ease Wall Street regulations—just before the financial crisis devastated millions of American families.
These corporate donors aren't giving money out of charity. They have billions at stake in congressional decisions on taxes, healthcare, financial regulation, and military spending. Schumer may talk about standing up for working people, but how can Democrats credibly challenge corporate greed and Wall Street power when their leader has spent decades cultivating the very industries they claim to confront?
3. He has refused to embrace Medicare for All
Millions of Americans struggle with medical debt, insurance denials, enormous deductibles, and the constant fear that illness could destroy their financial security. Schumer identified healthcare affordability as one of five major priorities for the new Democratic Congress. Yet he has refused to embrace the real solution: Medicare for All.
In April 2025, Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to establish such a comprehensive national health program that could save an estimated $1 trillion a year by cutting out private insurance companies while guaranteeing healthcare for everyone. Among its original cosponsors were Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Jeff Merkley, and Schumer's fellow New York senator, Kirsten Gillibrand.
Schumer was conspicuously absent and never brought the bill to a Senate floor vote, even when Democrats controlled the chamber.
Instead, he has focused on expanding the Affordable Care Act, providing subsidies to make private insurance more affordable, and lowering prescription drug costs. But those policies preserve a system in which private insurance companies retain enormous power over patients' access to healthcare.
It’s no mystery why. Schumer has received millions in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and insurance industry interests.
The Democrats–indeed the country–need a leader who will start laying the groundwork for Medicare for All now so it can become a reality in 2029 under a new president.
4. He has failed to champion a new generation of progressive leaders
At a time when voters are demanding bold new leadership, Chuck Schumer has repeatedly failed to embrace progressive candidates who are energizing the Democratic Party.
Perhaps the most glaring example is Zohran Mamdani. Even after Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor and inspired an extraordinary grassroots movement, Schumer NEVER endorsed him. Even on Election Day, he refused to say whether he had voted for his own party's nominee. What an astonishing failure by New York's senior senator to support such an exciting new leader!
In Michigan, Schumer backed establishment favorite Haley Stevens over progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated her in the Democratic Senate primary. Just two days before the general election, Stevens shocked Democrats by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers. Schumer condemned her betrayal, but the episode raised serious questions about his political judgment.
In Florida, progressive Angie Nixon proved to be a remarkable candidate, coming within three percentage points of defeating Republican Senator Ashley Moody in a state Trump had won by 13 points. Bernie Sanders held four rallies for Nixon, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee provided no financial assistance. Schumer failed to champion a candidate who, with stronger national support, might have delivered one of the election's most stunning victories.
In Mississippi, Scott Colom mounted an extraordinary challenge to Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1982. Yet national party support came only late in the campaign, despite Colom's unexpectedly strong showing.
These races raise a fundamental question: Why does Schumer repeatedly fail to recognize and invest in dynamic candidates who could transform the Democratic Party? Instead of nurturing emerging talent, he has too often backed establishment favorites or stood on the sidelines while grassroots movements lead the way..
5. He is a supporter of the military-industrial complex
While Americans struggle with soaring living costs, Washington continues pouring extraordinary sums into the Pentagon and the military contractors that profit from war.
For fiscal year 2027, Trump proposed an astonishing $1.5 trillion military budget. Schumer opposed the increase but has not made significant cuts to military spending a central Democratic priority.
Schumer has also been an unwavering defender of NATO and a leading advocate for military assistance to Ukraine. He has repeatedly attacked Trump for being “soft on Russia,” demanding tougher sanctions against Moscow and greater military support for Ukraine. He helped push through tens of billions of dollars in military aid and opposed interruptions in weapons shipments. Rather than making negotiations to end the war his central priority, Schumer has consistently emphasized military assistance, economic pressure, and strengthening NATO.
The next Democratic majority should challenge the enormous power of the military-industrial complex and redirect resources toward healthcare, housing, education, and other urgent needs. This is unlikely to happen with Chuck Schumer at the helm.
6. He won’t call for ICE to be dismantled
While Trump has escalated his immigration crackdown, Schumer has focused primarily on calls to reform ICE rather than abolish the agency. Senator Ed Markey has explicitly demanded that ICE be defunded and abolished, while Bernie Sanders has called for eliminating tens of billions in additional funding. Senator Andy Kim has repeatedly visited detention facilities, spoken directly with detainees, and fought to shut down Newark's notorious Delaney Hall. Senator Chris Van Hollen even traveled to El Salvador to fight for the return of a wrongfully deported Maryland resident.
Schumer has spoken out against ICE abuses, opposed a new detention facility in New York, and helped advocate for the release of Bronx student Dylan Lopez Contreras. But as Senate Democratic leader, his approach has centered on reforming ICE rather than dismantling it.
That is simply not enough. With Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's mass deportation agenda and one of the most virulently anti-immigrant figures in American politics, now elevated to White House chief of staff, the danger to immigrant communities has only intensified. This is no time for timid reforms or half-measures. Democrats need Senate leadership willing to demand the abolition of ICE.
7. He voted for the disastrous Iraq War
In October 2002, Schumer voted to authorize President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
In the lead-up to the Iraq War, millions of Americans took to the streets in protest, including hundreds of thousands in New York City on February 15, 2003, in one of the largest anti-war demonstrations in U.S. history. Despite this massive outpouring of opposition from his own constituents, Schumer had voted to authorize the disastrous war and went on to support billions of dollars in additional war funding.
The invasion, launched on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction, became one of America's greatest foreign policy disasters. It killed enormous numbers of Iraqis, displaced millions, destabilized the region, and cost the United States trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.
The historical record matters, especially as Congress again confronts questions of war, presidential power, and military intervention. His vote to authorize that disastrous war remains an essential part of evaluating his foreign policy judgment.
