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Opinion
Trump's AG Todd Blanche Proves an Incompetent Fool
Todd Blanche bungled Donald Trump's hush-money case, suggesting he may not even be effective in serving the president's interests.
Sep 17, 2026
In May 2024, a New York City jury convicted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of 34 felonies of falsifying business records with an intent to defraud, including an intent to “commit, aid, or conceal another crime.” Days earlier, Justice Juan Merchan had convened counsel for a pre-charge conference to discuss their recommendations for jury instructions. There, Trump’s defense team, led by Todd Blanche, failed to propose a key legal requirement for what the prosecution called the “most obvious” other crime—conspiracy to promote an election through the “unlawful means” of violating Federal Election Campaign Act contribution limits. Under reigning federal precedents, there could be no criminal violation of FECA unless the conduct was “willful,” defined as knowing it was unlawful. Yet the defense put forth the term “willfully” without saying what it meant!
Had the defense presented the correct language, it is possible that Trump would have escaped conviction. With his recent elevation to attorney general, Blanche’s defective lawyering raises the question of whether he may make further mistakes that threaten his patron’s interests.
To understand the importance of this and other defense errors, a brief recap of the trial is necessary. Testimony by David Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc. (AMI), publisher of the National Inquirer and other tabloids, and Trump attorney Michael Cohen, described a 15-month Trump-AMI conspiracy to suppress media stories, especially from women, that could damage Trump’s campaign. They aimed to spot prospective pieces and purchase them to prevent publication. Michael Cohen, known as Trump’s “fixer,” was AMI’s contact point with Trump.
The liberal-progressive media rap on Todd Blanche has been that, under his leadership, the Justice Department... has been too subservient to Trump’s undemocratic, illegal, and unconstitutional tendencies. That’s true.
In early August 2016, AMI paid Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story of a past affair with Trump, which it did not plan to publish, and collateral services. There was an understanding that Trump would reimburse the company. In late October, AMI declined a similar deal with adult film star Stormy Daniels, passing the transaction to Cohen. He paid Daniels $130,000, expecting to be reimbursed by “The Boss.” These transactions violated FECA. They were expenditures coordinated with a political campaign, which are considered “in kind” contributions, and they either exceeded the contribution limit of $2,700 or were illegal corporate donations.
In cross-examinations, Blanche’s team sought to shake jurors’ confidence in the witnesses’ credibility. They suggested that Pecker’s damning account, reflecting a previous non-prosecution agreement with a US attorney, might have been motivated by his eagerness to complete his company’s sale of two tabloids. They brought out Cohen’s long history of lying and fraud, which resulted in his prosecution for multiple offenses under Trump’s administration.
But prosecutors offered compelling documentary evidence to corroborate their witnesses’ accounts. Pecker’s testimony was supported by his non-prosecution agreement. A Cohen-recorded September 6, 2016 phone call between Pecker and Trump revealed them discussing Trump’s projected reimbursement of AMI for McDougal’s story. “What do we have to pay? $150 [thousand]?” Trump inquired. (AMI later dropped its insistence that Trump repay it}. On October 26 Cohen wired funds transferred from his private bank account through his shell company, separate from the Trump Organization, to Daniels’ representative, Keith Davidson. In a recorded December 9 phone call, he complained to Davidson that Trump “was not even paying me the $130,000 back” (Pecker recalled Cohen speaking similarly to him in the November-December time frame). In a later call, Cohen told Davidson, “I can’t even tell you how many times [Trump] said to me I hate the fact that we did it [paid Daniels].”
Other documents were smoking guns for the base falsification of business records charges. They showed that Trump’s payments reimbursing Cohen for his 2016 payoff were purposely mischaracterized by the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer and controller as “retainers” for 2017 legal services. Trump himself signed nine checks with stubs reading “retainer.” And In a note to his 2018 financial disclosure report to the Office of Government Ethics, President Trump acknowledged that he reimbursed Cohen between $100,00 and $250,000 during 2017.
Facing strong headwinds, Blanche’s team headed to the charging conference. The first item on the agenda was the defense’s proposed jury instruction that Trump could be found guilty only if the violations of FECA in question were “willful.” “This is a big one for us,” Blanche co-counsel Emil Bove pleaded to the judge. Justice Merchan upheld his request.
But the defense had asked for too little. It had failed to put forth the legal definition of willfulness in FECA—acting with knowledge the conduct was unlawful—to guide the jury. According to virtually unreported defense documents posted on two legal websites, it initially requested such a definition in a written submission to the judge. But it inexplicably dropped it in a subsequent joint written submission with the prosecution. This was a serious, possibly fatal, error. Blanche was fully aware of the importance of properly defined willfulness in campaign finance law. Three years earlier, in defending Igor Fruman, a Trump supporter who was charged with soliciting foreign campaign contributions, he had negotiated a plea agreement under which the defendant admitted he “generally understood” foreign nationals were not allowed to make political donations.
Why did the defense drop the crucial definition? Was it overconfidence in its case, or a misplaced expectation that the judge would supply the missing language in his charge? Bove, co-counsel Susan Necheles, and Maxwell Gottschall, who is handling Trump’s appeal, all declined to respond to my inquiries about the proposed instructions.
As the Supreme Court has pointed out, “The word ‘willfully’ is sometimes said to be a word of many meanings, whose construction is often dependent on the context in which it appears.” According to legal scholars, in some statutory contexts it may merely “denote an act which is intentional, knowing or voluntary, as distinguished from accidental.” But in highly technical federal statutes where there is a “danger of ensnaring individuals in apparently innocent conduct,” courts have recognized that “proof that the defendant knew of the specific law prohibiting the conduct” is required. Such has been the case with campaign finance law according to the Justice Department, Federal Election Commission, and federal courts.
In a famous case bearing many similarities to Trump’s, former Senator and Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee John Edwards was charged with violating FECA by accepting excessive contributions through intermediaries to meet his secret pregnant mistress’ expenses during his 2008 presidential primary campaign. The judge instructed jurors that “willfulness” meant “Mr. Edwards acted with knowledge that his course of conduct was unlawful and with the intent to do something the law forbids.” Indeed, his lawyer led off his summation by suggesting that while Edwards might be presumed to know the figure for the FECA contribution limit, that was not true for “knowing that a third party paying for a mistress could be a campaign contribution.” The trial ended with a hung jury.
If Justice Merchan’s willfulness instruction was wanting, there was still a way for the defense to get the jury to consider Trump did not know he was breaking the law. In his summation, Blanche could have emphasized that the prosecution had failed to offer any specific evidence that Trump knew paying off alleged sexual partners for their silence was illegal (It had tried unsuccessfully to introduce an old 1999 media interview in which Trump commented that he was very experienced with campaign finance laws). Yet, rather than attempting to subtly influence jurors’ understanding of “willfully,” Blanche offered only the naked assertion, “There was no evidence of a willful violation of FECA.” He also clung to the thoroughly debunked retainer cover story, which may have damaged the credibility of his entire final argument.
