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Opinion
Corporate Democrats Must Realize the Enemy Is Trump and the Fascists—Not Progressives
If the so-called "centrists" continue their attacks into the general election, they could find themselves in the gulag sitting next to the leftists they so clearly despise—just like in Hitler's Germany.
Aug 12, 2026
In the early 1930s moderate and leftists Germans attacked each other as badly as they attacked Hitler and the Nazis.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was a large democratic socialist party supporting parliamentary democracy, often joined Weimar Republic governments, and generally favored gradual reform.
The Communist Party ("KPD") considered themselves revolutionary socialists and believed that the capitalist system should ultimately be overthrown.
The SPD and KPD were both mass parties in the 1920-'30s, each getting millions of votes and turning out tens of thousands of people in mass demonstrations. But they considered themselves enemies. Their supporters literally fought each other in the streets.
The KPD considered the SPD to be "social fascists," as dangerous as the Nazis.
SPD leaders believed the KPD sought to destroy parliamentary democracy and regarded themselves as defenders of constitutional government against extremists on their left and right. SPD-controlled governments had also used police against KPD organizations and demonstrations.
In the last democratic elections in November of 1932, the SPD received 20.43% of the vote, the KPD received 16.86% of the vote and the Nazi Party received 33.09% of the vote. Thus the combined SPD and KPD received a Parliamentary plurality of 37.29% of the vote compared to the Nazi's 33.09%. But with the SPD and KPD refusing to unite, German President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Soon after, Hitler outlawed both parties on the left, arrested many of their leaders, and subsequently started to send them to concentration camps.
Today, there are real political differences between Democratic so-called "moderates" and Democratic "progressives." But until the mid-term elections, the great danger that must be defeated is MAGA-style fascims. If Democrats do not win at least one (or hopefully) both Houses of Congress, there will be little to block at least two more years of escalating Trumpian authoritarianism which could effectively destroy the Republic.
Between now and November, Democratic moderates and progressives need to form a United Front against MAGA. They need to avoid the mistakes of the German left in the 1930s. For the immediate term—whether there are differences of opinion about Medicare for All or US aid to Israel—the focus must be on fighting MAGA and winning congressional seats for Democrats, whether the nominees in the general election are moderate or progressive.
On paper, Democratic candidates seem to be moving in this direction. In Michigan the moderate Democratic loser, Haley Stevens, and the progressive Democratic winner, Abdul El Sayed spoke on the phone and Stevens endorsed El Sayed. On social media, Stevens posted that she if offering El Sayed "my full support as we work to defeat Mike Rogers this November."
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the phone with El Sayed, and Schumer reportedly telling the Michigan nominee, "I don’t need you to like me. I just need you to win." “We had a really good conversation,” Schumer said. “I told him I think we’d agree on things: Beat Rogers, win Michigan, take back the Senate. He said I agree on all three.” Schumer added that his takeaway from the call was that “we have more that unites us than divides us."
But a meaningful Democratic United Front will take more than rhetoric. Control of Congress is likely to be extraordinarily close. Democratic moderates must not only say nice things about progressive nominees. They must use their money and their supporters to campaign as strongly for them as they would if their preferred moderates had won the nominations. And for their part, progressive nominees need to take a temporary break from attacking moderate Democrats as mere corporate tools. In a post primary interview, El-Sayed described Schumer as “pragmatic”—a pulled punch if ever there was one.
But it's concerning that some so-called moderate Democrats are more intent on the progressive nominees losing the general election than on defeating MAGA. Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, a leading corporate-friendly Democratic group told the New York Times that it is preparing a new $15 million effort "to discredit" democratic socialism. According to the Times, the "group plans to target the Democratic Socialists of America movement, which he believes poses a 'mortal danger' for Democrats. Cowan told the newspaper that the effort "would include opposition research into DSA, polling, social media programs and educating Democratic activists and leaders. It would target both proud democratic socialists and those such as Dr. El-Sayed, whom he derided as performing the 'DSA dodge'— flirting with democratic socialists enough to get their organizing manpower and support while remaining distant enough to avoid the explicit label."
Meanwhile, former Bill Clinton campaign advisor James Carville proclaimed that Darializa Avila Chevalier, whom a majority of New York Democratic voters chose to run for Congress, should not be seated by the Democratic caucus if she wins the seat, as is likely. He said of Chevalier, “I ain't in the same party as you,” and explicitly proposed that Democrats consider the word “schism.” Comedian Bill Maher—who now describes himself as "left of center, slightly"—recently said that if progressives dominate the Democratic Party, he would consider supporting JD Vance or Marco Rubio in 2028.
These so-called "moderate" Democrats are imitating the 1930s German left. If their efforts help MAGA to retain Congress they will be repressed along with the "progressives." Eventually, they could all end up sharing the same jail cells.
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America Promises Safe Schools, So Why Are Children Still Exposed to Toxic Pesticides?
Schools should be among the safest places in a child's life, not environments where unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals remains a possibility.
Aug 12, 2026
In 1998, my 6-year-old son walked onto his Los Angeles elementary school campus and into a preventable crisis.
A school gardener wearing a full hazardous materials suit was spraying pesticides, unaware that children were nearby. My son, unprotected, was sprayed directly in the face with a toxic pesticide. Within minutes, he struggled to breathe and suffered a severe asthma attack.
He recovered. But one question stayed with both of us: How could this happen at a school?
The contradiction was impossible to ignore: If the pesticide required an adult applicator to wear full protective equipment, why was it considered safe to use where children could be exposed?
California's experience demonstrated that schools do not have to choose between controlling pests and protecting students. They can accomplish both.
Children are not simply smaller adults. Pound for pound, they breathe more air; consume more food and water; and their brains, lungs, immune systems, and endocrine systems are still developing. These differences make them uniquely vulnerable to environmental chemicals. Research has linked exposure to certain pesticides with asthma, learning and developmental problems, neurological effects, endocrine disruption, and other long-term health concerns. Children cannot choose where they spend their days, nor can they protect themselves from environmental hazards created by adults. That responsibility belongs to us.
My son's exposure changed the course of my life. It led me to establish California Safe Schools, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children from harmful environmental exposures. I worked with parents, educators, physicians, scientists, and school officials to create the groundbreaking Los Angeles Unified School District Integrated Pest Management Policy, one of the first of its kind in the nation. Rather than relying on routine pesticide spraying, the policy embraced the Precautionary Principle: When there is credible evidence that a chemical may harm children's health, schools should take preventive action even if every scientific question has not yet been answered. Simply put, children's health should come before convenience.
The policy also established the public's Right to Know, recognizing that parents, teachers, and school employees deserve timely information about pesticides used on school campuses. Families cannot make informed decisions or advocate for their children's health if they are unaware of when or what pesticides are being applied. Transparency became a cornerstone of protecting students.
The Los Angeles policy became a model for California and helped pave the way for the Healthy Schools Act of 2000, which required schools to notify parents and staff before pesticide applications, maintain records of pesticide use, and encourage schools to adopt Integrated Pest Management practices that emphasize prevention and least-toxic pest control methods.
California strengthened these protections even further with AB 405, authored by Assemblymember Cindy Montañez (D-39), sponsored by California Safe Schools, and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger in 2005.The law prohibited the use on school sites of experimental pesticides, pesticides under conditional registration that had not completed all required health and environmental testing, and pesticides that the US Environmental Protection Agency was phasing out because of health or environmental concerns. The legislation recognized a simple but important principle: Children should never be exposed at school to pesticides that have not been fully evaluated for safety or that regulators have already determined should be removed from use. AB 405 closed important gaps in school pesticide protections and reinforced California's commitment to putting children's health first and protecting more than 6 million students, teachers, and staff.
Over the past 28 years, California Safe Schools has continued to work with parents, educators, students, scientists, physicians, school officials, and policymakers to advocate for safer school environments. One lesson has remained constant: Pesticide exposure in schools is almost always preventable.
Pesticides are designed to kill living organisms. While they target insects, weeds, fungi, and rodents, many also pose risks to human health. The question has never been whether schools should control pests. They should. The real question is how they do it.
For decades, many schools relied on routine pesticide spraying as the first line of defense. Yet experts have long recognized that safer, more effective approaches exist. Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, focuses first on prevention by eliminating the conditions that allow pests to thrive. Better sanitation, sealing cracks and openings, repairing leaks, improving waste management, and monitoring pest activity often reduce or eliminate the need for chemical pesticides. When pesticides are necessary, IPM emphasizes choosing the least hazardous products and applying them only when children are not present or when they could reasonably be exposed.
California's experience demonstrated that schools do not have to choose between controlling pests and protecting students. They can accomplish both.
Unfortunately, protections remain uneven across the United States. While some states and school districts have adopted strong Integrated Pest Management programs, others continue to rely heavily on pesticide applications with fewer safeguards. Parents may receive little or no advance notice before pesticides are used, and school staff may lack training in safer pest management practices. As a result, children's protection often depends on where they live rather than on a consistent national standard.
This is particularly troubling because children spend approximately 1,000 hours each year at school. Schools should be among the safest places in a child's life, not environments where unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals remains a possibility.