8. He opposed Obama's landmark Iran nuclear agreement
In 2015, Schumer broke with President Barack Obama to oppose the Iran nuclear agreement, widely regarded as Obama's signature foreign policy achievement. The deal was a major diplomatic breakthrough, designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons without resorting to war. Yet Schumer sided with Republicans and hardline opponents of the agreement, provoking a fierce backlash from progressives and supporters of diplomacy.
His opposition raises an important question today: Does Schumer genuinely support a diplomatic resolution to the war with Iran, or is his opposition primarily driven by the fact that it is Trump's war? His record of opposing one of the most significant diplomatic opportunities with Iran casts doubt on his commitment to pursuing diplomacy over military confrontation.
9. He has a history of giving in to Trump
In March 2025, Democrats faced one of their first major confrontations with Trump's second administration. Republicans pushed through a government funding bill that Democrats had little role in writing, while Trump and Elon Musk were dismantling federal agencies and threatening essential public services.
Democrats had leverage in the Senate, where Republicans needed their votes to overcome a filibuster. But rather than insist on concessions, Schumer announced he would help advance the Republican bill.
The backlash was enormous. Progressive organizations called for his resignation, House Democrats erupted in anger, and even Nancy Pelosi publicly broke with Schumer.
Schumer argued that a government shutdown would give Trump and Musk even more freedom to dismantle the federal government. But his critics saw a fundamental failure of leadership: Democrats had an opportunity to confront the administration and instead helped pass its funding legislation.
The episode became a defining moment in Schumer's leadership—and a source of lasting doubts about how aggressively he will confront Trump in future battles.
10. He has failed to challenge the corporate power driving inequality and environmental destruction
Schumer's record reflects the limits of an establishment Democratic Party that too often compromises with powerful corporate interests.
In 2022, Schumer struck a deal with Senator Joe Manchin to fast-track energy projects, including fossil fuel infrastructure, provoking outrage from environmental justice groups. In 2024, he championed a bipartisan immigration bill that would have sharply restricted asylum protections.
And now, in November 2026, Schumer voted to advance legislation that environmental groups have dubbed the “dirty data center deal.” The bill would accelerate permitting for massive AI data centers, pipelines, and other energy infrastructure while weakening environmental protections. Tribal leaders warn that it would also undermine tribal sovereignty by weakening consultation requirements and making it harder for Indigenous communities to protect their ancestral lands, cultural heritage, and sacred sites. Despite protests by environmental and Indigenous rights groups, Schumer voted to move the legislation forward, arguing that the bill could lower energy costs.
Democrats face a fundamental choice between accommodating powerful industries and protecting communities, workers, and the environment.
Schumer’s incremental reforms in areas such as climate investments, prescription drugs, and infrastructure legislation are no substitute for confronting the enormous power of corporations and billionaires.
The voters have spoken. They want more than a change in which party controls Congress—they want a change in direction, a break from politics as usual, and leaders willing to challenge entrenched power.
Will Democrats in the Senate embrace the change voters demanded, or return to the same old leadership that has failed to deliver it?
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Public Safety for Whom? The Mandate to End ICE’s Terror
Congress has the mandate to abolish ICE and must avoid squandering public trust by trampling on the will of the people.
Nov 10, 2026
The blue tsunami of Tuesday’s midterm elections signals the advent of the end of President Donald Trump’s despotic choke hold on our democracy and an unequivocal repudiation of his regime, characterized by economic deprivation we naively call an unaffordability crisis, a war unauthorized by Congress, and xenophobic violence by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of the top concerns midterm voters trafficked to the polls, democracy and immigration rounded out the top three, according to CNN exit polls, not just the question of personal and collective economics. Accented by the cratering support from Latino voters garnered two years ago, the political massacre the Republicans sustained signals a mandate for the new Congress to end ICE terror on our streets.
Since the activation of Trump’s long-promised deportation machine, federal bullets have ripped through the flesh of at least 24 human beings, ending the lives of at least three US citizens and three noncitizens. Unconscionably, over 52 people have died in our nation’s immigration detention centers. At the expense of the true promise of public safety, ICE, now coordinating with approximately 2,000 local and state law enforcement agencies due to section 287(g), snakes its way through our streets, airports, school parking lots, and grocery stores under a now grossly unpopular presidential mandate to squelch “migrant crime”—a criminological category equally as hyperbolic and racist as Black-on-Black crime. Despite the dramatic claims and overblown press conferences, by all metrics, immigrants—documented or otherwise—actually participate in criminal activity at lower rates than US-born citizens. Facts notwithstanding, the anti-crime saviorism increasingly targets noncitizens without criminal convictions.
According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, in a year of staggering numbers of immigrant detainments, August alone accounted for more than 50,000 ICE arrests—the highest single monthly total on record. On average, 2,000 people a day are currently sucked into this black hole of menacing uncertainty and predictably substandard accommodations for months and months. Last month, agency leadership deputized their agents to increase immigration arrests to 3,000 daily arrests nationwide.
Only 23 years old, ICE is a creature of post-9/11 panic and collective grief. We managed, though imperfectly, for two centuries without it and can again.
The normalization of the mass detainment and deportation of our undocumented neighbors exists alongside this republic’s heritage of racialized policing and punishment, namely the overpolicing and hyper-incarceration of Black lives and the egregious overfunding of local police departments, jails, and state prisons. Mass deportations are to the immigration system what mass incarcerations are to the criminal legal system. The detention center, prison, and jail, and police, ICE, and Customs and Border Protection may as well be one. In fact, in many cities throughout the United States, they are one. We must end this expansion of Blue power and Blue privilege. As white privilege is not about individual white people, Blue privilege refers to the systems, logics, and patterns that insulate a culture of law enforcement violence and unaccountability, not individual law enforcement officers. It’s an unearned, advantaged way of being. Blue privilege dupes those of us without it into believing the police state is normal, necessary, and unchangeable.