None of this is to say that with a proper judicial definition of willfulness or better defense summation, Trump would have necessarily fared as well as Edwards. Even without specific evidence of Trump’s knowledge, jurors might possibly have inferred that his efforts to conceal his actions reflected not only his desire to protect his political reputation but also his consciousness of breaking the law. We’ll never know.
The liberal-progressive media rap on Todd Blanche has been that, under his leadership, the Justice Department (he has been deputy and acting attorney-general) has been too subservient to Trump’s undemocratic, illegal, and unconstitutional tendencies. That’s true. But the record of the hush money trial suggests Blanche exercised some agency in serving Trump, and sometimes behaved incompetently, jeopardizing Trump’s interests. And as a top Justice official, he continued to do so as in his error-ridden release of the Epstein files and public disrespect for the concerns of Epstein survivors, which generated bipartisan blowback against the Trump administration. Caveat emptor, Mr. President.
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Don't Look Away From Palestine
The latest US weapon sale to Israel further confirms US complicity with Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We must heed an urgent call issued by those most impacted by the war crimes.
Sep 17, 2026
After spending millions of dollars redecorating the White House and transforming DC monuments, President Donald Trump approved, on September 15, 2026, an additional $2.8 billion sale of heavy bombs to Israel, including 40,000 one-ton bombs, 20,000 of the 2,000-pound bombs, and 20,000 bunker-busting penetrator warheads. Israel has used these bombs to destroy homes, families, and crucial infrastructure in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
This latest US weapons package will replenish Israel’s stockpile of bombs that human rights groups have condemned after documenting their use over the past two and a half years to kill, maim, bereave, and forcibly displace Palestinians. Survivors whose homes have been reduced to rubble now live in makeshift shelters, including flimsy tents, while Israel continues to restrict deliveries of supplies that could protect Gazans from harsh weather, disease, rodent and insect infestations, and other hardships of displacement.
In June of 2026, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated that 170,000 households in Gaza, equivalent to nearly 1 million people, were living in tents. “Another 5,000 households sleep outdoors,” they reported, “while 52,000 households live in overcrowded shelters.” As Gazans enter the rainy and cold months of winter, they still lack emergency shelter items. They need plastic sheeting, plywood, and rope. Genocidal war and siege drive the crisis they face as the Israelis continue destroying Gazan homes and shelters and imposing restrictions which block desperately needed relief.
President Trump who is undertaking expensive and unnecessary renovations, they longed to rebuild homes which Israelis decimated, using US manufactured bombs.
Over the past two years, members of the Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine coalition have held weekly online meetings with Palestinians living in the West Bank. They update our coordinating committee about their experiences amid ongoing US provisioned Israeli genocide against Palestinians. They speak with anguish about people in the West Bank and Gaza enduring persecution, travel restrictions, hunger, inadequate medical care, land theft, contamination, and an alarming rise in pogrom-style attacks by illegal settlers who are often assisted by Israeli military and police forces.
Our Palestinian coalition members living in the West Bank long to extend a helping hand to people trapped in Gaza. They recently raised the dilemma of Gazan children who have already lost years of education. Many live in wretched tent encampments, lack adequate food and medicine, and struggle with psychosocial traumas because of having lost their loved ones.
A Palestinian NGO, PYALARA, (Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights) suggested that our coalition could help with practical measures to assist Gazan children who are eager to learn but who lack basic school supplies. The children are bereft of paper, pencils, pens, books, desks, and book bags.
Recently, for UN News, an interviewer spoke with Julia Dicon, the director of education for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Association for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East). Dicon described what education means for Palestine refugee children and why sustained support is critical. She expressed deep respect for the many ways that Palestinians maintain capacities to educate their children, even in these dire times.
The interviewer asked her to tell a story about Palestinian young people who represent courage in the face of unspeakable adversity as they continue efforts to learn and teach.
Dicon talked about two Gazan sisters, 17-year-old Tala Mousa and her 15-year-old sister, Farah Mousa, who were recently named winners of the 2026 Middle East Earth Prize. The young women regularly looked at rubble surrounding their home, which Israel had bombed. Unlike President Trump who is undertaking expensive and unnecessary renovations, they longed to rebuild homes which Israelis decimated, using US manufactured bombs. Fala and Farah puzzled over how they and their neighbors could begin creating the indispensable equipment to reconstruct housing: bricks. Together, using their scientific knowledge, they developed a practical way to transform rubble into reusable blocks for garden beds, pavement, and partitions.
Tala and Farah represent the potential of Gazan youth to make a significant difference in their community’s lives and futures. Their energetic, practical, and impassioned approach deserves our respect and support, while at the same time we must find creative ways to resist the merchants of death who benefit from the Trump administration’s purchase of their death-dealing weapons. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, and Northrup Grummon are among the US companies whose profits will continue to soar while the US markets their weapons, “showcasing” them in war zones around the world.
We live in harsh, dark times.
The latest US weapon sale to Israel further confirms US complicity with Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We must heed an urgent call issued by those most impacted by the war crimes: “Don’t look away.”
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Mail-In Voting Is Safe for Now; Let's Act to Protect Our Elections for Always
We can’t let vote deniers trash our elections, in Washington or in state capitols. Squalid moments like this one must be followed by reform and renewal.
Sep 17, 2026
Voters had a big win at the Supreme Court this week. What does it all mean?
On Monday, the court refused to allow the Postal Service to implement a new rule that would have curbed mail voting. But the one-paragraph ruling seemed to say more than “not yet.” The Trump administration, the justices ruled, was “unlikely to succeed on the merits.”
This was great news for the millions of citizens who rely on mail voting, the method now used by 1 in 3 voters. It was utterly bonkers that the White House tried to exert control over the election system. That’s illegal, a fact now confirmed over and over. The Brennan Center was proud to be part of the legal team representing voters before the Supreme Court.
We must never, ever get used to the idea that the president of the United States routinely denigrates our democracy. We should not have to wait with bated breath to see whether the Supreme Court will do the right thing.
President Donald Trump’s drive to undermine the election is failing. Time and again, his moves have been parried or blocked.
Voters, the coast is clear. You can vote with confidence. It’s five weeks until Election Day. Make a plan. Vote early in person. Vote as early as possible via the US Postal Service (USPS). Vote via a drop box. Vote on Election Day. Make your voice heard.
Yes, let’s exhale. But also let’s not lose sight of some bigger lessons.
Trump has not given up on trying to mess up and undermine the election. Repeatedly, courts have had to step in to protect the rule of law, blocking the executive order that mandated the USPS rule, the order before that, and very possibly whatever comes next. Whistleblowers keep popping up to reveal new depredations, such as the violations of state law by the Department of Homeland Security that were uncovered this week.