The good news is that we already know what works.
Integrated Pest Management has been successfully implemented in thousands of schools across the country. It reduces pesticide use while maintaining effective pest control, often lowering long-term maintenance costs by addressing the underlying causes of infestations rather than repeatedly treating the symptoms. Prevention is not only safer; it is also smarter.
Every school district should adopt comprehensive Integrated Pest Management policies that prioritize prevention, maintenance, monitoring, and least-toxic methods before chemical pesticides are considered. Hazardous pesticides should never be applied when children are present or could reasonably be exposed. Parents, teachers, and school employees should receive timely notification before any pesticide application so they can make informed decisions. School personnel and pest management professionals should receive ongoing training to ensure these policies are implemented consistently and effectively.
Most importantly, policymakers should recognize that children's health deserves a precautionary approach. When credible scientific evidence suggests a pesticide may pose a risk to children, protecting them should not depend on waiting years for absolute certainty while exposures continue. Prevention should always come before regret.
Nearly three decades after my son's exposure, we should still think about the question that was asked that day: Could it happen again?
The answer should be no.
No parent should have to wonder whether their child will be exposed to toxic pesticides during the school day. No child should suffer an asthma attack or another preventable health consequence because adults failed to take reasonable precautions.
We have the knowledge. We have safer alternatives. We have decades of successful experience showing that schools can manage pests without unnecessarily exposing children to hazardous chemicals.
The remaining question is whether we have the will to make those protections the standard in every school across America.
A safe school environment should never be left to chance. It should begin with a simple promise: No child should be placed in harm's way by preventable pesticide exposure.
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Biden Family Grift vs. Trump Family Grift: Let's Do the Numbers
And it's not even close. If anyone is wondering, I did not forget to put the Biden numbers on the graph. They are just too small to be visible next to the Trump graft numbers.
Aug 12, 2026
Most people recognize that Donald Trump and his kids are stealing from us with both hands every day. But they are not as outraged as they should be because most have the view that everyone does it. While I will never defend the Democrats as paragons of honesty (what the hell are those crypto contributions?), they are not in the same ballpark as Trump and his crew.
Part of the confusion stems from the media’s refusal to ever put big numbers in context. They all know that the vast majority of their audience is not clear on the distinction between millions, billions, and trillions, and have no idea how large the federal budget is, but they refuse to take the ten seconds and ten words that would be needed to give readers a clearer sense of what is at stake.
The other source of confusion is that the Republicans spent four years endlessly hyping the “Biden crime family.” They used Congressional hearings, as well as thousands of appearances on TV news, shows to yell (often literally) about Biden family corruption.
And it’s clear it was not zero. Hunter Biden, while struggling with drug addiction, openly traded on his family name to land a well-paying perch with a Ukrainian energy company. He also managed to sell his artwork, which is not obviously of great value, for $50K a painting.
Joe’s younger brother James also seems to have traded on the family name, but the sums involved appear to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and mostly during the years 2017-2019, when Joe Biden was not even in public office.
It is a bad practice for family members to profit from their ties to a vice-president or president, but there is zero evidence that Joe Biden ever did anything to directly benefit his son or brothers in their business dealings. We can be pretty certain of this fact because Republicans in Congress and the White House, both in Trump’s first term and his current term, have left no stone unturned in trying to show Biden’s corruption. (Trump’s first impeachment was over his effort to extort Ukraine’s president to lie about Biden’s corruption.)
While it is difficult to get clear numbers on the extent of the corruption of Trump and his family in his current term, since they disclose as little as possible, and no one can accept what they do disclose at face value, we can try to put some numbers on it. At the very least, it should be totally clear that Trump’s corruption, by any measure, is in a totally different universe from even the worst imaginable story that can be told about Joe Biden and his family.
The list below is far from exhaustive. We will probably not know all the ways that Trump put money into his and his family’s pockets until long after his presidency, and maybe not even then. But this should be a good start.
Venezuela’s Oil: $13 billion
Trump has repeatedly said that “we” got $13 billion from selling Venezuela’s oil. This is after he kidnapped Venezuela’s president Nicholas Maduro, and put his vice-president Delcy Rodríguez in charge of the country. According to Trump, she is taking her orders from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Any money that the US gets from selling Venezuela’s oil is essentially stolen from Venezuela. It is their oil. But to make matters worse, there is literally zero accounting of this money. Under the law, any money obtained from Venezuela should go to the US Treasury. Any spending from this money should be approved by Congress.
Instead, Trump has sent the money to an account in Qatar, and it is unclear what is happening with it. Until it can be shown otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that Trump has personally pocketed it. If that is not the case, Trump should be able to document what has happened to this money any day of the week. Until he does show what happened to the money, we might as well assume it went into Donald Trump’s pockets.
Trump Family Crypto: $1.4 billion
Trump created his own crypto coin, $Trump, which people could buy as a way of currying favor with him. Melania Trump also made a crypto coin, $MELANIA. Trump’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has also put out a crypto coin. In addition to making money from selling the coins directly, Trump also profits from transactions in the coins, since they pay him a fee.
Trump’s “Gift” Plane from Qatar: $1.1 billion
A gift to the president while they are in office is a gift to the United States government. Nonetheless, Trump plans to take the plane that Qatar gave him back to Mar-a-Lago when he leaves office in less than two and a half years. The plane itself was worth $400 million. In addition, the Pentagon is spending between $400 million and $1 billion to install protective equipment which was already in place for the two existing versions of Air Force 1. I have included the middle figure of $700 million.
Trump Truth Social Insider Trading Sales: $1.2 billion
Donald Trump recently announced that he will sell a special subscription service where, for $100,000 a month, investors could get advance notice of Truth Social posts that are likely to move markets. We don’t know how many investors will ultimately pay for the opportunity to trade on inside information. But if it ends up being 1,000, Trump will pocket $1.2 billion a year from this scam.
Selling pardons: $10 million
Reuters did an investigation of Trump’s pardons, noting that 96 percent did not follow the normal procedure. They noted that just ten prominent pardon recipients contributed over $10 million to Trump campaign funds. The full amount given by all the people receiving pardons is surely considerably larger. The New York Times had an excellent piece back in March on the pardon industry that has arisen around Trump.
Melania Trump’s Documentary: $28 million
Melania Trump was given a contract by Amazon for rights to a documentary about her life. According to the Wall Street Journal, her take was $28 million. The film grossed $16 million.
Jared Kushner Hedge Fund Investments: $5.4 billion
Shortly after leaving the White House following Trump’s first term, first son-in-law Jared Kushner started a hedge fund, Affinity Partners, that quickly drew billions of dollars of investments from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries. While Kushner cannot directly put this money into his pocket, he is certainly positioned to get hundreds of millions in fees from the fund, especially if his proximity to Trump allows for his investments to have large payoffs.
Trump Sons’ Military Contracts: $315 million
Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump have recently taken an interest in several companies that are now getting contracts from the military. The Washington Post puts the value of the current and likely future contracts for these companies at $6.3 billion. If we say 5 percent will go to the Trump kids, this comes to $315 million.
While this list hopefully captures the biggest windfalls that Trump and his family are receiving from the presidency, it is certainly not a complete list of Trump family corruption. For example, Donald Trump, Jr. is a paid advisor to the Kalshi betting market and an investor in Polymarket. The Trump administration has worked aggressively to block regulation of these markets that might hurt their profits.
Donald Trump also trades stock frequently, often buying shares in companies just before they get a major government contract. The Trump family business has been blessed with favorable treatment of hotel and resort projects in countries seeking lower tariff rates on their exports to the United States. And the Trump family openly hawks their merchandise at the White House and on official websites. But most of these items would likely to be small potatoes compared to the graft listed here.
The Biden Crime Family’s Haul
As with the Trump numbers, these are crude guesses. People can also decide for themselves the extent to which they represent presidential corruption. For example, when Hunter Biden gets payments from shady Chinese businesspeople in a period where Joe Biden is a private citizen, is that presidential corruption?
Anyhow, here is what I get.
Hunter Biden Burisma Payments: $4.0 million
These were payments made to Hunter Biden for serving on the board of Burisma, a large Ukrainian energy firm. Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board starting in 2014, when Joe Biden was vice-president, and remained on the board until 2019, leaving before Joe Biden’s term as president.
Hunter Biden Payment from Chinese Businesses: $2.6 million
Hunter received $2.6 million in payments in 2017 and 2018 from Chinese business owners with dubious business practices. These were years when Joe Biden was a private citizen, his term as vice-president having ended and more than two years before his term as president began.
Hunter Biden Art Sales: $1.5 million
Hunter sold 27 paintings between 2021 and 2023 that netted him approximately $1.5 million. Demand for his artwork has fallen considerably after his father left the White House.
Jim Biden Payment from Chinese Businesses: $500,000
It seems that some of the money from Hunter Biden’s business associates may have also gone to his uncle (Joe Biden’s brother). It’s not clear how much this might have been, but as with the payments to Hunter Biden, this was a period where Joe Biden was a private citizen.
If anyone is wondering, I did not forget to put the Biden numbers on the graph. They are just too small to be visible next to the Trump graft numbers.