Our criminal legal system draws oxygen from the disproportionate over-surveillance and custodial control over Black, brown, and poor bodies—documented and undocumented alike. In fact, immigration detention centers and public and private prisons rhyme politically and economically in our nation, warring to reckon with a seemingly inconvenient truth of its decreasing demographic whiteness. Fueled by police and ICE zealotry, both systems reflect two branches of a single meta-system of retributive whiteness. The popular notion of crimmigration—the violent intersection of our white supremacist criminal legal system and the immigration system—disabuses us of the fiction of national innocence about the structural violence by which we “thingify” and demonize a plethora of distinct non-white communities unwelcomed into the narrow definitions of Americanness. As I say in Outing Blue Privilege, we are living through a war on the image of God as law-and-order enthusiasm empties homes of parents and breadwinners, the media amplifies the criminalization of certain races and the racialization of certain crimes, and the predominance of police firepower indiscriminately walls Black flesh into poverty-racked neighborhoods drained of opportunities.
The unprecedented surge in arrests extends the specter of Blue power—law enforcement resources, personnel, sovereignty—all too familiar to descendants of chattel slaves and those who share our many shades of melanin. The Southern police forces originally emerged as slave patrols designed to surveil and contain Black bodies, preventing them from running off to freedom or congregating for unsanctioned purposes. In 1838, the first professionalized US police department started in Boston to control poor Irish immigrants. According to the same logics, the Midwest constabulary formed to intimidate Indigenous Americans into a unique form of segregation. Odiously, the originating anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-poor ethos of our policing systems keeps these histories alive in ICE—the wealthiest law enforcement agency in US history.
Dangling the carrots of financial incentives in front of law enforcement institutions, our government invents reasons to dispatch Blue power to enforce social closures for immigrant communities, not unlike the ones we manufactured against Black people during the five-decade-long war on drugs. Despite the visually documented death of Renée Nicole Good and the climbing number of deaths and abuses at detention centers, nearly no ICE officer has been held accountable—a desert of meaningful oversight. The cardinal rule of any law-and-order regime: ICE merely investigates itself. James Baldwin excoriated, “This arrogant autonomy, which is guaranteed the police… by the most powerful forces in American life… creates a situation which is as close to anarchy as it already, visibly, is close to martial law.” That’s one of the public hazards of Blue privilege.
Under the detainment theatrics of our federal government, a father unsuspectingly disappears during a routine outing to purchase diapers in New Jersey, while a 19-year-old Babson College student unwarrantedly loses her freedom in Boston’s Logan Airport en route to celebrate one of America’s uniquely treasured traditions, Thanksgiving. Even if no other person is shot on our streets or dies in a cell, our spirits cry out for balm for the psychic wounds borne by those who have been, or have watched others be, tear-gassed, spat on, pushed to their hands and knees, flattened on the hood of a car, shoved to the bottom of stairwells, or starved, neglected, and brutalized in the care of the government. This is what public safety looks like under Blue privilege. It amounts to a tool that reserves safety for some publics, while doling out terror in the name of “justice” to other publics.
Desensitization threatens a far graver danger: the shriveling of our souls. Our very humanity is at stake if we cannot dare to build new practices that foster safety and flourishing for all. This mass panic, inordinate anxiety, immobilizing fear, looming outrage, and bewildering despondency teeming across the nation cannot signify anything we'd expect as public safety. Perhaps public safety is not enough after all. Only 23 years old, ICE is a creature of post-9/11 panic and collective grief. We managed, though imperfectly, for two centuries without it and can again. Viewed unfavorably by more voters than favorably in every poll this year, ICE was most certainly on the ballot. Congress has the mandate to end the terror and must avoid squandering public trust by trampling on the will of the people. The survival of our humanity requires ending ICE itself.
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Todd Blanche Makes the Case for His Own Impeachment
Blanche’s malfeasance should transcend partisan politics: He has abandoned his responsibilities under the Constitution; he has forsaken his country and his oath as an attorney; and he has earned impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.
Nov 10, 2026
President Donald Trump is running scared. And he has Attorney General Todd Blanche running with him.
For years, Democrats have campaigned on the promise to root out the Trump administration’s corruption and incompetence. He must have thought they were kidding.
Trump’s Baseless Threat
On November 7, the same day that he named Stephen Miller his new chief of staff, Trump issued a long social media screed. He complained that the incoming Democratic Congress was going to utilize its power under the Constitution to investigate his administration. Trump wrote:
The Democrats are going around threatening a lot of people, including the Attorney General of the United States, and others, with Impeachment and many other forms of punishment… This is extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable for this.
It is not extortion to investigate executive branch malfeasance or to call for the impeachment of the worst attorney general in US history. But Blanche is Trump’s enforcer, so Trump knew how to handle his unpleasant new situation. He concluded his diatribe with a direction to Blanche:
Threatening letters have been sent to many people, all innocent, from Democrat Political Leaders. By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!
Blanche Bows to the Aspiring King
Like Trump, Blanche knows that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. It took him less than 24 hours to follow Trump’s lead.
During an interview on CNN’s "State of the Union" on November 8, he singled out incoming House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who had posted a two-word message on election night (“LAWYER UP”).
“I would be very worried if I were a member on that committee,” Blanche said. He also asserted that the Justice Department would defend all executive branch members against impeachment, although it has no constitutional obligation to do so. (E.g., The department did not defend Trump in his impeachment trials.)
Blanche is the one who should be worried. Repeating Trump’s threat is more evidence that he is unfit to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The record against him was already overwhelming. During his brief tenure as deputy, acting, and now permanent attorney general, many of his accomplishments for Trump were already the subject of a New York Bar Association complaint signed by a bipartisan group of more than 100 former federal and state judges.
His worst actions have been his abuse of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus to target Trump’s political opponents—as he did again in his CNN interview. It’s a classic move in a would-be dictator’s playbook and antithetical to democracy. It aims to punish and deter.