Just know that voting rights groups, state and local governments, election officials, and judges around the country have your back.
Then there’s the Supreme Court. It did the right thing here. But the situation should not have been this hard. This court helped create the chaos and confusion three weeks ago when it allowed Trump’s mail ballot plan to go forward.
And this whole election takes place in a political system transformed by the Roberts Court. A flood of billionaire funding and dark money thanks to Citizens United and other rulings. Frenzied gerrymandering. And, all too often, a green light for voter suppression. It has been two decades since the Supreme Court blocked a state from enacting a restrictive voting law. After the Louisiana v. Callais ruling in April that demolished what was left of the Voting Rights Act, Southern states rapidly redrew congressional maps to eliminate districts where Black voters had a fair chance to elect candidates who represented them. Expect more fights about district maps next year.
As for the states, there is some good news: In the recent mail balloting case, 24 state attorneys general filed litigation. Opposition to USPS’ antics did not fall strictly along party lines, with seven Republican-led states separately telling the court that Trump’s plan to disrupt the existing system was unworkable. That’s all encouraging.
But far too many states are colluding in efforts to take rights from their own citizens. In numerous states, our research shows, voters will go to the polls with restrictions put in place since 2024. Unscrupulous politicians have free rein to concoct new restrictive rules.
All this adds up to an argument for strong new national laws to ensure this doesn’t happen again. I’m done with trench warfare on voting. We can’t let vote deniers trash our elections, in Washington or in state capitols. Squalid moments like this one must be followed by reform and renewal.
On Wednesday the Brennan Center released Eight Solutions to Protect Voting Rights and Improve Representation, the most recent in a series of papers laying out solutions to our most pressing issues. Already we have published proposals on political corruption, Supreme Court reform, and congressional reform. This new raft of proposed actions would respond to the assaults on voting and representation still underway.
Congress can pass a national law, for example, banning partisan gerrymandering and barring mid-decade redistricting. That would significantly bolster competition and representation across the country, applying to red states and blue states alike. And it would eliminate the Supreme Court’s ridiculous rule in Callais that partisanship serves as an excuse for states drawing racially discriminatory maps.
What about the freedom to vote in the wake of the court’s other damaging decisions? Citizens should be able to defend their own voting rights in court when they are impinged upon. Surprisingly, no such law exists assuring access to the courts today. With the Voting Rights Act smashed to bits, an even broader statute would give voters the ability to protect themselves. Voters who have suffered racial discrimination should not face court-imposed barriers to vindicating their rights.
We also need national standards to ensure that citizens everywhere can vote by mail, vote early, be automatically registered, and take advantage of the myriad ways we have improved access. We should expand the size of the House of Representatives, a change conservative scholar Yuval Levin and others have urged, to widen representation. And it’s past time to admit the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, as their citizens have repeatedly supported. And more.
Believe it or not, Congress has the power to do all these things. Yes, gridlocked, polarized, much-maligned Congress. The branch of government closest to the people should take the lead in restoring power to the people.
We must never, ever get used to the idea that the president of the United States routinely denigrates our democracy. We should not have to wait with bated breath to see whether the Supreme Court will do the right thing.
The law is clear: States run elections. But the Constitution gives Congress a role, too: It can pass national legislation. It should use that explicitly granted power to do what it has at other times, to lift the floor under voters and ensure protections. When it comes to voting rights, presidents should stay out. Congress should jump in.
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Trump Grants Himself a Bank
Whatever level of outrage there is over this example of Trump's corruption and conflict of interests, it's likely not enough.
Sep 17, 2026
The Trump family has made a fortune from its crypto business. By granting his business a bank charter, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the Treasury Department has acted to help him, his family, and possibly one Middle Eastern spymaster make more money.
It is widely recognized that the OCC’s decision is laden with conflicts of interest. But there is more to it than self-dealing and self-enrichment. If implemented, the decision also corrupts the US economy by allowing criminals, terrorists and rogue states access to the payments system—the basic plumbing—used by regulated banks. It also creates conditions for crypto firms to maneuver for a federal bailout should their businesses start to fail.
The Trump family has a significant ownership interest in World Liberty Financial, a company that among other things issues the USD1 “stablecoin.” In 2025 Trump alone reported earning $536.4 million from WLF. Even this sum does not include income that may be going to Trumps’ family, or to the family of his emissary Steve Witkoff, which also have interests in WLF. Nor does it include income which may be going to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates spy chief, whose investment company owns a 49 percent equity share of WLF.
Not satisfied with that haul, WLF has obtained a trust bank charter from the OCC, which will be used to house its stablecoin business.
This will give WLF important new advantages.
First, a trust charter eases the way for the WLF stablecoin business to obtain a “master account” at the Federal Reserve, which are used by banks to hold and transfer dollars electronically. If a master account is granted, dollar payments into and out of USD1 can go through that system. This will lower USD1 costs, since it will not need to use a commercial bank to transfer funds.
Second, it will create a halo effect for USD1, enhancing its legitimacy and perceived safety. A “trust bank” sounds like something that comes with the regulations, supervision, and guarantees that make commercial banks a safe place for retail depositors. But that is not true. Trust banks do not take deposits or make loans, are not federally insured, and are not eligible for lending from the Federal Reserve.
The conflicts of interest in granting a bank charter to WLF are apparent. The OCC—which a Trump executive order claims is completely controlled by him—has granted a bank charter to a firm which makes him money and will act as the supposed supervisor of that bank.
Bad as this seems, there are harms beyond the self-dealing and self-enrichment involved in granting this charter. Giving any stablecoin or crypto currency firm access to a master account invites illicit use of the regulated financial system which we all depend on.
The Tether stablecoin, for example, has featured in international criminal cases, and has frequently been used by financial fraudsters laundering money, by countries such as Iran and Russia evading sanctions, and by terrorist networks. A record $158 billion of crypto tokens were sent to criminal wallets in 2025, a 145% increase from the previous years.
This risk has been recognized by the Federal Reserve in the past. According to guidance released by the Board of Governors in 2022, master accounts should not go to entities that create an undue risk to the economy by “facilitating activities such as money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, cybercrimes, economic or trade sanctions violations, or other illicit activities”. It is not at all clear why any stablecoin or other crypto currency is not, on the face of it, ineligible under these and other parts of the BOG guidance. In fact, Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr has objected to the creation of this class of account because it does not provide sufficiently specific and robust safeguards to protect against their being used for money laundering and terrorist financing by institutions the Fed does not supervise.
There is another alarming outcome that may result from giving bank charters to crypto firms. The halo effect—which may lead stablecoin users to believe they have federal protection—could be used by WLF and other crypto firms to provide political cover for a federal bail-out if their businesses were failing.