The point here should be obvious to everyone. Joe Biden’s family members, or at least Hunter Biden, behaved in ways that most of us would likely view as unethical. But even if we blame President Biden for actions in which he had no direct involvement, his corruption is not anywhere near the level of corruption of the Trump administration.
Trump and his family seem to view the government as a massive candy store from which they can take whatever they want as long as Donald Trump is in the White House. And as long as Republicans control Congress and the Supreme Court, they might be right.
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DC Under Siege: One Year of Military Occupation
We don't need billions of dollars going toward policing our neighbors and Social Schedulingmilitarization of our streets to make our communities safer—we need housing, education, healthcare, and a commitment to climate justice for true national security.
Aug 12, 2026
One year ago, the Trump administration brought 800 National Guard troops to occupy the streets of Washington, DC, part of the "Safe and Beautiful Task Force." There are now approximately 5,000 troops from 15 states deployed here, with some officially moved in and set to stay through 2029.
This does not include the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies swarming our neighborhoods across the city, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency, Park Police, and more.
The National Guard can be found meandering around metro stations, museums, and grocery stores there for mere posture. Despite crime being down before they were deployed here. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress found the Guard deployment has not had a measurable impact on violent crime. They are not even trained in "civilian policing," and are unable to make actual arrests.
“This was never about reducing crime, especially not violent crime,” said Chandler Hall, who wrote the study. “This has been a show of force without any evidence to bear that it’s actually working."
"If my neighbors could experience military protection as something imposed upon them, what did civilians overseas think when American forces arrived in their communities?"
The cost of the Guard is estimated at $3 million a day, with some troops said to make close to $9,000 a month, including salary, lodging, and food per diem. It is hard to track the multi-year total in billions of dollars as the administration is far from transparent with the process.
The wasteful spending from the Department of War is unsurprising. Despite the Pentagon never passing an audit, the Department of War's proposed budget is record-breaking at $1.5 trillion for one year and does not include the recent billions for the Iran war and additional billions to Israel to further the genocide in Gaza and ongoing destruction in Lebanon.
Some of the reasoning for more troops in DC was for the Freedom 250 nationalism events, beginning with a UFC fight, State Fair, and Fourth of July festivities, all of which were disastrous, from cancellations, evacuations, and heat strokes to stage parts falling, nearly killing performers. The millions of dollars that went into these spectacles strained the local community. On July 4, my friend Nicky, a 71-year-old EMT, worked an 18-hour double shift for $27 an hour while constant military flyovers cost over $1.2 million.
Karen Degraphenreid, a veteran of the US Air Force as a Major of 10 years, got involved with Free DC when the military occupation in DC began. She describes her reflections from her time overseas to experiencing the guard takeover here at home.
"Washington is the only place in the country where more than 700,000 American citizens can have troops deployed to their streets by leaders they have no voting representation in choosing. We pay federal taxes, serve in the military, and fulfill every obligation of citizenship, yet Congress can override our local government and impose decisions that fundamentally reshape life in our city. That reality forced me to reconsider what 'protection' actually means," she said.
She continued:
Many of my neighbors never asked for soldiers outside their neighborhoods. Many openly opposed their presence. To them, the deployment did not feel like reassurance. It felt like a federal government exercising power over a city that has long been denied full democratic self-government.
And that realization led me to a question I had never seriously asked during my years in uniform.
If my neighbors could experience military protection as something imposed upon them, what did civilians overseas think when American forces arrived in their communities? When we said we were bringing security and stability, did they experience it as protection? Or did they see armed strangers exercising power over places that belonged to them?
Karen is also a member of Common Defense, which holds trainings for veterans to verbally confront the National Guard. Other veterans are speaking out to encourage their fellows and active-duty members to do the same. Groups like About Face have been welcoming anti-war veterans to become more organized for years, many of whom were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are actively opposed to the genocide in Gaza and the war on Iran.
At a press conference commemorating one year of the occupation, Luke Filomena, a registered nurse with National Nurses United, expressed the imperialist boomerang we are all witnessing
I’ve seen this administration and every administration prior instead choose to spend hundreds of billions, now trillions of dollars, yearly, to go toward countless amounts of death and destruction through endless imperialist wars overseas and the funding and arming of a genocide in Gaza. I’ve been forced to watch as hospitals filled with patients and fellow healthcare workers, as well as schools filled with children, are indiscriminately bombed in Gaza and in Iran, and as the US blockade of Cuba leaves hospitals without fuel and supplies to power lifesaving medical equipment and provide care for their patients.
"Over the past year, under the Trump regime, we’re now seeing the imperialist boomerang come back, with its sights locked on the Black, brown, and immigrant communities here in DC; those who I see each day at the bedside," Filomena explained.
It's one thing to be aware of connecting the dots, and it's another to act on it. DC has been public about its opposition to the military takeover of the city. When the occupation first launched, we disrupted Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's photo op at Shake Shack in Union Station. A month later, Trump and almost his entire cabinet went out to dinner at a restaurant near the White House, and we disrupted it, chanting, "Free DC, Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time." We later drowned out a public appearance by Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and hundreds of National Guard at Malcolm X Park.
Opportunities to confront the administration are rarer than daily encounters with the Guard. The same week budget cuts to Supplemental and Nutrition Assistance Program were being discussed in Congress, I asked a group of troops, who often appear to be aimlessly wandering our neighborhoods in groups of four, if people in their communities would be hit by this. I've asked them if they know their neighbors and what services they could use and be funded versus them being deployed here to hang outside of a convenience store. When the forest fires created thick smoke across DC, I asked why they were here and not putting out the fires.
In these conversations, they almost always nod their head and reach for their pamphlet, telling me and others who confront them to contact their supervisor. They come from states from Mississippi to Michigan, and there have been state-by-state campaigns to get the Guard to go home. Many of them are here voluntarily, not simply "following orders" as we are led to believe.
While we have 800 military bases abroad, the war economy is inescapable for most people within the United States as well. The predatory trap the military-industrial complex has on young people of color or those in poverty means they are heavily recruited to join the various branches of the military. The increased amount of data centers across the country is also making the war economy ever more apparent.
But the state can't use the excuse of job creation anymore. The Climate and Communities Institute shows us that employment at military contractors has plummeted over the past three decades, from an estimated 3.2 million workers during the Reagan military-spending peak in the mid-1980s to 1.1 million workers in 2020. The drop occurred despite Pentagon budgets rising 22% over the same period (not accounting for inflation costs). The alternative is a care economy, a system of paid and unpaid labor, services, and relationships that support human health, well-being, and daily life, that moves away from dirty, violent jobs that rely on weapons manufacturers and the fossil fuel industry.
We cannot normalize troops on our streets. But we must address the roots that cause normalization. We've been taught to salute combat veterans for their service no matter their history; we're used to discounts for military personnel and TV shows and Hollywood movies glorifying lower-level cadets to high-ranking commanders. While militarized superheroes are a common staple in US popular culture, teachers are buying their own school supplies for their classrooms, social workers have overwhelming caseloads, EMTs are working overtime while underpaid, and many veterans are unhoused or waitlisted at the VA.
Washington, DC does not need occupation; it needs fair representation. We don't need billions of dollars going toward policing our neighbors and militarization of our streets to make our communities safer—we need housing, education, healthcare, and a commitment to climate justice for true national security. In the meantime, we have only seen our community grow stronger to protect each other—more trainings, skill sharing, documenting, court support, fundraising, and more. Every day we are supporting each other by radically building community through getting to know our neighbors more deeply in real life.
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A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model
AI is already inside election administration; before it moves deeper into the count, results have to stay verifiable.
Aug 12, 2026
Tallying the results of Washington, DC’s first ranked-choice election in June took about 10 days—longer than many voters are used to. In an age when artificial intelligence can generate an answer in seconds, waiting days for election results can feel old-fashioned, inefficient, even suspicious. And it is about to matter far more widely. This November, 17 states, cities, and counties will use ranked-choice voting, including Maine and Alaska statewide, in races that could help decide control of Congress. More voters than ever will watch results take days to resolve, and more will be asked to trust a count they cannot see.
But that slowness may be one of its most democratic features.
I come to this question from health informatics, where I study how even AI-generated information that sounds clear, fluent, and helpful still requires careful review before it reaches a patient. The same verification problem applies to elections. The more authoritative a system sounds, the more important it becomes to make sure the output can be checked.
DC’s June 16 primary followed a system that requires more than a simple tally: Voters rank candidates, and if no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, lower-performing candidates are eliminated, and votes are redistributed according to voters’ next choices. New York City already uses ranked-choice voting in local primary and special elections.
AI may soon be able to produce election results in seconds. That does not mean it should.
There is nothing wrong with ranked-choice voting, but it must be carried out with verifiable results. Because election counting is not just a math problem; it is a trust problem, especially in the US today, where election workers face harassment, routine counting delays are recast as fraud, and many voters already doubt institutions before a single ballot is counted.
In this climate, counting ranked-choice votes in a way that allows for public verification might take longer than people are used to. Every ballot must be tied to a voter-verifiable record. Every round of tabulation must be explainable. Every disputed outcome must be auditable by people who can inspect the evidence themselves.