The litany of Blanche’s other impeachable offenses include:
- Signing an agreement purporting to give Trump and his family immunity from Internal Revenue Service audits;
- Pursuing Trump’s bogus voter-fraud claims, including the filing of frivolous lawsuits against states for their voter rolls;
- Hollowing out career Justice Department staff;
- Stripping the Justice Department of its institutional independence; and
- Destroying the department’s credibility, including the “presumption of regularity” whereby federal judges were able to believe that the DOJ attorneys appearing before them were telling the truth.
It will take years for the department to recover from his carnage. And Congress should make Blanche’s impeachment a warning for future generations.
Will Republicans Desert Him?
Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general was by the thinnest of margins in the Senate: 50-to-49. That put him in the same company as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (50-to-50 vote with JD Vance supplying the tie-breaking 51st vote.)
If the Democratic House starts the process in January, Blanche will be impeached by the requisite simple majority (218). That’s what it means to have 255 Democrats (and counting) in the House of Representatives.
The Senate is a more interesting story. A two-thirds supermajority is necessary to convict him. Even if Democrats get to 56 members with the two outstanding races in Alaska and Mississippi, at least 11 Republicans would have to join them.
At that point, Senate Republicans would face a dilemma: If they vote to acquit, they will give Democrats another issue for the 2028 campaign; if they vote to convict, they’ll risk the ire of Trump. Although wildly unpopular, Trump still has millions of supporters.
Blanche’s malfeasance should transcend partisan politics. He has abandoned his responsibilities under the Constitution. He has forsaken his country and his oath as an attorney. He has earned impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.
And every day—with his own words and deeds—Blanche proves the case against himself over and over again.
He should lawyer up.
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Technofascists Want AI to Infiltrate Our Lives—Here's How to Resist
Americans should support existing legislation and call for more US lawmakers to propose and endorse restrictions and ethical protocols in AI development.
Nov 10, 2026
During the recent street protests in France, thousands of people marching to demand better conditions were met by riot police, far-right rhetoric that criminalizes progressive politics and Black and Arab youth, and AI surveillance. This combination of technology and brutality are not a coincidence; they are part of a fascist playbook.
In their new book, End Times Fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor outline an apocalyptic alliance of Christian nationalists, tech-bro billionaires, and populist survivalists who are defining the far-right and accelerating global collapse. This book coincides with warnings from former AI tech bros that the end is coming, including a former Anthropic employee saying there is a greater than 10% chance AI could end humanity within the next decade by producing bioweapons that destroy the Earth.
As we navigate these warnings, AI embeds itself in the very infrastructure of our daily lives, from email summaries to predictive texting to Flock cameras, while simultaneously advancing surveillance, policing, and war technologies. Society is being groomed to depend on external technology to think for us while our movements and interactions are monitored and policed.
We should all be alarmed at the rate AI is advancing and how an overwhelming amount of our tax money is being allocated to war technology instead of human life.
As a university professor for over a decade, I deeply believe in empowering students to engage with the world’s issues by asking questions that get to the roots of problems and centering dialogue to transform the world. When the ability to think critically is taken away from us, we lose the fundamental human capacity to ignite change. As we increasingly outsource our ability to think critically and creatively, there is a risk that we dull our human capacity to overcome challenges, trust ourselves, communicate, and imagine new worlds. This sets us up for a dangerous future, one in which humanity is told what to think and how to act and pays for it financially, emotionally, and mentally.
Critical and creative thinking is one of the most potent tools humans have to understand our conditions and has larger implications for democracy and freedom. What happens when our humanity is stripped away and replaced by a machine? In his 2018 bestseller, How Fascism Works, philosopher Jason Stanley highlights 10 key strategies of fascism, including anti-intellectualism, unreality, and hierarchy. All three are playing out now.
AI has begun to replace teachers in the classroom. The federal government is dismantling the Department of Education and cutting funding to higher education. AI companies are acquiring and destroying antique books to feed and train its machines, while books about race, gender, class, and sexuality are being banned. AI hallucinations and deepfakes seed distrust of a shared reality, increase conspiracy thinking, and make evidence-based debate almost impossible. As for hierarchy, AI models reinforce biases already embedded within society, including racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, and then reproduce them through algorithms that allow authoritarian leaders to sharpen societal divisions. Meanwhile, the proliferation of AI buttresses the hierarchy of tech billionaires and government officials profiting off it, while the public experiences brain drain that accelerates fascist control.
"Brain drain" typically evokes a massive migration of highly educated and skilled professionals from their home country to another. But I use it here to refer to the very depletion of the brain's capacity to become educated or skilled. Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab last year found that prolonged use of AI, particularly ChatGPT, over several months eroded critical thinking skills and resulted in users becoming progressively unable to generate original ideas. An EEG recording brain activity across 32 regions revealed that ChatGPT users “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”
People are also turning to AI for therapy instead of talking to a professional or having conversations with their friends and family. According to a study RAND, Brown University School of Public Health, and Harvard University conducted between February and March 2025, 1 in 8 young adults use AI chatbots for mental health advice. Open AI is currently facing seven lawsuits because their chatbot responses led users to delusions, murder, and suicide. Research from Sentio University in California warns that “ChatGPT may be the largest mental health provider in the US” with 49% of Californians reporting the use of AI for mental health support. An overreliance on AI strips away our ability to feel difficult emotions unmediated by a screen and cultivate real connections and communication with other people, which according to tech justice advocate YK Hong is key for collective resistance against authoritarian regimes.
In May, the Pentagon reached deals with seven tech companies to advance military and surveillance technology. Among them, Scale AI, an artificial intelligence infrastructure and software company, was awarded $500 million, Open AI was awarded $200 million, and Google was awarded $200 million to develop war technology in the name of national security, money that could have gone instead for public services such as education and healthcare. For FY2027, the Pentagon is asking for $54 billion for AI-powered war, which includes AI surveillance, military operations, and weapons.