There would be no legal basis for such a bailout. But would this administration, and the OCC which it claims to control completely, look for a way to provide a bailout that protected their crypto firm wealth? That may seem unlikely, but so did a $1.8 billion fund to benefit January 6 rioters and other political favorites.
The OCC and the Federal Reserve are failing in their duty to protect the public and the economy from potential harm that can flow from crypto firms like WLF. A responsible Congress would intervene to stop it.
Marc Jarsulic and Gerald Epstein are economists and among dozens of expert contributors to Game Changers: Economic Policies for a Working America, a project of the Political Economy Research Institute, UMass Amherst. The ideas in this article are developed in their paper “No More Bailouts,” available on the Game Changers website.
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Trump's $5,000 Lie and His Dangerous Loyalty Oath
Trump’s promise of money in exchange for Republican votes was blatantly anti-democratic; the loyalty oath that he then asked his audience to take was even worse.
Sep 17, 2026
President Donald Trump is losing badly, and he knows it. At the MAGA rally billed as the Republican midterm convention on September 9-10, he mounted yet another brazen attack on the democratic process that threatens to hold him accountable. He tried to buy votes, imbue personal loyalty to him over allegiance to democracy, and encourage voter fraud.
Most of the media dismissed the episode as just another bizarre Trump moment.
A Dubious Promise
Eight minutes into his second keynote speech on Day Two of the rally, the president promised a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every US adult citizen if Republicans retained control of Congress in November. That would add more than $1 trillion to the burgeoning federal deficit and fuel persistent inflation.
“Outside historical norms”? Trump’s actions are so far beyond the pale that it’s inappropriate to describe them in such sanitized terms.
Some observers dismissed it as a campaign promise. But federal law provides:
Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and
Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (18 U.S.C. Sec. 597—“Expenditures to Influence Voting”)
Of course, the Trump Justice Department that is prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey for posting a photograph of seashells on a beach will never investigate or prosecute Trump for anything. And Trump’s position will always be that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Trump v. United States effectively gave him a permanent “get-out-of-jail-free” card for anything he does as president.
Even so, Trump’s promise of money in exchange for Republican votes was blatantly anti-democratic; the loyalty oath that he then asked his audience to take was worse.
A Dangerous Pledge
Ten minutes after his $5,000 promise, Trump asked attendees to raise their right hands and swear—not to defend democracy, but to undermine it as an act of personal loyalty to him: “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe.”
The audience repeated his words. Ignoring the evidence that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, Trump continued:
That I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. They never, there’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am gonna go out and I'm gonna get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3 or we are going to vote before that.
Ready? To finish the pledge? So we swear [Audience responded: “We swear.”] on November 3, we are going to go out and vote.
Then Trump added: “And you know what? If you want, you can vote Democrat, but I don't think there's one person in this room that's gonna vote [Democrat]. [Audience responded: "No."]
“I don't think so. So I don't have to preface, I don't wanna waste the words vote Republican, just go out. If you vote, you're voting Republican. Okay.”
Then he concluded the pledge: “So help me God.”
[Audience responded: "So help me God"]
“Swear Your Loyalty to Me”
It’s no secret that Trump values personal loyalty to him above all else. Competence has never been a job requirement in his administration. See, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Health and Human Services), Pete Hegseth (Defense), Kristi Noem (Department of Homeland Security), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), and more.
But Trump’s oath is particularly unsettling. A US president asking any audience to swear personal fealty to him should trouble any citizen. When coupled with a pledge to commit voter fraud aimed at preserving that president’s compliant legislative majority for another two years, it’s stunning. And the historical parallels are frightening.
Pundits responded with their usual euphemisms: “Trump acted outside historical norms;” “Don’t take Trump literally;” “Trump is being Trump.”
Then they moved on.
“Outside historical norms”? Trump’s actions are so far beyond the pale that it’s inappropriate to describe them in such sanitized terms. He has already destroyed many of democracy’s guardrails, and he’s not done.
“Don’t take Trump literally”? Maybe pundits don’t, but even with a dismal approval rating in the mid-30s, millions of people will. After all, he concluded his September 10 pledge with a warning:
You know what happens if you don't vote? You go to hell. You know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don't want that to happen to you, so please go and vote because together we will defeat the communists. We will defeat the communists. We will reject, and that's what they are. They're not socialists. They're not Democrats. They're communists. We will reject these radical left lunatics. We will demolish the extremists, fanatics, lunatics, and criminals who want to destroy our country.
“Trump is being Trump”? That’s true in the sense that he’s saying the quiet part out loud. But the response should be more than a collective shrug. With the help of a complicit Republican majority in Congress, a cooperative US Supreme Court, and Republican controlled-state governments across the country, Trump has amassed unprecedented presidential power—and abused it in unprecedented ways.
The November election must become the reckoning that Trump does not want.
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Loser Trump the Latest President to Launch Far-Off, Failed US War
Why is it, I wonder, that American presidents of seemingly any stripe simply can’t stop launching distant, disastrous wars with our tax dollars?
Sep 17, 2026
I was almost six years old when the Korean War began and Korea was a mere 7,000 or so miles from Washington, DC. I’m now 82 years old and my country is at war with Iran, whose capital, Tehran, is—phew!—only about 6,300 miles from Washington, DC. What a relief!
By the time I’m 110, there’s a dim possibility that, should that be a pattern (and don’t forget Vietnam, a mere 9,000 miles from Washington; Afghanistan, a mere 7,000 miles away; or Iraq, a mere 6,000-odd miles offshore of the United States, all of which suggest that distance has indeed been a significant—and significantly unnerving—part of American imperial war making since 1945), the US might be warring with a country merely 5,000-odd miles from our capital. And by the time I’m 126, the war of that moment might, for all I know, be right next door. (Of course, if Donald Trump, who would then be 124 years old, is still president, it might even be in Canada, “our cherished 51st State.”)
I should, in truth, be more used to my country’s distant wars by now. After all, I can still remember my opposition to the Vietnam War, a moment when I actually took to the streets and turned in my draft card in public protest—yes, back then, the military wasn’t an all-volunteer outfit—and also learned how to be a draft counselor to help potential draftees like me, who were against that all too literal war from hell.
There are so many things that are truly needed on this overheating planet of ours, how deeply sad (not to say genuinely pathetic) that the best thing the president of the United States and his advisers could find to do this year was launch a war halfway around the world that would kill all too many people.
Almost 60 years later, I find it strange that my country is once again fighting a distant war for reasons that, at best, make no sense whatsoever to me, and at worst are simply horrific and repetitive beyond belief. It’s a war that, as The New York Times reported, was essentially sold to the president by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a “near-certain victory” against a weak Iranian regime that would prove incapable (no question about it!) of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, could do little harm to America’s allies in the Middle East, and “could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime.”