AI is not yet counting votes, but AI and machine-assisted systems are already touching elections before ballots are counted, including information voters receive, and how their signatures are reviewed. In 2024, X’s Grok chatbot gave users false information about ballot deadlines; after election officials from five states complained, X changed Grok so election-related questions directed users to Vote.gov, the federal government’s official voting information website. In North Carolina, 10 counties piloted automated signature-verification software for absentee-by-mail ballots in 2024. The pilot did not affect whether any ballot was counted, but later reporting found reliability problems: The software failed to match about 11% of signatures, most software-flagged signatures were approved after human review, and technical issues complicated the test. Neither example is the same as artificial intelligence counting votes, but both show how software can shape what voters are told or what happens before a ballot enters the count.
I have seen the problem in my own research. AI systems can cite studies that do not exist, with titles, authors, and journals that look real until you check them. A 2026 Nature analysis warned that hallucinated citations are polluting scientific literature, and OpenAI researchers have warned that some training and evaluation systems reward guessing over acknowledging uncertainty. A system that gives a confident answer may look more useful, even when that confidence is misplaced, than one that says, “I don’t know.”
That matters because elections often turn on ballot conditions that are not immediately machine readable and need human review: stray marks, undervotes, overvotes, damaged ballots, or ambiguous voter intent. In races where the margin between the candidates is narrow, a few disputed ballots can change the result. These questions should not be resolved by a system whose rules, error rates, or decision process the public cannot understand or meaningfully examine. They should be handled through documented procedures, human review, paper records, and public audits.
Human counting is also imperfect. But precisely because humans are fallible, democratic systems have developed safeguards such as paper ballots, bipartisan observation, chain-of-custody rules, cure processes, recounts, and post-election audits. Risk-limiting audits, for example, hand check samples of paper ballots and can trigger a fuller count if the sample does not support the reported result. Colorado was the first state to conduct a statewide risk-limiting audit in 2017; today, all Colorado counties conduct one before results are certified. Other states have since adopted, required, or piloted risk-limiting audits.
The best election systems do not ask voters to trust either a person or a machine. They produce evidence. That is where current policy is behind the curve. States have moved quickly to regulate AI-generated deepfakes in campaign communications, because fake videos and robocalls can mislead voters. But far less attention has been paid to the AI inside election administration itself. That gap should close before AI moves deeper into election administration, especially into decisions that could affect whether a ballot is accepted, cured, rejected, or counted.
Federal and state governments should establish clear standards for AI used in anything election related. The Brennan Center for Justice has called for such safeguards around quality, transparency, consistency, certification, and monitoring. Election offices should have to explain to the public what an AI system does, who checks it, and how voters can verify the evidence. AI systems whose rules, error rates, or decision process the public cannot understand or meaningfully examine should not make final decisions about whether a ballot counts.
Voters have a role, too. Ask your local election officials whether AI tools are being used anywhere in election administration and how those decisions can be audited. Ask how voters will know if the AI setup gets something wrong. And volunteer as a poll worker. You don't need a background in elections; local officials train you. Democracy needs more people who understand how ballots are handled, checked, and verified.
AI may soon be able to produce election results in seconds. That does not mean it should. The labor of democracy is not a bottleneck in need of streamlining. It is part of the safeguard.
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An ICE Killing in Maine Shows Why Vets Need Vetting—And Not Just in Politics
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job.
Aug 12, 2026
The media spent a lot of time this summer examining whether a certain Maine oysterman and Marine veteran seeking federal employment should have been better vetted by those around him.
Even after Graham Platner abandoned his US Senate bid, his friends and foes argue about whether service-related conditions—which earned him a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—contributed to past substance abuse, mental health problems, and aggression against intimate partners.
Now, in the same state, the spotlight has shifted to David Brouillette, a troubled Afghan war vet who might also have been better off harvesting oysters. Brouillette spent eight years in the US Army and state National Guard before getting hired for not one, but two federal jobs. Thanks to an ill-advised push to recruit more ex-military personnel for law enforcement roles, without proper background checks, he got to carry a gun again.
Last month, after serving as a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) police officer, a prison guard, and then joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Brouillette fatally shot Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a young Colombian immigrant, during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine.
The Vet-to-Cop Pipeline
Thanks to Congress allocating $30 billion to create 10,000 more positions for that agency between 2025 and 2030—and job cuts at other federal departments, which often employ veterans—more ex-soldiers are getting hired into a paramilitary workforce, with insufficient screening, minimal training, and leaders who valorize brutality. Those who have already been cops go to the head of the line for signing bonuses as high as $50,000.
Brouillette is among the 200,000 veterans disproportionately represented in the nation’s nearly 1 million law enforcement jobs, ranging from local police departments to the fast-growing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans.
For their own good and the welfare of all Americans, some of these vets should not trade one uniform for another. That’s because past military service not only produces Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); it can also leave former service members with traumatic brain injuries that trigger aggressive and impulsive behavior.
In the case of Maine mass shooter Robert Card, a longtime Army Reserve grenade range instructor who never served in combat, that condition led to the slaughter of 18 neighbors at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, almost three years ago. Far more common is the rocky personal transition to civilian life typified by twice-divorced Brouillette, whose father and brother also served in the military.
Mental Health Issues
According to Brouillette’s first ex-wife, Ashley, he first became verbally and physically abusive after joining the military in 2007. His subsequent misbehavior, she told The New York Times, included choking her, slamming her to the floor, and pushing her against a wall. In 2012, such “threats and harassment were so persistent,” she fled the state to escape him. “He has mental health issues, he’s short-tempered, he’s reactive, [and] he should be in treatment,” she says.
Seven years later, his next ex-wife sought a restraining order against Brouillette after he “broke her door down, destroyed her belongings, and dumped her clothes over a bridge,” and spat in her face. In her court filing, she expressed fear about his stalking her by “coming to my home or sitting in the parking lot of my work.” So, as CNN found, a judge twice issued temporary orders requiring Brouillette to relinquish any firearms in 2019 and 2021.
To make matters worse, when Brouillette retrained to become a firefighter in 2021, a heavy I-beam fell on his head, inflicting serious damage. In a lawsuit over the accident, he confessed to having “impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo, and high sensitivity.”
Long before he fired the shots that killed Guerrero, he had already worked among VA patients and staff in Maine, as part of an agency police force with its own troubled history of using excessive force. And then he moved on seamlessly to ICE last December, despite a checkered court record and non-military head injury that should have been disqualifying.
A Bad Career Choice
When we were researching an earlier book on veterans, two retired Army officers, both West Point grads, expressed deep concern about policing, of any kind, as a post-military career among veterans at risk for substance abuse and suicide because of PTSD, chronic pain, or traumatic brain injuries.
Daniel Sjursen, a much-decorated major who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told us that, “when you leave the service, there’s no de-programming…They just load you up on meds, and then you go straight to the police academy.” Because “military-style of policing is based on the notion that high-crime areas should be treated like occupied countries, a guy can come back to Baltimore, Camden, or Detroit and function the same way we did when occupying Kabul or Baghdad.”
As his fellow officer, a Gulf War combat vet and military historian Andrew Bacevic noted, “To the extent that we’ve got a bunch of damaged young people, then maybe the last thing we want to do is put them in a job where they carry a gun in an environment that’s going to make things worse.”
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department.
Even during Barack Obama’s administration, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) was not listening to such knowledgeable insiders. Instead, the DOJ provided local police departments around the country with tens of millions of dollars to fund veterans-only positions.
As noted in a 2017 report by the Marshall Project, “When Warriors Put On the Badge,” this combination of special funding and preferential hiring mandated by state or federal law has made it harder to “build police forces that resemble and understand diverse communities.” The new hires benefiting most have been disproportionately white, because 60% of all enlisted men and women are not people of color.
Inappropriate Use of Force
Under the first Trump administration, the DOJ had little interest in tracking the later job performance of recently hired veterans or how their military background might affect their behavior.
By that time, however, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) had already raised concerns about “the integration of military personnel” into law enforcement. In their own 2009 hiring guide, the IACP noted that, in the case of returning combat veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, their combat environment and their policing environments may appear surprisingly similar.”
As a result, prior military service in the Middle East “may cause returning officers to mistakenly blur the lines between military combat situations and civilian crime situations, resulting in inappropriate decisions and actions, particularly in the use of lethal force.”
Cosponsored by the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, this IACP report also noted that vets who have PTSD and related “depression, anger, withdrawal, and family issues” may have “a low tolerance for civilian complaints” and greater propensity for the “inappropriate use of force.” Some police chiefs interviewed reported that veterans under their command had come back “ill prepared for the civilian world” because their PTSD left them with “exaggerated survival instincts.”
Officer-Involved Shootings
Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health found that Dallas Police Department officers with military experience used their guns while on duty more than non-veterans. During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans. Those who had been deployed overseas were nearly three times as likely to have fired their weapon; those who had not been deployed were still twice as likely to be involved in a shooting. This study, published in the Journal of Public Health, concluded that some veterans employed by the Dallas police department lacked “critical thinking skills” when confronted with “high stress scenarios.”