Some legislators are fighting back. In September, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would pause advanced AI development until there is rigorous federal testing and oversight to ensure it does not harm humanity. The same month, Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Andy Kim (D-NJ) proposed the Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act of 2026 to enforce safety and security standards. Americans should support this legislation and call for more US lawmakers to propose and endorse restrictions and ethical protocols in AI development.
We should all be alarmed at the rate AI is advancing and how an overwhelming amount of our tax money is being allocated to war technology instead of human life. We must work together to combat the deterioration of our human capacity to AI and resist fascism and authoritarianism, while we still can.
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World Leaders Must Make Real Progress at COP31: Our Shared Future Depends on It
The task for states gathering at COP31 now is to ensure that international cooperation delivers on international obligations: preventing further harm, addressing the consequences of climate change, and providing reparation to those in need.
Nov 09, 2026
Governments will gather November 9-20 in Antalya, Türkiye, for the COP31 climate talks, amid mounting pressure on nearly every front, and the picture could hardly be starker.
Climate impacts are accelerating, bringing devastating losses to countries and communities that have contributed the least to the crisis and intensifying demands for adequate finance and remedy. Conflict, economic instability, and price spikes are exposing the risks of continued dependence on fossil fuels, strengthening the case for the transition. Yet, windfall war profits for oil and gas companies and growing demand from artificial intelligence and data centers are driving fossil fuel expansion. And as global temperatures approach the 1.5°C temperature limit, speculative technological interventions are increasingly being promoted as ways to manage continued warming rather than prevent it.
The consequences are no longer projections. In August, a devastating glacial flood tore through Nepal, killing more than 1,400 people and leaving billions of dollars in recovery needs in a country responsible for only a tiny fraction of historic global emissions.
Consensus is not the aim. Action is.
The international institutions meant to help governments respond collectively are themselves under strain and struggle to overcome obstruction, corporate influence, and weak accountability. Deadlock at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), escalating attacks on multilateralism and the international rule of law, continued fossil fuel influence, and shrinking civic space all raise a fundamental question for COP31: Can international cooperation deliver the action the climate crisis requires?
Since last year‘s climate summit, states have taken important steps outside and alongside the United Nations climate process toward collective implementation of legal obligations to prevent and repair climate harm. The first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia brought governments together to begin developing practical pathways for implementing the transition. The UN General Assembly resolution on how to operationalize the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) climate Advisory Opinion showed that the world recognizes the rule of law must guide climate action.
COP31 must build on that momentum while closing the gap between commitment and conduct. The world does not need another inventory of climate promises from COP31 in Antalya. It needs evidence that international cooperation can still deliver when the science is urgent, the law is clear, and political and economic pressures are pushing governments toward delay.
The Climate Regime Must Be Reformed to Deliver
COP31 is the first since the breakdown in Belém, Brazil spotlighted the structural flaws of the climate talks’ consensus-based process, fueling calls for reform.
After 30 years of climate talks, it is abundantly clear that the international climate regime is not delivering the collective response the crisis demands. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement remain essential to international cooperation, but progress on an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and delivering the necessary climate finance is far too slow. And not for lack of clarity on what the science and law require.
The UNFCCC’s reliance on consensus is a barrier. Without agreed-upon rules for voting when consensus fails, a small number of governments can continue to block progress on the issues central to climate action. What should be an avenue for alignment has become a tool for veto. Of course, consensus itself is not the sole cause of inadequate climate action. Governments have had ample opportunities to act more ambitiously, and fossil fuel interests and some states have repeatedly shaped what is politically possible.
The COP31 slogan, “From consensus to action,” must serve as a reminder of the bottom line: Consensus is not the aim. Action is. When consensus impedes action, voting should be possible, and outvoted countries must nonetheless fulfill their obligations under international law.
A decision is one thing, but action is another. Assessing whether the process is delivering also means looking at how decisions are implemented. Reform must therefore also strengthen accountability. Governments’ commitments mean little without transparent monitoring, public scrutiny, and independent processes to assess implementation and address backsliding, with the participation of rights-holders. Progress must be measured by action: Are fossil fuel production and use declining? Are climate finance and remedies for climate harm reaching the countries and communities that need them?
The climate summit itself must be protected from conflicts of interest and corporate capture. Fossil fuel interests have enjoyed disproportionate influence in climate negotiations, while climate-vulnerable communities, Indigenous peoples, and civil society struggle to even have a seat at the table. At COP31, atates should adopt a clear definition of conflict of interest and safeguards to prevent those profiting from climate-destructive activities from undermining climate action. Protecting civic space and ensuring meaningful public participation are essential to a credible process.
Initiatives such as the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels process with the forthcoming Tuvalu-Ireland conference complement the UNFCCC by building momentum and developing practical pathways for a managed transition and strengthening cooperation among willing states. Such initiatives demonstrate that effective multilateralism can and must extend and change to deliver the action the climate crisis demands.
1.5°C: A Benchmark for Accountability, Not a License for False Solutions
The critical 1.5°C temperature limit must remain an essential legal and moral benchmark for climate action and accountability. It is not a threshold beyond which all is lost, nor does approaching or exceeding it make further emissions cuts any less important; on the contrary. Warming below 1.5°C has already caused devastating harm, and each additional increment of warming increases the risks and impacts faced by communities and ecosystems worldwide.
Yet as climate action remains inadequate, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and geoengineering technologies are increasingly presented as ways to “manage” warming exceeding 1.5°C, while carbon capture and storage (CCS) continues to be touted as a way to manage ongoing fossil fuel pollution. So-called “climate stabilization scenarios” often assume temperatures can later be brought back down “returning to 1.5°C”, relying on overly optimistic assumptions about feasibility, scale, resources, and risks—and on future technologies that do not even exist.
Decisions must close loopholes that enable continued fossil fuel use and prioritize a rapid and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels.
This approach risks normalizing the idea that the consequences of breaching the 1.5°C limit can be managed through future interventions rather than limited through immediate and deep emissions reductions. The obligation is to prevent climate harm now, not simply to respond to it later. The prospect of exceeding 1.5°C must never become a justification for treating harmful, speculative technological interventions as inevitable or necessary, or worse, delaying action today, entrenching fossil fuel dependence, and locking in devastation tomorrow.