Yes, it’s true that my country may indeed have been the most imperial—in the sense of influencing so much of the world—country in history with a truly global reach. Of course, there were also the other two great powers of the last half century. There was the Soviet Union—now, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which, to give him credit of an unnerving sort, is at least fighting his nightmarish war against Ukraine right at or near its own border rather than in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. And then there is China, which has so far proven itself a remarkable imperial force by having but a single military base anywhere else on the planet—unlike the 750 American ones scattered around the globe—and not fighting a war anywhere other than not particularly successfully against Vietnam in 1979 and border skirmishes with India in 2020 and 2021 (which, historically speaking on this planet of ours, is almost the imperial equivalent of pacifism).
No such luck for the United States of Donald J. Trump, of course. “Our” latest president has continued a tradition now more than 75 years old of launching distant wars that simply never succeed. Never.
You would think, of course, that there might be some extremely modest learning curve when it came to such conflicts, but if so, you would think wrong. Logical as that might appear, it’s proven to be anything but the reality of our world. And after so many failed wars globally, that’s once again our reality in relation to Iran, despite the fact that “our” president in his first term in office offered this description of himself: “They said: ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
And curiously enough, with the exception of an ongoing conflict in Syria, he stuck to his... oh, sorry, but it is the phrase... guns then. No such luck recently, of course. And Iran is turning into a disaster first class, while the harm to that country is, as with all such wars (remember the millions killed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), or at least should be considered, unbearable. And mind you, while “our” president was turning our world into an ever greater mess at home and abroad, he was still planning to extend his renaming frenzy from the Gulf of Mexico (oh, sorry, the Gulf of America) and Lake Ontario (oh, sorry, again, Lake America) to the Strait of Hormuz, which he was hoping, believe it or not, could be renamed the “Trump Strait.” As he wrote at his Truth Social account: “Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Imagine that, will you—not that the Strait of Whatever You Want to Call It was, in fact, faintly under American control.
And for what acts might it be renamed? Well, just as I was writing this piece, for instance, accounts appeared indicating that a missile launched by my country reportedly killed at least four people, including a 4-year-old child, and wounded another 68 at a wedding—yes, a wedding!—in Iran.
Oh, and let me at least add that, right here at home, one American was finally brought to justice for his acts—in this case, US Air Force Major Jason Watson, who had stood on the steps of the US Capitol and called for the impeachment of President Trump. As he told CNN: “Not only is [Trump] a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me.”
And as it turns out, it’s also unacceptable to the Iranians. Since, despite what Benjamin Netanyahu assured “my” president about, they have indeed been capable both of attacking American allies and a whole string of American military bases in the Middle East with missiles and drones, while indeed largely shutting down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and so driving up oil prices strikingly on a global level.
There are so many things that are truly needed on this overheating planet of ours, how deeply sad (not to say genuinely pathetic) that the best thing the president of the United States and his advisers could find to do this year was launch a war halfway around the world that would kill all too many people, ruin worlds (and weddings), pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and waste enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars thousands of miles from home at a moment when all too many people in this very country still need so much.
Why is it, I wonder, that American presidents of seemingly any stripe simply can’t stop launching distant, disastrous wars with our tax dollars? In some sense, I simply don’t understand. How can there be no learning curve whatsoever when it comes to American wars abroad since 1945? How thickheaded do you truly have to be not to notice an overwhelming pattern of lack of success (not to say outright failure)? It’s so obvious that there should be no way it wouldn’t be a front-and-center phenomenon no one could miss or ignore?
No such luck, of course.
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It's Time for the Democrats to Run Against the AI Apocalypse
Someone has the chance for a kind of career-defining stance, one that builds on the growing sense of unease with the overheating world and the rise of AI.
Sep 16, 2026
Obviously the story of the moment is the sudden, coordinated bout of cold feet in the AI industry, whose leaders expressed support over the weekend for some kind of effort to slow down the pace of their R&D. This is something that’s never happened in the 40 years of the climate fight, and so it shouldn’t be dismissed; in fact, it could conceivably provide an opening for common sense across the entire apocalypse front. So let’s try to game out how responsible political leaders—which means, I tremble to say, Democrats—might try to talk about it.
First, credit where due. The fact there’s an opening at all is owed to the remarkable citizen resistance to data centers that has sprung up in the last year, and also to the courage of a few kids in the AI industry. At Third Act-GrayPAC we’ve been a part of that resistance in place after place—if you want some insight on its roots and future, join us Wednesday night for a conversation with old friend Justin Pearson, the Tennessee state rep who helped kick it off with the fight against Elon Musk’s super-polluting Memphis facility.
Water wastage, noise, land use—the data center fight has often been routed in deeply local concerns. But it has two other dimensions. The first is about energy, both its costs and its pollution. As I’ve noted, one way to understand a data center is that it’s a device for burning natural gas, the latest excuse (after Ukraine and Iran) for the fuel that Big Oil is counting on to keep its business model afloat even as the world turns away from internal combustion cars and crude demand begins to drop. The degree to which this is becoming a climate disaster can hardly be overstated. Here’s the latest, from Bloomberg on Monday:
Natural gas consumption for electricity generation at data centers is forecast to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day in the decade ending in 2035, even when accounting for planned projects that may never be completed. This volume exceeds the current gas consumption of all nations except China, Russia, Iran, and the United States, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration. The projection is more than double BloombergNEF's December forecast of 6.9 billion cubic feet per day.
In essence, American data centers are about to become a giant new fossil-fuel burning country, just when we need it least. And if you wonder whether the oil boys have figured this out, don’t. When Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro—long a big backer of AI—proposed some limits last week, the reaction went like this:
“We were disappointed in the announcement in that it sends the wrong message to these incredible economic opportunities that are presented for Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania’s economy,” said James D. Welty, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition…
Marcellus producers are almost solely dependent on demand growth within their own producing region. Artificial intelligence data centers powered by gas-fired electricity are seen by Marcellus gas producers as a key source of that so-called in-basin demand.
But that data center resistance was driven by something else too, that’s been largely ignored—it was a chance to stand up to the oligarchs and this technology they’ve staked their future on. A few years ago Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and the rest had a mixed reputation, admired by some and distrusted by others; now the loathing is much more universal, especially since they’ve allied themselves with the most unpopular president in recent history. They marketed their AI tech on the promise that it would destroy jobs; it’s also proven useful for making naked pictures of anyone you could imagine. They stole books to train it; now it produces a commodity universally reviled as slop.