The Marshall Project reported similar findings after it studied use-of-force complaints and fatal police shootings in several cities. In Boston and Miami, officers with military experience generated more civilian complaints of excessive force. Nearly one-third of the Albuquerque officers involved in a total of 35 fatal shootings between January 2010 and April 2014 were veterans. One of the officers sued after killing an unarmed motorist was an Iraq War veteran whose PTSD caused flashbacks, nightmares, and blackouts. Nevertheless, as the Marshall Project discovered, he was “assigned to patrol a high-crime area of town known as ‘the War Zone.’”
“To ensure public safety and guarantee a stable, reliable, and productive workforce,” Marshall Project researchers cited the need for clear and consistent police department policies to “evaluate employees’ mental and physical fitness. Yet local police department screening practices, around the country, remain far from standardized or effective. Some agencies employ the use of administrative interviews and psychological evaluations to assess how veteran officers will perform the essential functions of their position, while other agencies revert to their department medical officer, or lack any policy at all.”
No Local Constraints
Whatever unhelpful contribution to militarized policing has been made by hiring too many post-9/11 vets, new and old cops in Dallas, Boston, Miami, and other cities at least walk the streets without masks on. They display badges with their names and, in most places, wear body cameras as well. If they screw up in a high-stress situation, they are subject to internal affairs investigations or civilian police review board questioning, particularly if an officer-involved shooting has occurred.
When an Army veteran named Derek Chauvin put George Floyd in a fatal choke hold six years ago in Minneapolis, he was even prosecuted and sentenced to a long prison term. When another military veteran named Jonathan Rose—a former machine gunner in Iraq deployed in the Twin Cities last winter as an ICE agent—fired on Renee Good, did he face any criminal charges for killing a gay non-immigrant mother of three? Not yet.
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department. In the process, they have killed 23 people under circumstances that homicide detectives and local prosecutors have been blocked from properly investigating.
The Department of Homeland Security has just doubled down on its policy of not releasing the names of officers involved in these fatal encounters. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been directed to stop investigating claims by those, like David Brouillette, who say they used lethal force in response to being endangered.
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job. As one former ICE official told the Boston Globe, ”We should all be concerned… that they have lowered standards, that they have rushed hiring, and they have made offers to people before their vetting is complete.”
Even if applicants from military backgrounds lack the self-confessed “cognitive deficits” of Brouillette, wearing camo again—while stopping traffic, knocking down doors, brandishing automatic weapons, and engaging in car chases—is not a healthy career choice, for them or us.
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7 Lessons From the US and Brazil for Durable Democracy
Sociologists Aldon Morris and Nara Roberta Silva remind us that authoritarianism is neither inevitable nor self-defeating: Democracy endures only when ordinary people organize creatively, disrupt oppressive arrangements, build durable institutions, and discover new capacities through struggle.
Aug 11, 2026
By late summer of 2026, the campaign against America's democratic institutions had become almost dizzying in its reach. It moved through turbulent waters from the Strait of Hormuz to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, raised new tariff barriers and imagined golden ballrooms, revived Jim Crow at the polls and McCarthyism at the State Department, and found time, between denunciations of Canadian wildfires and Democratic Socialists of America, to take aim at the Smithsonian Institution.
The widely admired museum, established “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men” and celebrating the 180th anniversary of its founding on August 10, 2026, became the object of a sustained assault. Complaining about the institution’s allegedly “woke agenda,” the Trump administration displaced the Smithsonian’s traditional Folklife Festival by holding something it named "The Great American State Fair" in its place. Notwithstanding the failure of the latter, the Smithsonian’s celebration of the US Republic’s Semiquincentennial also drew the administration’s ire.
The resulting “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” Executive Order (July 24, 2026) demanded “content corrections” and warning notices across Smithsonian exhibits and buildings. On August 4, a federal funding cut of more than 10% reduced the Smithsonian’s budget to its lowest level in over a decade.
If there was any doubt that the censorship and the budget cut belonged to the same antidemocratic project, Samuel J. Redman, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor and student of Smithsonian history, notes that he cannot “recall a single instance where exhibits have been directly wrestled with by the upper echelons of the federal government.” Among the administration’s grievances was the Smithsonian’s depiction of race relations. The White House report specifically objected to the Smithsonian framing civil rights activist Emmett Till’s murder as being “not just part of a racist past” but a reflection of “our ongoing present” (p.113). It also decried a Smithsonian web page featuring the bullet-riddled historical marker showing where Till’s body was found in 1955.
Crises become politically meaningful only when people build institutions, practice disruption, invent new forms of solidarity, defend truth, sustain hope, and connect local struggles to global ones.
Grappling with this history and its antidemocratic turn, I sat down to have a conversation with two prominent scholars of social movements, Dr. Aldon Morris of Northwestern University and past president of the American Sociological Association, and Dr. Nara Roberta Silva of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of an award-winning Brazilian book on the #Occupy movement in the US, for a better understanding of this moment.
The situation in the United States is, after all, not completely unique. Brazil and the United States are both headed into pivotal national elections this fall. Both countries experienced violent coup attempts in 2020. And the two multiracial giants of the Americas are both countries where Black leadership in the struggle for democracy remains critical.
For Dr. Morris, the administration’s consternation at the Emmett Till story is suggestive of the conversations that authoritarians wish to preempt. Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mom notably insisted on an open casket at his funeral, “I think everybody needed to know what had happened to Emmett Till.” And so, the world saw Till’s mutilated body and his community’s grief, sparking a global movement. It is “the story about how a mother ignited and fired up the country and therewith the world about racial inequality,” Morris observes.
Before drawing general lessons about the long struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, Morris and Silva pause to reckon with the immediate crisis. Both begin from the creativity and agency of social movements, yet Morris—speaking for a generation shaped by the Civil Rights Movement—admits to a profound sense of historical surprise. “We had no idea that we would be here right now,” he reflects. “We did not think that truth itself would become something that was to be banned.” In his view, the administration’s campaign against the Smithsonian is therefore not only a dispute over museum exhibits or Black history. “He is not simply attacking Black history,” Morris argues. “He is attacking the distribution of truth about the relationships between human beings, races, and nations. An attack on something like the Smithsonian is a flash point revealing the kind of trouble we face.”
For Dr. Silva, a scholar of US movements as well as those active in her native Brazil, the administration initiatives are a “defining feature of our historical moment” characterized by “the erosion of the public sphere.” In fact, looking at former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s negative impact on that country’s democratic project, Silva concludes, that the “very idea of public has been severely damaged.” Although Morris and Silva disagreed about the extent of erosion, both were similarly concerned about authoritarian historical revisionism. Invoking one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite quotes, “Truth, crushed to Earth, will rise again,” Morris outlined a hopeful, but by no means certain path into the future. “I think that work like that of Nara and myself shows that human agency among the oppressed is a very important social change factor, and it has to be ignited and energized to make a difference.”
Both thinkers are extremely sober about the prospects for democratic change. Looking at the structure of authoritarian movements in Brazil, Silva suggests that we have to address its broad base, even if it is minoritarian in nature: “Coordination exists at the top, but, as a system, the structure is hydra-headed, with several foci working to galvanize followers, create narrative lines, and break new ground.” As such, progressive projects, while themselves broad based and majoritarian in conception, must necessarily carry out institutional reform and enact “a socioeconomic program that meaningfully addresses the crises that brought about the reemergence of authoritarianism.”
Taking a long view, Morris cautions: “What we see is a dialectical process between oppression and efforts of change, social movement activity... We fought a civil war to overthrow slavery in the 1860s. [W. E. B.] Du Bois showed that it was the agency of the slaves themselves that essentially freed the slaves through the general strike. So we get this brief period that looks like we're finally going to have democracy, equality between the races. That lasts for about 11 or 12 years, and then we get the overthrow of Reconstruction, and all of what came after that. All of the violence against Black people, the lynching, and the Jim Crow regime, right?” The US continued “in this oppressive situation and then comes the Civil Rights Movement” and only to be followed by the current, long rollback. “My sense,” Morris avers, “is that social movements, especially the effective ones, are always trial and error.”
Following along with Silva, Morris offers a transnational vision: “We need grassroots movements connected from the United States to Brazil, to South Africa, to Gaza—to all over including the Congo. What I'm saying is that the struggle has always had these global dimensions, but the world has never been so globalized as it is now. We have to be much more concerned with worldwide democracy, worldwide transformation, because what we know is that the systems of oppression are global.”
Before outlining the elements of a hoped-for transnational, pan-democratic movement, Morris finds hope in the face of dismal, on-the-ground facts: The shared global attention to Gaza. This point often confounds liberal and conservative commentators alike, as seen in the handwringing over Michigan US Senate nominee Abdul al-Sayed and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both whom have been outspoken on Palestine. But, for Morris, recalling the Emmett Till moment, “It is hard for large numbers of people across the globe to really wrap their minds around 20 to 30 thousand babies being starved to death and killed, to whole families being wiped out, and 90% of the population and more dislocated, the destruction of every university in Gaza, the destruction of hospitals, and so forth. This is the one place that seems to be generating some kind of international coherence.”