Pathways that overshoot 1.5°C and rely heavily on CDR risk worsening climate impacts and triggering planetary tipping points. COP31 must not entrench speculative technologies in fossil fuel transition road maps or electrification targets. Decisions must close loopholes that enable continued fossil fuel use and prioritize a rapid and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels.
The focus on the ocean at COP31 must also not become an entry point for dangerous marine geoengineering technologies promoted as “ocean climate solutions.” The most important ocean-based solutions involve eliminating ocean-based threats, like offshore oil and gas. The priority must be to prevent further warming and harm, including to the ocean, at their source: Reduce emissions rapidly by curbing fossil fuel production and use; protect and restore ecosystems; and provide the finance needed for a just transition away from fossil fuels.
There Can Be No Climate Justice Without Human Rights
Climate action cannot be separated from human rights and the protection of those challenging powerful interests to defend people and the planet, who continue to face threats, intimidation, and restrictions on their participation in decisions that shape their futures.
As Türkiye hosts COP31, protecting civic space and the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly must be a top priority of all governments gathering for the COP31. The latest crackdown on LGBTI+ groups, activists, and human rights defenders in Türkiye is yet another stark reminder of the increasingly difficult environment in which civil society is operating.
Against this backdrop, it is particularly concerning that the COP31 Host Country Agreement reintroduces a provision requiring participants not to "interfere in the internal affairs" of the host country, a provision that was absent from the COP30 agreement. At a climate conference, civil society participation necessarily includes being present, speaking out, scrutinizing governments’ decisions and climate policies, and advocating for communities most vulnerable to climate change. Participants should never have to fear that legitimate human rights advocacy, peaceful protest, or criticism could be construed as interference in the host country’s internal affairs.
The COP31 joint Presidencies of Türkiye and Australia, the UNFCCC Secretariat, and all states share responsibility for ensuring safe and open civic space before, during, and after the negotiations. They must protect freedom of expression and peaceful assembly; prevent intimidation, harassment, violence, and reprisals; and guarantee meaningful and non-discriminatory access for civil society, Indigenous peoples, human rights defenders, and all rights-holders.
The same structures of fossil fuel dependence, resource extraction, and unequal power that drive climate breakdown are also deeply connected to the growing militarization of our world. From Gaza to Ukraine, from Iran to Sudan, armed conflicts continue to grow in number, duration, and complexity, with devastating impacts on people, human rights, and the environment while diverting resources from urgent climate needs and compounding suffering. As states gather in Antalya, it is critical that governments confront the crises of war and warming hand in hand.
The Choice Facing COP31
The test in Antalya is not whether governments can produce another carefully negotiated declaration. It is whether they can tackle what matters in a world of crisis and conflict.
Can governments at COP31 accelerate a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels while war and economic insecurity are being used to justify new fossil fuel investment? Can they protect 1.5°C as a benchmark for ambition and accountability without turning projected exceedance of the temperature limit into a rationale for speculative technological fixes? Can they deliver finance and remedy to countries and communities suffering losses they did little to cause? Can they reform climate institutions to overcome obstruction, rather than reward it? And can they defend human rights and civic space at a time when both are increasingly under attack?
If the ICJ confirmed that states’ climate obligations are grounded in international law, COP31 must confirm that their climate action is too. The task for states gathering at COP31 now is to ensure that international cooperation delivers on those international obligations: preventing further harm, addressing the consequences of climate change, and providing reparation to those in need.
The science leaves no room for ambiguity. Neither does the law. What remains is the political choice.
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Stay Alert! A Weakened Trump May Be the Most Dangerous Trump of All
When confronted with popular rebuke, an oligarchic ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist or back off and go back to running their businesses. In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
Nov 09, 2026
Then-Senator John F. Kennedy gave a speech in 1959 in which he said:
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters—one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”
While Kennedy’s generalization about Chinese calligraphy was slightly off, his description of “crisis” perfectly represents where we are right now:
- Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who’s studied strongmen her entire career and wrote a brilliant book about them, calls this “late-stage radicalization,” the dangerous phase when a weakened autocrat purges wafflers from his regime, strengthens his loyalists, and lashes out at anybody who may oppose him.
- Obama adviser Robert Pape, who runs the University of Chicago’s project on political violence, just said that the next eight weeks until Democrats are sworn will be the most dangerous weeks of our entire lives.
- Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who’s a regular guest on my program, made a similar warning based on President Donald Trump’s twisted psychology, telling The Independent newspaper about Trump’s affection for talking about using nuclear weapons:
[Trump] is extremely attracted to them without understanding their ramifications: for him, they are just bigger bombs. However, there is no scenario in which the use of nuclear weapons would not lead to a catastrophic end to life as we know it. Unless he is contained, he could be driven to use them now, rageful as he is about his defeat against Iran, and desperate as he will be to salvage his image from being a "loser".
She added:
We have a truly narrow window between his defenses being low and his "recovering" himself to attack even more vehemently.
She said that just before Trump had appointed Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff, the guy who essentially runs the presidency, indicating that Trump is now in the “recovery” mode of moving toward full-on tyranny.
I’m familiar with Dr. Lee’s “window”—when Louise and I started and ran a community and school for severely abused children in the late 1970s, we worked with numerous abusive families. The most deadly moment in the relationship is when the abused spouse (typically the wife) finally decides to leave; that’s when most spousal and even whole-family murders happen, and is why shelters go to such lengths to remain anonymous.
Perhaps most ominously, this weekend Trump posted on his Nazi-infested social media site that Democratic members of Congress “are extortionists and they should be imprisoned” and ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate them. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Attorney General Todd Blanche flat out if he’d go after members of Congress, he said, “It depends on what’s said, so yes, there could be [pursuit of criminal investigations].”