Oh, and it might kill us all, which brings us back to those kids. Jacob Coxon is a 27-year-old former silver medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad who worked first at Open AI and then Anthropic, and who resigned last week, kicking off this current storm with his tweeted fear that things were getting out of control. A top scientist at the company backed him up, tweeting: “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”
Which seems like kind of a big deal. Perhaps Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was on to something when, many months ago, he called for a moratorium on this kind of work, a call he’s repeated in recent days. But no one takes Bernie seriously (except the American people, for whom he remains the most popular active politician). So it’s a good sign that there seem to be some starting to follow suit. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has been nimblest, and not for the first time—he got a start on the messaging by saying
On day one, Donald Trump rescinded the AI safety order meant to guard against catastrophic risks, including the engineering of bioweapons. Meanwhile, Don Jr's 1789 Capital bought big money stakes in data centers and AI labs... President Trump is compromised.
And Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another 2028 possibility:
It’s becoming more clear the threat AI poses to humanity, so I’m calling for immediate action from the industry and Washington.
But as Greg Sargent points out in a prescient piece today, the Dems are mostly playing small ball here, nibbling around the edges instead of biting. I think someone has the chance for a kind of career-defining stance here, one that builds on the growing sense of unease with the overheating world (an unease which is already quite broad and is going to deepen as the budding El Niño takes us ever deeper into the climate future). As we start to look forward to 2028, even Barack Obama—a cautious man—has called for Democrats to be more aggressive. Here’s a stab at what that might look like:
Elections usually turn on immediate, pocketbook issues—that makes sense, because we all need to eat, and right now the price of groceries is too high, the price of gas is too high, the rent is too high. We know why—tariffs, stupid wars, corruption. We’ve got lots to work on.
But there are also moments when need to think about larger questions, and this is clearly one. AI is not something any of us asked for—just about no one wants a data center in their neighborhood, and no one put up their hand to sacrifice their job to some computer bot. It’s been forced on us by some of the richest people on Earth, and it was obnoxious even before it started going on the attack—now, as even its creators say, it’s out of control and offers a very real risk to our health and safety, and maybe even our existence as a species.
So we need to rein it in, with serious government regulation that dramatically slows the pace of development until we can can understand and control it. And that includes making the companies that produce this, and the hedge funds who invest in them, liable for the havoc they create.
But we need to go beyond that. We need to step back and say: What are we doing here, people? Why are we running risks like this? Our civilization, especially in rich countries like this one, is capable of producing the things we need: We’ve never lived longer or better. If we didn’t concentrate wealth in a few hands, if we spread it our more widely, we could provide healthcare and housing for everyone. Natural human intelligence has produced plenty; the natural human sense of justice can help us figure out how to share it in ways that work for all. Things could be… okay.
So why would we run enormous risks—the ones that come with artificial super intelligence, and the ones that come with rapidly warming the planet? These are the dangers that could attack and impoverish us; no rational society would treat them as casually as the Trump administration has done. Instead we should be hard at work insuring against those risks—by, say, building out cheap and clean renewable energy. And by upgrading the education and the skills of our kids, instead of handing them screens and turning them over to AI teachers.
In some cases this would mean “slowing down progress”; in every case it would mean attacking concentrated wealth and power. But is it really progress? Is there any real reason we need to rush pell-mell into this chaotic and dystopian future? We’re told that medical advances await—but we’ve been making steady progress on this front for decades, with lifespans expanding and more and more diseases becoming manageable. (Or at least we were making progress till this administration decided to upend our scientific research institutions). We’re told that if we don’t rush ahead China will—but that seems more like an argument for negotiating with China about cooperative controls, just as we once negotiated with Russia about the control of nuclear weapons. It’s never easy, it’s always messy, and so far it’s been successful.
If this willingness to stick with the world as we’ve known it—a world where human intelligence prevails, and where we keep some ice near the poles—sounds “conservative” then so be it. There are moments when humans need to say, "Enough," and this is one. We are fools to endanger all that our ancestors have built in search of some new thing that will enrich a few. I know that the Trump administration wants to rush forward, that he has called AI fears a “hoax,” the exact same word he’s used about the climate crisis. But Trump and his colleagues are greed-seeking missiles, always looking for some way to grift, whether its from AI and crypto or from oil companies and Middle East princelings.
We are told that our destiny is constantly to rush forward—to head for Mars. But actually, one unique human gift is the ability to decide not to do things we’re capable of doing—to say Mars isn’t as important as getting things right on Earth. In fact, we’ve never had a better chance of getting things right. All of a sudden solar panels are the cheapest way to make power, for instance. It wasn’t AI that did that—it was smart people, at work in universities and companies around the world. They’ve given us a real gift, even if it’s going to cost Exxon some profits.
Humans don’t get many chances to make momentous decisions like this. Usually they get made for us. But across the country people have stood up to the data centers, and that’s given us the possibility for real change. Let’s take it.
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Game Changers: US-Canada Dispute Proves Need to Democratize North American Trade
In the real world, stronger international economic linkages can be mutually beneficial—but only if managed through sensible rules, macroeconomic planning, and economic democracy.
Sep 16, 2026
Editor’s Note: The following is part of new series for Common Dreams based on “Game Changers: Economic Policies for a Working America,” a project spearheaded by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Game Changers is a collaborative initiative bringing together leading economists and policy experts to develop bold, new ideas to build a stronger, fairer, greener, and more inclusive economy for all Americans.
In the following essay, Game Changers takes on corporate-friendly trade deals, including those in North America. And as the US-Canada trade war rages on, beyond the dizzying headlines—including renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America—what does this mean for North American workers, and what is a more sensible trade policy for North America?
This Thursday, Sept. 17th, the Game Changers webinar, Oh Canada: Trump Vs. North American Workers, will dig beyond the headlines to answer these questions, putting focus on the international trade collaboration we need to make the economy work for working America, not just big corporations. Register for the webinar here.
Corporate-dominated trade deals
Corporate-driven free trade agreements have distorted global trade and investment relationships over the past 40 years – including in North America. The power and freedom they grant business has produced deindustrialization, job loss, and inequality for workers in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Donald Trump weaponized this hardship, but his erratic tariffs and other actions are only making things worse for workers in America.
Past Failures to Solve the Problem
NAFTA hurt workers in all three countries; Trump’s policies are making it worse
Starting in the 1980s, global business interests, backed by leaders of both main parties, pushed hard for an ambitious new approach to international trade policy. Instead of straightforward and mutual tariff reduction to promote two-way trade, they pioneered a new generation of trade agreements (bilateral, regional, and global through the World Trade Organization) that entrenched corporate rights, undermined national policy autonomy, and pitted workers in different countries against each other in a race to the bottom. This model was imposed in North America through a Canada-US deal in 1989, followed by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, including Mexico) in 1994. NAFTA was negotiated by a Republican president, but passed under a Democrat, and it cemented corporate power across the continent, providing a template for future deals. Some changes were made to NAFTA (renamed the USMCA) in Donald Trump’s first term. But they didn’t fix the core threats facing workers in the US Now Trump’s unilateral, erratic, and destructive tariffs and unhinged attacks on our trading partners are causing chaos and uncertainty. US manufacturing employment is falling, while US companies (including the tech oligarchs) continue to profit from preferential rules that protect their profits, but undermine labor, environmental, and democratic standards.