Silva agrees that a transnational human rights politics is well established, but she is concerned, “We are still a little lost about how to operate in the new terrain of digital media ecosystems, fragmented and precarious workforces, declining organizations, and unstable party systems.” Further, she laments that movements that often put hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people onto the streets nevertheless may secure few immediate positive outcomes or even significant media attention—a point explored adroitly in several national contexts by journalist Vincent Bevins in If We Burn. For Bevins, as with Silva and Morris, the capacity to formulate demands, move beyond mere mobilization to develop organization and leadership, explain the discrepancy between the scale of popular mobilization and outcomes.
Morris shares this concern: “Another March on Washington to celebrate the 1963 March on Washington is not going to accomplish anything as long as it is merely ritualized behavior. The real challenge is whether this generation of activists will be creative again—whether they will figure out how to engage in protest that matters. Marches and demonstrations become ritual when they don’t create social disruption against oppressive forces.”
Silva sees a version of this dilemma in Brazil, as social movements gained greater access to the state under Workers’ Party administrations but also saw their capacity for independent mobilization and disruption decline. Yet recent experience shows that protesting can still exert considerable leverage—in September 2025, nationwide demonstrations blocked attempts to further entrench oligarchic control. Some of the most effective moments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's current administration have come precisely when pressure from below has reinforced, or forced, action from above. For Silva, the Brazilian experience suggests that the challenge for social movements is not simply to mobilize large numbers of people but also to disrupt political routines.
Over the course of our conversation together, the two sociologists reach agreement on the following lessons for durable democracy:
- Crises matter, but they do not by themselves produce successful mobilizations. Prompted by a question about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota, Morris and Silva emphasized that the decisive issue is how people transform moments of crisis into collective action. Morris’ scholarship on the US Black community’s early bus boycotts during the Civil Rights Movement offers one such example. On the other hand, Silva writes about how Brazilian protests over bus fares were initiated by leftists but later co-opted by the far right.
- Movement institutions and organizations matter. Durable movements require infrastructure: legal support, sustained dialogue between activists and scholars, leadership development, and the patient work of building organized communities.
- Disruption is necessary. Alluding to my own South African heritage, Morris asked me, “What did Mandela’s ANC do? It made Apartheid ungovernable.” Returning to the United States, he continued: “It wasn’t just marching. It wasn’t just singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ It was crippling the economy in Birmingham. The activists mastered the process of social disruption.” Channeling Dr. King, Morris recalled the wisdom of creating crises “so crisis-packed that the oppressors have got to deal with us.”
- Truth is a social movement resource. Neither Silva nor Morris is tempted by epistemological relativism. As Morris put it, “We are not going to go backwards and act as if the truth doesn't matter anymore.” The attacks on the Smithsonian, museums, books, and critical race theory matter because authoritarianism seeks to monopolize historical understanding. A democracy movement, by contrast, depends on an accurate account of history and the public institutions capable of sustaining it.
- If truth is a democratic resource, so too is hope. But hope should not be confused with naïveté. It requires acknowledging the seriousness of authoritarian movements while recognizing that history still offers grounds for optimism. Hope arises not only from past victories, but also from democratic possibilities emerging in the present—from global solidarity with Gaza to neighbors standing with neighbors in Minneapolis and Chicago. These moments remind us that ordinary people continue to discover new capacities for collective action and democratic renewal.
- Internationalism is indispensable: Democracy must become transnational. In response to Silva’s statement that Brazilian and US authoritarian movements are already global, Morris calls for “pan-democracy movements.” Democracy movements must become equally interconnected, for “the local and the global are now inseparable.” Yet, befitting a social scientist who made local organizers visible where others had often emphasized charismatic leaders, Morris also cautions: “You can't forget what's happening at the local level and just go global, but you can't just concentrate on the local and not go global.” Both thinkers view recent electoral insurgencies in the United States as promising precisely because they have incorporated global themes, international solidarity, and organizing among immigrant workers—the most globalized of local actors.
- Finally, people discover themselves through struggle. Reformulated several times over the course of our conversation, this point gathers the preceding lessons together: Crises become politically meaningful only when people build institutions, practice disruption, invent new forms of solidarity, defend truth, sustain hope, and connect local struggles to global ones. In that process, movements do more than oppose domination; they also create the capacities, organizations, and democratic subjects needed to overcome it.
For me, then, the attack on the Smithsonian is about far more than the fate of public museums or competing interpretations of the past. It is part of a broader struggle over whether democratic societies can sustain the institutions, historical memory, and public spaces needed to preserve truth, solidarity, and collective action. Morris and Silva remind us that authoritarianism is neither inevitable nor self-defeating: Democracy endures only when ordinary people organize creatively, disrupt oppressive arrangements, build durable institutions, and discover new capacities through struggle. If there is a lesson from US history and from contemporary Brazil for this moment, it is that the next democratic turn will not be granted from above; it will be ignited from below.
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Foreign War, Domestic Cost: The Hidden Price of America’s Wars
The Iran war shows how conflicts abroad can reshape domestic priorities, transferring the economic burden of war onto ordinary Americans.
Aug 11, 2026
For Washington, war usually begins with decisions made behind closed doors and explained through familiar terms such as security, deterrence, and national interest. It is then presented through images of aircraft and missiles moving toward targets thousands of miles away. But for ordinary people, war often arrives more quietly: through the fuel pump, grocery bills, transportation costs, and household budgets that leave less room for basic needs.
The Iran war demonstrated this reality once again. A crisis in the Middle East quickly became connected to one of the world’s most sensitive energy choke points: the Strait of Hormuz. Concerns about disruptions to global energy flows showed how a conflict far from American shores can affect domestic economic conditions. For most Americans, the consequences are not measured through military operations or geopolitical calculations, but through higher energy costs, rising transportation expenses, and pressure on living standards.
Yet the cost of war extends beyond immediate economic effects. Measuring conflict only through oil prices or military spending overlooks a deeper question: what a country cannot invest in because resources are directed toward war.
No national budget is unlimited. Every billion dollars allocated to military operations, weapons purchases, troop deployments, or rebuilding stockpiles cannot be spent simultaneously on infrastructure, education, healthcare, housing, or other public priorities. This is the social opportunity cost of war: the value of needs that receive fewer resources because military commitments take precedence. Defense spending appears clearly in budgets, but the school never built, the infrastructure project delayed, or the public service left underfunded often remain invisible.
A country that spends vast resources on war in the name of security must also ask whether those choices strengthen or weaken the society that security is supposed to protect.
The economic consequences of war also spread through markets, supply chains, and production costs. Conflicts involving major energy-producing regions create uncertainty that eventually reaches households. However, these burdens are not shared equally. A wealthy family may absorb higher fuel or food prices with limited disruption, while a family already struggling with housing, food, and energy costs may be forced to sacrifice another necessity.
The cost of war is therefore not simply national; it is social. Those with the least influence over decisions about war do not necessarily experience the smallest consequences. The civilian impact of conflict extends beyond battlefields. An American worker whose purchasing power declines or a family facing higher living costs also becomes part of the economic burden created by war.
Supporters of military action argue that these costs must be weighed against the dangers of inaction. They maintain that failing to confront threats abroad could create greater instability and eventually produce even higher costs. This argument deserves consideration. Governments have a responsibility to protect citizens and maintain the capabilities needed to respond to serious threats.
However, national security cannot be measured only through military strength. Military power is one element of national power, but it depends on other foundations: a productive economy, reliable infrastructure, an educated workforce, effective institutions, and a society with economic stability. The central question is not whether the United States should maintain defense capabilities, but whether military spending always strengthens security or whether excessive commitments can weaken the foundations that make security possible.
This is where militarism becomes a political issue. Militarism is not simply the use of military force; it emerges when military solutions become Washington’s default response to international crises and increases in defense spending are treated automatically as greater security. Under these conditions, domestic priorities are repeatedly delayed while the costs of war become immediate and certain. The opportunity cost of war is therefore not only economic; it reflects how the United States defines security and allocates national resources.
The costs of war also continue after military operations end. Rebuilding weapons stockpiles, maintaining readiness, supporting deployments, and preparing for future conflicts can keep public resources tied to military spending for years. War is therefore not only a short-term decision; it can create long-term commitments that shape national priorities long after fighting stops.
Over time, this dynamic can contribute to a war economy: a cycle in which conflict increases demand for military production, that demand creates contracts and budget commitments, and those commitments make continued military spending politically easier to sustain.
Within this cycle, the role of the defense industry becomes an important democratic question. Greater military demand creates more orders and revenue for defense companies, while the costs are distributed nationally through public budgets and debt. This does not mean defense contracts are inherently corrupt, but it raises a fundamental question: Are the voices that benefit from continued military spending more influential in shaping security priorities than the citizens who ultimately pay for them?
War is therefore not only a foreign policy decision but also a domestic democratic issue. When the costs of conflict are distributed among millions of citizens while decisions about war are made within a limited political circle, accountability becomes part of national security itself. Citizens must be able to evaluate not only whether military operations achieve their goals, but whether their costs are proportionate to their results.