When Bash asked him about Trump and him throwing Democratic members of Congress in prison, he replied, “It depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”
The “crimes” they were discussing were Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) telling college students they might want to think twice before going to work for this regime, and Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) telling Trump’s people to “lawyer up.”
That’s it. Our acting attorney general is saying—like with former FBI Director James Comey’s picture of seashells spelling out 8647—that speech that offends the president is now a potential felony that can lead to years in brutal federal prisons or, at the least, “investigations” that can break an average person financially and destroy their retirement savings in legal fees.
I wrote about this moment at length in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, noting that oligarchy—when the morbidly rich take control of government and turn its power toward enriching themselves and their buddies—is always a transitional form of governance that typically lasts less than a generation.
The reason why is simple, and we’re seeing it played out in this past election and the No Kings marches. When people realize that the government has been taken over by criminals and grifters, they rebel and demand a return to honesty and transparency.
At that point the ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist, as the Chinese did at Tienanmen Square and Russian President Vladimir Putin did in the early 2000s, or back off and go back to running their businesses and let the people have their government back, as happened here in the US after FDR came to power and called out the “economic royalists” who “hate me, and I welcome their hatred.”
Trump initially, Tuesday night, told Fox “News” that he’d work with Democrats, but since then he’s brought in Stephen Miller and started talking about imprisoning the Democrats who’ll be investigating his family’s criminal syndicate and his and Miller’s violent abuses of our Constitution and law.
In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
As The New York Times reported Saturday, Miller:
- Pushed the murderous war crimes of striking civilian boats in the Caribbean;
- Helped turn the prosecutorial power of the federal government against political opponents and universities;
- Oversaw the federal military occupation of Washington, DC;
- Circulated Trump’s draft executive order to restrict mail-in voting; and
- Openly discussed invoking the Insurrection Act when the people of Minneapolis came into the streets to protest the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) murder of two of their citizens.
Miller called Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the local VA hospital, a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin”: Pretti had been holding a phone.
If Trump decides to go full Putin, the machinery for such a crackdown was put into place late last year with his National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs the FBI, Treasury, and Internal Revenue Service to treat “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender” as “indicators of domestic terrorism.”
It’s already been used; in June eight people who supported a 4th of July demonstration outside the Prarieland ICE facility in Texas were sentenced to a combined 450 years in federal prison.
The one guy who shot and wounded a police officer got 100 years in prison, but under the terrorism conspiracy rubric the other seven got 30 to 70 years in prison each; Daniel Estrada, who wasn’t even at the protest, got 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines.
This is Putin’s “iron fist” now carved into American law and already executed at least once, probably as a test case; Trump and Miller appear ready to push it as far as they can, meaning anybody who opposes this regime is at risk. Miller was reportedly pushing this weekend for journalists to be thrown in jail, just like in Russia.
The New Republic recently reported that Trump is pressing for the still-Republican-controlled House and Senate to jam through an appropriation of $166.1 million for 328 new positions, including 130 special agents, to more fully implement NSPM-7 through a new Joint Mission Center drawing in 10 federal agencies.
And Attorney General and Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer Blanche said that Trump himself has a “right” and a “duty” to order federal investigations—including into politicians and writers who oppose him—and boasted on NewsNation that he’s installing “roadblocks” inside the DOJ so Trump himself can never be prosecuted after he leaves office.
That’s the “danger” aspect of Kennedy’s quote. The “opportunity” side is the power that House and Senate Democrats will have in another two months. A handful of Republicans may join them, as several called Miller’s appointment a “horrible decision” and one called him a “megalomaniac” on the record.
The margins in this election bring to mind the vote in April in Hungary, where Trump’s closest European ally and fellow Putin-suck-up Viktor Orbán lost so badly that he had no choice but to step down and allow a democratic transition in that nation. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, the strongman’s playbook has no chapter on how to lose.
So, here we are, presented with both great danger—Trump could do just about anything, including provoking a world war and declaring a national emergency to prevent Democrats from being seated in January—and great opportunity for a cleansing and democratic renewal like we last saw in the 1932-1981 New Deal era.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a probably apocryphal quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but it perfectly describes this moment and the next two years. And that vigilance is our job.
Stay updated, reach out to your elected officials (202-224-3121),and let them know you support accountability and the rule of law, and help keep friends and family awake. Share this message and others that promote the ideals of our democracy rather than Trump’s and Miller’s thuggish worldview.
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The Tenuous Ascendancy of the MAGA Right in Latin America
Lula’s victory interrupts the consolidation of US-aligned political power in the region, demonstrating that its rightward trajectory can be reversed.
Nov 09, 2026
Just over a month ago, a MAGA-aligned right-wing juggernaut appeared to be on a roll in Latin America.
The far-right had captured every presidential election since Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro was reelected in July 2024. In addition, recent parliamentary elections have landed the Bahamas, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Jamaica in MAGA-aligned alliances such as the Shield of the Americas.
Among the remaining leftist countries in the region, the US had kidnapped Venezuela’s Maduro and imposed a “negotiated sovereignty” on that nation. An ever-intensifying blockade continued to asphyxiate Cuba. And a renewed offensive was mounted against Nicaragua. Brazil and Mexico anchored the left-leaning camp, with Uruguay on the center-left.
More broadly, curbing US imperialism remains key to a revival of the Latin American left.
Compared with the heyday of the Pink Tide, when Latin America was the international epicenter of independence from Washington, the region was increasingly looking like a casualty of the Donroe Doctrine. Yet this apparent rightward consolidation concealed vulnerabilities that would soon become evident.
The New Right
Besides its signature sycophantic worship of the US, Latin America’s new populist right shares an ideological antipathy to “wokism,” a fixation on mano dura solutions to crime, an alignment with the US imperialist-Zionist project, and subservience to international capital. Its role model is the neofascist, self-proclaimed “coolest dictator” in the world, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.