The Game Changer
Democratizing North American trade
Donald Trump claims his tariffs and other threats against trading partners (including challenging their very sovereignty) will help American workers. But the costs, supply bottlenecks and uncertainties he has imposed are damaging the efficiency and competitiveness of key North American industries (like auto manufacturing). US industry and employment are doing worse, not better. Instead of trying to conquer our neighbours through economic or even military force, American workers would do better through a cooperative continent-wide strategy to build a stronger, fairer, more sustainable, and more democratic North American economy.
A new plan for North American economic cooperation, development, and trade would focus on six key themes:
- Labor rights: Strengthen protections for workers in all three countries, including access to fair and independent union representation, strong minimum wages, and rapid-response enforcement to compel employers in all three countries to comply. US workers would get better access to union protection and minimum labor standards when basic labor standards are embedded in a continental framework.
- Migration and human rights: Trump’s inhumane scapegoating of migrants for political gain undermines the rights and safety of all in the US, and sets the stage for broader repression. It has also hurt the US economy: damaging critical industries and disrupting normal international exchange. Of course, sovereign countries must retain control over their borders and immigration, and this will continue to be the case within a cooperative North American framework. But stable and well-resourced border infrastructure, and immigration rules that respect international law and human rights, will facilitate sensible travel and migration while ensuring the integrity of national immigration policies.
- Environmental standards: Trade agreements must not undercut national efforts to regulate pollution, tax polluters, and encourage sustainable industries and technologies. A cooperative continental strategy would raise finance for investments in climate-resilient infrastructure and make a joint commitment to emissions reductions targets consistent with the Paris Agreement. Rapid-response enforcement mechanisms would ensure companies respect environmental rules in each country.
- Continental industrial strategies: As Trump tries to intimidate automakers and other industrial giants into relocating from Canada and Mexico to the US, the overall competitiveness of North American industry falls further behind global leaders in Asia and Europe. A continental strategy to strengthen the overall capability of key North American industries (including auto, aerospace, food, renewable energy equipment, and technology), making the most of continental linkages rather than disrupting them, offers far more hope to US workers than fighting over the scraps of a shrinking continental industrial base.
- Limiting corporate and investor ‘rights’: New trade rules would eliminate quasi-judicial kangaroo courts (in which foreign businesses have unique rights to curtail national policy-making). Disputes over trade practices should be managed through traditional mediation and arbitration processes involving national states (not private businesses). The powers of investors and business must be subordinated to democratic processes reflecting the public interest.
- Regulating digital trade and tech: International commerce is being profoundly impacted by the rise of enormous global high-technology corporations that dominate processors, digital trade, AI, and social media. A few tech giants, all based in the US and owned by mega-billionaires, dominate new technologies, financial markets, and even politics and culture. Residents of all three countries will benefit from regulations to protect data privacy, ensure national digital sovereignty (including the right and capacity to safely store data domestically), limit oligopolistic power in internet and digital markets, and protect domestic media from the cannibalism of the online giants.
In addition to these six priorities, a strategy to democratize North American trade would address other concerns, including the energy transition, sustainable water management, and agriculture and food security. The three countries would also commit to complementary efforts to promote full employment and strong macroeconomic conditions throughout the continental economy. When all economies are growing strongly, each has more opportunity to benefit from expanded trade and mutual specialization. Above all, a vision of North American trade that protects and uplifts the ability of citizens and communities to make their own decisions over matters of economic, social, and environmental well-being, is a continental economy that will be democratic as well as prosperous.
Economic Rationale and Feasibility
Planned, managed, cooperative trade and development works better
Conventional market-oriented economic theories claim that free trade always benefits both sides. But those models are based on utopian assumptions (perfect competition, balanced trade, full employment, income distribution that automatically reflects productivity, no pricing power for large companies, and others) that have no relationship to reality. That’s why trade imbalances, capital flight, and unemployment – all things the neoclassical models rule out by assumption – are the normal state of affairs in modern trade.
In the real world, stronger international economic linkages can be mutually beneficial – but only if managed through sensible rules, macroeconomic planning, and economic democracy. A managed, mutual approach to boosting investment, job-creation, and living standards throughout the continent will benefit US workers far more than Trump’s imperial attacks on other countries. And a joint commitment to improving labor, environmental, and democratic practices across the continent will especially benefit US workers, who continue to suffer from labor laws that are the weakest of any industrial country.
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Gloria Steinem Never Lost Hope Or Purpose. Neither Can We.
Gloria didn’t believe that history’s pendulum automatically swings back on its own. It swings because people organize, build movements, and refuse to give up.
Sep 16, 2026
“How can I be of service?”
That was the phone message Gloria Steinem kept leaving at the office of the African National Congress Parliamentary Women’s Caucus in Cape Town, South Africa in 1997.
I had arrived in the country a year earlier, working as a young staffer for some of the first women elected to lead South Africa’s new democracy. When they asked if I wanted to call that American woman back, I jumped at the chance.
Soon Gloria was on her way to Cape Town, and I was assigned to pick her up at the airport.
As this global icon—something she hated to be called—stepped into my rusted car, the first thing I remember is asking her to keep her head near the window as exhaust crept in through a hole in the floor. (She didn’t flinch.)
When she turned to me, she was both generous and matter-of-fact: “How can I help?”
The road ahead will not be easy. It will require new leadership and new lessons. But we do know how to begin.
With that, I became one of countless women who would become part of Gloria’s ever-expanding circle. For the next three decades, a group of us would be invited into the colorful living room of her New York brownstone to share updates on our work and to inevitably be asked once again: “How can I help?”
After Gloria’s death, we—and millions of others—are left reflecting on the lessons of her life. How can we make sense of a time when our politics seem to be the very opposite of her life’s work?
She wouldn’t have allowed me to ponder that question for long.
In the dark days following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, I went to visit her. My group chats with women I’d spent my career working alongside were blowing up. My nieces called me, furious and worried. All of us were terrified and angry.
When I walked into that familiar yellow living room on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the grief I expected to find was nowhere in sight. “It’s okay, the pendulum is swinging one way now, but it will swing back. We will get through this.”
Along with wit and humor, Gloria’s most defining characteristic was her optimism. She called herself a “hope-a-holic.”
Years of bitter backlash to the feminist movement didn’t make her cynical, it made her hopeful. She had seen the other side of backlash: the progress that suddenly emerges after years where nothing seems easy.
She also understood intuitively that despair was a political weapon, and she refused to supply it.