From this perspective, diplomacy should not be viewed merely as a moral alternative to military power. If war creates economic risks, energy instability, and long-term financial burdens, reducing tensions can directly protect national resources. Diplomacy is not a substitute for strength; it is a way to prevent unnecessary costs and avoid cycles of confrontation that consume economic and strategic capacity.
Ultimately, the question is not whether the United States should abandon military power or ignore external threats. The question is whether military power remains a tool for protecting national strength or becomes a substitute for it.
The Iran war has placed this issue before the United States in concrete terms. A country that spends vast resources on war in the name of security must also ask whether those choices strengthen or weaken the society that security is supposed to protect.
National power is not defined only by America’s ability to wage war. It also depends on the economic and social foundations that sustain that ability. If repeated conflicts transfer resources away from infrastructure, healthcare, education, and economic opportunity toward permanent military commitments, the United States may increase its short-term capacity to fight wars while weakening the foundations required to remain strong over time.
A nation that consumes its economic and social capital to preserve its power may finance more conflicts. But eventually it must answer a deeper question: D oes it still possess the strong society that this power was originally meant to defend?
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What Trump Should Say to the Nation to Truly Become a Peace President
To sum up, we are returning to support the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, ending our support for the war in Ukraine and for military aid to Israel while it attacks Palestinians.
Aug 11, 2026
Almost 60 years ago, in his book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, historian Howard Zinn wrote a speech for Lyndon Johnson in which the then president announced a withdrawal and the end of the US attempt to control Vietnam. Unfortunately, Johnson did not embrace Zinn’s sensible approach. Instead, he announced the end of his reelection bid, and the US war effort continued for another six years, with the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement, or eight years, with the ending of the war and the reunification of Vietnam.
President Donald Trump is at least as concerned as Johnson about not looking like a loser. So, my effort to compose a speech for Trump certainly seems like a quixotic effort. Many of my comrades in the struggle for peace and equality aghast at Trump’s attacks on democracy might question any effort to do anything related to Trump other than protest and try to drive him from office. I, too, am so inclined, but the loss of life in the Ukraine and Iran wars, the genocide of Palestinians, and the danger of escalation to nuclear war are too great to not try.
Here is the speech I think Trump should deliver.
Dear America,
During the 2024 campaign, I often declared, “I will settle Russia-Ukraine while I’m president-elect.” Although I later said that I’d been joking, I really expected I could do it. Some might say I have a short attention span and an exaggerated sense of my own abilities. That may be true. I believe it’s important to always put on an appearance of strength.
In my second Inaugural address, I promised, “We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety, and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed.’” I also said, "My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”
The most prominent realist scholar, John Mearsheimer, expected me to follow through on these initial inclinations and be a peace president. Mearsheimer credited me with being different from most foreign policy makers. Less than two weeks into my second term, he said, “Trump is not a war monger... Trump is not interested in fighting wars.”
I had one significant peace achievement at the beginning of my presidency. I forced Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. I even persuaded the United Nations to support the establishment of a Board of Peace for Gaza with me in charge. I admit that no golden age of peace and prosperity has arrived for either the Palestinians or the Israelis. My idea that the Palestinians should leave Gaza was a nonstarter, and I stopped paying attention.
My worst mistake was getting sucked in by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attacking Iran. It didn’t work when we did it last year in the 12-day-long Operation Midnight Hammer. This year’s attack, Operation Epic Fury, has failed to achieve the regime change we sought. Equally unfortunate from our point of view is that Iran is more likely to seek nuclear weapons today than it was before the war.
With Operation Epic Fury, I was able to claim a victory with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. I should not have listened to the naysayers and stayed with it. It’s time to return to that memorandum and to end our 47-year-old conflict with Iran. Changes in Iran toward more freedoms will be up to the Iranian people.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has also gone on too long. Although I wasn’t able to end it before taking office or in the days that followed, I believe it is time to recognize the reality that our expansion of NATO eastward, overthrow of the neutral Ukrainian government in 2014, the plan to bring Ukraine into NATO, and the arming of Ukraine were the causes of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Many have called the Russia-Ukraine war a proxy war by the US and its European allies against Russia. The commitment of European allies to join us in trying to weaken Russia is one reason it hasn’t been easy for me to negotiate an end to the conflict. I had a cordial discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, but a solution evaded me. I’ve gone back and forth between tamping down and escalating our participation, all to no avail. It’s time to bring that conflict to an end.
There appear to be two options. Both involve recognizing the reality—often denied by both government spokespeople and the mainstream media—that Russia is winning. We don’t like it, but prolonging the conflict just means more deaths on both sides, especially of Ukrainians.
Option one is to agree to an armistice like the one that ended the Korean War. That means a frozen conflict along the final battle lines when both sides—the US, Europeans, and Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other—are ready to say enough.
Option two is to negotiate an agreement that recognizes Russian territorial gains and permanent Ukrainian neutrality.
My fellow Americans, please write me to give me your opinion of which of these two options you prefer. I must tell you that, while option two may sound more sensible and peace minded, the opposition to it will be immense from important sectors of both of our major political parties and from our NATO partners and from the Ukrainians. Those realities are why I’ve made so little progress thus far in ending that conflict.
In any case, it’s time to end the back-and-forth policy and to stick to ending our participation.
We come to the most difficult but also the most important choice we must make. I haven’t paid much attention to the Palestinians. My Board of Peace has accomplished little. The United Nations supported my initiative despite my negative views about that body. We should reciprocate by supporting UN rulings on Palestinian rights. We will no longer vote against UN resolutions in the General Assembly nor veto Security Council resolutions.
We shall advise Israel that we will no longer provide military assistance to it while it is killing Palestinians and occupying Palestinian land.
To sum up, we are returning to support the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, ending our support for the war in Ukraine and for military aid to Israel while it attacks Palestinians, and working with the United Nations to secure Palestinian rights and peace in the region.
My fellow Americans, I have spoken frankly to you tonight. Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent, I ask for your support in helping me to put our country and the world on a path toward peace. Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America.
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Trump’s Newest Unconstitutional, Dangerous Birthright Ban Must Be Stopped
People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law.
Aug 11, 2026
On August 6, five weeks after the Supreme Court rejected his first birthright ban, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at restricting birthright citizenship and ending “birth tourism.”
Birthright Ban 2.0
The first denies automatic citizenship to babies born in the US to two noncitizen parents if at least one of them is: an “alien enemy,” a member of a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), a government employee, or has “engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.” While the scope of this is technically narrower than his first birthright ban, it is ultimately vague enough that the Trump administration could effectively weaponize it against anyone.
Consider this: On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order designating Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as FTOs. In March, Trump issued a proclamation declaring that all Venezuelan noncitizens 14 years or older who are members of TdA “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” The very same day, the administration announced the deportation of nearly 300 Venezuelan nationals it accused of being members of TdA.
Among these deportees were those whose only crime was having a tattoo that immigration officials had designated as a sign of gang affiliation. Such tattoos included: “stars on shoulder,” “crowns,” “firearms and grenades,” “trains and dice,” “roses and predatory felines,” gas masks, clocks, and even the iconic silhouette of Michael Jordan dunking—the Jumpman. Notably, unlike other gangs, TdA does not require its members to obtain any tattoos. The Trump administration simply used this as a pretext to deport innocent people to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
Under this latest executive order, the US-born children of those accused of being a member of a FTO—no matter how baseless the allegation—would have their citizenship status jeopardized and more than likely denied. In doing so, it would pave the way for more family deportations. Notably, the Trump administration has already deported several US-born children along with their parents.
Moreover, while TdA and MS-13 are real organizations, the Trump administration has already designated at least one fictional group as a FTO: the Cartel de los Soles. In 2025, the State Department alleged that this organization was “headed by [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime.” This was a strategic lie. Like antifa, Cartel de los Soles is not a formal organization with a clearly defined leadership structure. Rather, experts describe it as a loose network of individuals broadly involved in the drug trade.
Nevertheless, that designation gave the Trump administration the pretext to invade Venezuela, kidnap Maduro, and put him on trial for his alleged narco-crimes. After his capture, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revised its indictment of Maduro and abandoned its claim that Cartel de los Soles is an actual organization. Whereas the old indictment made 32 mentions of the fictional cartel, the new one refers to it twice. It claims that Maduro, like former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, participated in, perpetuated, and protected this “patronage system.”
While the DOJ altered its indictment of Maduro, Cartel de los Soles is still formally classified as a FTO by the State Department.
Herein lies the real danger: The Trump administration lies and lies often. For an administration this corrupt and xenophobic, this new birthright ban offers it the ability to accuse any noncitizen, under whatever false pretenses, of being a member of a real or fictional organization to target their children. And, make no mistake, if the Supreme Court allows them, the Trump administration certainly will.
Ending Birth Tourism
The other executive order aims at ending birth tourism, or the practice of traveling to another country to give birth, thereby allowing the child to automatically acquire citizenship. While Trump insists that there are “hundreds of thousands” of such births each year, the Migration Policy Institute notes that the most expansive estimate puts the figure at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born annually in the US due to birth tourism—or less than 1% of all births in the country.