Donald Trump recently told an assemblage of obsequious right-wing Latin American leaders that they “know very well” that they owe him. Specifically, he boasted of nine “great election victories” because of his endorsements.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace describes Trump as a would-be “kingmaker.” Presumably, Trump’s assists included Argentina’s 2025 legislative elections; the 2025 presidential elections in Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Honduras; and the 2026 presidential elections in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Peru. The tally is only eight, but under Trump’s creative accounting, Argentina counted “twice.”
In fact, Trump explicitly endorsed candidates in only Honduras, Argentina, and Colombia. The other five winners were ideologically aligned with Trump but received no explicit endorsement. But that doesn’t suggest that US covert operations failed to interfere in those elections. If there is a silver lining to the MAGA cloud, it is that Trump reveals the intrigues of Yankee imperialism that previous US leaders preferred to obscure.
Brazil: the Exception to the Rightist Rule
Progressive prospects looked dim in Brazil, especially when far-right Flávio Bolsonaro beat leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—with help from Washington—by 47.03% to 45.16% in the first-round election on October 4. Minor-party candidates who had collectively received 5.38% of the first-round vote endorsed Bolsonaro. Compounding the overwhelmingly unfavorable odds for Lula, no candidate trailing in the first round had ever won the runoff.
Lula, a founder of BRICS, has been one of the world's most prominent Global South leaders, championing multipolarity, national sovereignty, and greater representation for developing countries. Much was at stake for Brazil, Latin America, and the world.
Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, Chile’s José Antonio Kast, Peru’s Keiko Fujimori, and even Argentina’s Javier Milei suffer from disapproval ratings comparable to those of their mentor in the White House—and for much the same reason: failure to deliver.
Brazil has the largest population and economy in Latin America. Globally, it ranks second in rare earth reserves and seventh in population, and is approaching eighth in economic size. Brazil encompasses 60% of the Amazon rainforest. Deforestation had declined by approximately 71% since Lula returned to office in 2023; Bolsonaro advocated deregulation.
In three short weeks, Lula’s Workers’ Party coalition launched an aggressive social media campaign (“Lula’s Army”) and mobilized voters, especially the youth and the elderly. Some 1.7 million older voters who sat out the first round, participated in the runoff, helping Lula win the election by about 4.5 million votes on October 25.
Weakness on the Right
Beyond Lula’s upset victory, other weaknesses of the Latin American right are evident. Its electoral successes—to the extent that they were legitimate—do not necessarily correspond to popular mandates, often reflecting a “punishment vote” against incumbents.
In first-round contests, José Antonio Kast received only 23.9% of the vote in Chile’s December 2025 election. Rodrigo Paz received only 32.1% of the vote in Bolivia. Neither commanded broad first-round support; both won their runoffs after other right-wing parties rallied behind them.
Incumbent Daniel Noboa was in a dead heat with his progressive opponent Luisa González in Ecuador’s 2025 presidential election. Only 0.17 percentage points separated them in the first round. Even sources unfriendly to the left—the European Union and the Organization of American States—reported that Noboa abused the powers of the presidency to gain electoral advantage.
In Peru’s presidential election last June, right-wing Keiko Fujimori defeated leftist Roberto Sánchez by a mere 0.27 percentage points. The razor-thin margin of victory came from highly disputed overseas ballots, making the leftist the undisputed choice of Peruvians living in Peru.
In Honduras’s November 2025 election, Nasry Asfura won by a meager 0.74 percentage points after a disputed count. Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia’s June 2026 election by less than a point. Washington’s interference in Colombia and Honduras arguably contributed to those far-right victories, for which Trump claimed credit.
The fragility and corruption of the right are further illustrated by Paraguay, where President Santiago Peña was elected in 2023 with only 42.93% of the vote. On November 6, he was impeached and removed amid a banking scandal and subsequently placed under house arrest.
MAGA’s Declining Popularity
Nor have electoral victories necessarily translated into durable popular support for the right. Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, Chile’s José Antonio Kast, Peru’s Keiko Fujimori, and even Argentina’s Javier Milei suffer from disapproval ratings comparable to those of their mentor in the White House—and for much the same reason: failure to deliver.
With the exception of Bukele, none of the new right leaders have significantly positive popularity ratings, and almost all are facing strong popular opposition. They are now expected to solve the problems that propelled them into office, particularly rising crime rates.
Respondents in every Latin American and Caribbean country surveyed except the Dominican Republic identified the US as the world's greatest threat in the 2026 Democracy Perception Index.
Washington’s standing in the region has likewise declined, with public trust tumbling from 62% in 2012 to only 40% today. This fallout reflects popular dissatisfaction with politically motivated tariffs, killing people in small boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, racist targeting of Latino migrants, and interference in the internal political affairs of otherwise sovereign states.
Respondents in every Latin American and Caribbean country surveyed except the Dominican Republic identified the US as the world's greatest threat in the 2026 Democracy Perception Index. Of the 17 Latin American countries surveyed, 15 viewed China's influence more positively than that of the US, according to a 2026 Latinobarómetro poll.
Consolidation Interruptus
Lula’s victory interrupts the consolidation of US-aligned political power in Latin America, demonstrating that its rightward trajectory can be reversed. As a New York Times op-ed observes: “The region’s rightward shift reflects less of an ideological transformation than a widespread frustration with governments that have overpromised and underperformed for decades.”
Yet the weaknesses of the right do not necessarily translate into strength on the left. Despite Flávio Bolsonaro’s flight to the US following his defeat, Lula still faces an antagonistic legislature, powerful agribusiness and financial interests, hostile media, a sizable right-leaning evangelical movement, and an unfriendly military and police establishment.
Perhaps Lula’s biggest “stress test” will come from the hegemon to the north, which has yet to recognize his win. More broadly, curbing US imperialism remains key to a revival of the Latin American left. In that effort, progressives can draw lessons from Lula’s remarkable mobilization of the Brazilian electorate.
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