That number, however, is disputed. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 9,576 babies were born in the US to mothers who list their official address as outside the US. A 2026 study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that birth tourism accounted for less than 0.3% of all US births in any given year between 2014 and 2024.
This executive order authorizes the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security “to issue or adopt rules, policies, operational guidance, or other guidance” designed to stop foreign nationals from entering the country via a temporary visa if they have the goal of giving birth on American soil.
Notably, while the executive order decries the purported dangers of birth tourism, it is vague with respect to how the State Department or DHS would actually go about identifying these people.
Since the first executive order explicitly targets the children of noncitizens who “engage in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth,” these departments would be empowered to deport law-abiding visa holders and deny their children citizenship based solely on their own discretion—no matter how disingenuous.
In short, together, these two executive orders would allow the Trump administration to further accelerate its mass deportation agenda while denying citizenship to whoever they want.
Protect Birthright Citizenship
Given the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara, these orders should be ruled unconstitutional. Regardless of whether the parents engaged in fraud or were members of a real (or fictional) terrorist organization, their US-born child would still be a citizen under the 14th Amendment. No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
So, what then is the point? Perhaps the Trump administration believes that by framing their birthright ban in terms of terrorism and fraud that the Supreme Court might see things differently.
Perhaps it believes that returning to the birthright issue will help Republicans in the midterms. While Trump is broadly unpopular, 8 in 10 Republicans continue to support his immigration policies. An April 2026 poll by Reuters found that 62% of Republicans support ending birthright citizenship.
Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
Perhaps the point is to stoke more fear within immigrant communities in hopes that more people will self-deport.
Perhaps the cruelty is the point.
Whatever the reason, the reality is that birthright citizenship is once again under fire. People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law. Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
For the sake of ourselves, future generations, and the country, we cannot allow this to become the new normal. We must continue to protest the Trump administration’s abuses, support the journalists documenting its atrocities, and demand that Congress take actions to rein in its corruption.
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Enfeebled Democrats Are No Match for Corrupt, Cruel, Lying, Outlaw Trump
The establishment wing of the Democratic Party has proven it knows how to lose. Can the party turn itself around to put an end to Trump's fascist advance once and for all?
Aug 11, 2026
A major dereliction by the feeble Democratic Party leadership is their unwillingness to address the political amnesia they have allowed corrupt, lying, cruel, outlaw tyrant Trump to enjoy with political impunity. Trump has been more than willing to fill the vacuum created by this abdication. That is his business and political modus operandi (MO). His daily lies, boasts, and fantasies have polluted the political landscape. Moreover, his false claims are rarely rebutted by the haughty Dems who view his diatribes as beneath them to counter.
The Democratic Party leadership needs a compelling “REMINDERS” platform for their current electoral campaigns that they can pin on the Trump rubber-stamping GOP candidates at the Congressional and state levels. Here is a sample:
1. Trump was a failed gambling czar and a frequent user of bankruptcy as a competitive tactic, as he brazenly described it, to stiff his creditors, employees, and consumers. He also used hundreds of undocumented workers for his construction projects, whom he exploited with low wages and bad working conditions.
2. Trump is a serial sexual abuser of women. There are dozens of credible accusations and legal actions against him by his victims. Michael Cohen— Trump’s former personal lawyer even arranged to pay Stormy Daniels to cover up the story about Trump’s 2006 sexual encounter with her. Remarkably, since 2019, the Dems have been AWOL on this predator’s past, while eating their own for a tiny fraction of Trump’s transgressions. (See the February 24, 2020 OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMEN IN CONGRESS).
Political amnesia by the public is easy to fall prey to because it is so often covered up by the culprits and allowed by incompetent opponents.
3. Trump derided and minimized for weeks in early 2020 the spreading COVID pandemic. A Columbia University report conservatively estimated that between 130,000 and 210,000 deaths were attributable to the failures of the Trump administration’s delays. Have you heard much about his lethal, arrogant incompetence in the Democrats’ campaigns?
4. Trump’s tax cuts for the super-rich and giant corporations mean huge deficits and a lack of these tax dollars for public services, public works and jobs in communities everywhere. Democrats can highlight what specific and recognized needsthese communities were denied because of Trump’s tax giveaways to the fat-cats.
5. Trump is the consummate climate denier. Each time there are uncontrollable wildfires, floods, heat domes related to climate disruptions by burning of fossil fuels, Democrats can remind people of his ridiculous assertions that global warming is a “hoax” or a “scam,” and start naming these disasters “Trump Hurricanes,” “Trump floods,” “Trump wildfires.” Doesn’t he like things named after him?
Moreover, he has starved the budgets of FEMA and other agencies that combat the impact of these disasters. He is also refusing to pay the underpaid firefighters a living wage and or to expand OSHA’s authorization to protect their safety.
6. Dems should remind people how Trump is the extorter-in-chief. He has discriminatorily cut back on FEMA assistance, mass transit assistance, and other federal outlays for Democratic blue states to punish them for their pro-electoral resistance, including their refusing to give his outlaw regime control over state election data and machinery.
7. Trump has never backed down from his outrageous claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The Dems are too sporadic in condemning Trump’s massive drives TO STEAL this Novembers’ elections. Democratic Party leaders almost never use the word “steal” against Trump, compared to his constant harping falsely about the 2020 election being stolen from him. (See The Wrecking Ball Comes For the Midterms by Jonathan M. Winer).
8. Trump is a major league racist against African Americans and Hispanics, among countless other groups with his stormtrooping ICE, his selective military firings, his shattering of safety net programs like Medicaid and Food Stamps disproportionately needed by low-income ethnics, his sick frothing such as “shit-hole” countries, unlawful deportations, and only admitting as “refugees” white South Africans.
9. Trump has pardoned hundreds of convicted violent criminals and fraudsters, politically on his side, many of whom have since committed crimes. By comparison, in 1988 the GOP used unfairly against presidential candidate Michael Dukakis the Willie Horton case (Horton committed a crime while on a prison furlough) to inflict considerable damage on Dukakis.
10. Trump’s words about “law and order” exclude his corporate crime cronies. He has dismissed well over a hundred pending Justice Department cases against corporate crooks stealing from and harming innocent Americans, virtually closed down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and thrown out SEC cases—especially against his cryptocurrency buddies from whose shenanigans he and his family have personally profited. “CORRUPTION” IS THE UNPRECEDENTED “COIN OF THE TRUMP REALM” — THIS IS THE MESSAGE THAT SHOULD RING THROUGH THE LAND.
11. Trump’s cruelty to children knows no bounds. He supports strip-mining the successful Head Start programs, cutting budgets for children’s services, exposing children to unregulated toxic pesticides, and refusing to put forward an authentic child tax credit. His barbaric actions affect both conservative and liberal families.
12. Trump enabled the criminal enterprise DOGE, led by Elon Musk, to rampage through federal agencies in 2025, closing down some vital lifesaving programs and pushing out the door tens of thousands of civil servants doing their work daily for the public. The DOGE criminals were unleashed gangsters goaded on by the hateful, vengeful, unstable Trump. Never in American history has an administration broken or destroyed a sliver of what Elon Musk’s DOGE did on Trump’s orders. Millions of poor people and children abroad will die because of the closing of USAID with its medicines, vaccines, food supplements, and safe drinking water. The annual cost of operating this lifesaving agency is less than a week and a half of the current bloated Pentagon budget that crooked Trump wants to increase by another $500 BILLION!
13. The Dems should remind people of Trump’s crazed hatred of solar and wind energy—life-sustaining—in favor of goodies for the homicidal oil, gas, and coal corporations heating the planet. Psychiatrists, you are needed here. (See the Statement from Medical Professionals, Congressional Record—Senate, April 30, 2026).
14. Finally, voters will be stunned by Trump’s plethora of vote-losing epithets such as “losers and suckers” to describe those who are killed in combat, like those buried World War II GIs in a French cemetery, as this draft dodger related to his chief of staff, retired General John Kelly. Or “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations.” Or “I like this inflation,” or in 2016, “American workers are overpaid,” and endlessly more. The Dems should demand that Trump’s Republican candidates publicly disavow these and other outlandish lies and defamatory claims during debates.
It is, of course, true that the Democrats have to run on what they are for. Their leaders, who don’t like progressive mandates, have rejected putting forward such cohesive, long-overdue pledges as given them by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, or by the undersigned (see Robert Reich’s “What Democrats Must Pledge to America” December 5, 2025; and my column “LONG OVERDUE DOMESTIC COMPACT FOR AMERICA” August 29, 2025). It is up to the candidates in the field to offer such authentic compacts or their own cohesive agendas.
Most GOP candidates are running on their unbreakable fealty to Trump. Therefore, they should be held accountable for all the ugly drawbacks of Trump that they have been backing to the hilt including his cruel and vicious Cabinet secretaries.
Political amnesia by the public is easy to fall prey to because it is so often covered up by the culprits and allowed by incompetent opponents. The Democratic Party knows how to lose. It allowed Trump’s worst GOP in history to win in 2024!
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