Adversaries of the feminist movement would change over time. Whether it was Phyllis Schlafly or Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh or that guy at the end of the bar, they still seemed to have something in common. They were counting on us to feel hopeless and helpless. Their power depended on us questioning our own.
With Donald Trump as our bully-in-chief, that’s a lesson we should remember now. We’ve seen him before.
Gloria didn’t believe that history’s pendulum automatically swings back on its own. It swings because people organize, build movements, and refuse to give up.
Perhaps one of her most important lessons was also her most prescient. As we face the most misogynist administration in my lifetime, we also face the most racist, with relentless attacks on civil rights; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and the truth about US history. Gloria understood deeply that there could be no gender justice without racial justice. As she said in 2017, “If it’s White, it’s not feminism—by definition, it includes all women.”
She acted on that commitment by ensuring that Black women and women of color spoke with her side by side, including brilliant activists like Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Florynce “Flo” Kennedy. She was also canny and practical about her power as a white woman. She saw that she could reach other white women, get them into a room, and open a conversation about upending racism and sexism together.
Ever the organizer, Gloria was also deeply practical. Inviting another leader to speak by her side meant you could get twice the audience. Movements are built in crowded rooms.
Donald Trump’s entire project can be summed up in one word: division. He knows that sowing mistrust is key to consolidating power at the top. As long as we are fighting with each other, we won’t see how much we have in common.
It’s the exact opposite of the ethos that came to define Gloria’s worldview, which she often summed up as, “We are linked, not ranked.”
Her death comes just as a multiracial, multigenerational coalition is required to defeat authoritarianism. Gloria’s principled—and practical—approach to movement building is now a road map. The bigger the movement, the further and faster the pendulum will swing.
A decade ago, a reporter asked Gloria if she was ready to pass the torch to the next generation of activists.
“I’m not giving up my torch, thank you very much,” she replied. “I am using it to light other people’s torches.”
As we raise our own torches, we light up a world in immense crisis. The road ahead will not be easy. It will require new leadership and new lessons.
But we do know how to begin. Now it’s our turn to ask: “How can I help?”
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Against Trump, Farmers and Workers Present a Plan for Trade Justice
House Resolution 1286 offers something like a blueprint for how working people in the countryside and city can unite around key principles that would reign in corporate abuses of power.
Sep 16, 2026
The late, great, farmer-essayist, Wendell Berry, wrote critically in Unsettling of America how our “modern” ideal of farming failed to include people. Asking, “Where are the farmers?” back in 1977, he warned how unquestionably embracing machine and chemical technology to “save labor” and control the environment will destroy not only nature, but also our rural relationships and communities.
Prophetic as he was, Berry did not foresee the extent to which our government—the Trump administration particularly—would take advantage of farmers and quicken the pace of rural desolation.
Look no further than the recent executive order, which against farmer protests, allows the import of over 600 million pounds of foreign beef into the US. While it was pitched as a way to lower prices for consumers, in fact, we now know that Brazilian billionaire Joesley Batista, owner of the international agribusiness giant, JBS, lobbied President Donald Trump for this deal. Adding insult to injury, the Iran war’s supply chain disruptions have led to increases in fertilizer and diesel prices, saddling farmers with more costs, while the retaliatory tariffs from the ill-conceived trade war with Canada will cut into US dairy export markets.
More than just numbers, people are relationships, families, and communities. Such recognition should guide our policies, which House Resolution 1286 and its supporters are trying to remind our legislators of.
Far from free, not to mention fair trade, Trump’s maneuvers show how our corporate-dominated supply chains are not only fragile, but prone to corrupt dealings that hurt working people. Demands for trade justice, with some alliances taking shape among farmers, workers, and small-business groups, show an alternative path forward.
Specifically, recently introduced House Resolution 1286 offers something like a blueprint for how working people in the countryside and city can unite around key principles that would reign in corporate abuses of power.
That Trump has such power to manipulate trade is due to how he decided back in July of this year not to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), formerly the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, for another 16 years. This doesn’t mean that there is no regional trade deal, but that every year from now through 2036, our government will have to sit down with Canada and Mexico to negotiate terms.
This yearly schedule of negotiating the terms of the USMCA could be in the interest of working people if we had a government that stood by their side. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case, especially with our current administration.
The economic toll that the NAFTA-turned-USMCA agreement took on working people has been severe. By Trump’s first term, studies showed that over 240,000 farms were lost in the United States thanks to the trade deal, while in Mexico, that number exceeded 2 million. The USMCA update, accomplished in 2019, has not been a boon for US farmers. From 2017 to 2024, we have seen a 8% decline of producers down to 1.88 million. Dairy farmers, who Trump loves to tout in dealing with Canada, have taken it on the chin year after year, with August of this year showing Wisconsin’s dairy herd count falling below 5,000 for the first time.
Let’s be real—Trump has no interest in treating the economic malaise that farmers are experiencing and that he rode twice into the White House. If anything, he’s making their problems worse.
To the contrary, House Resolution 1286 presents worker- and farmer- centered principles for trade in place of the crony capitalism and shady deals that Trump forces on us.
Within the resolution, demands include that trade policies ought to ensure fair wages for workers domestically and abroad, strengthen anti-monopoly policies, promote strong environmental standards, while also featuring data protection policies and regulations for Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Currently with 51 co-sponsors and endorsed by multiple organizations, including Citizens Trade Campaign, the AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers (USW), International Association of Machinists (IAM Union), United Auto Workers (UAW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), Sierra Club, National Family Farm Coalition, Public Citizen, Rethink Trade, and others, the resolution is definitely a wish list. Passing it will not automatically coerce the Trump regime to come to its senses and do right by working people. Still, calling for a set of principles to include in trade agreements is a good first step at much needed policy reform.
Wendell Berry’s work reminds us of the importance of making people central to economic affairs, especially in agriculture. More than just numbers, people are relationships, families, and communities. Such recognition should guide our policies, which House Resolution 1286 and its supporters are trying to remind our legislators of. While doubtful that Trump will listen, what could get his attention are the multiple groups and their members calling for change. And if our message is not heard, we may have to follow Berry in what he also taught us on multiple occasions, from marching against the Vietnam War to protesting mountaintop-removal coal mining, and take it to the streets.
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From Oslo to Displacement: 33 Years That Changed the Map of Palestine
Between the handshake of 1993 and the map of 2026 lies the story of 33 years. At its heart is one question: Who controls the land—and who is still able to remain on it?
Sep 16, 2026
On September 13, 1993, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin stood on the White House lawn and shook hands before the world.
For Palestinians, that image carried a larger hope: that a transitional process would lead to the end of occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The five years that were supposed to be transitional passed.
Then 20 years. Then 20.
Now, 33 years have passed.
Perhaps we do not need the thousands of pages written about Oslo to understand where we have arrived.
We only need to look at the map.
Israeli settlements have expanded. Outposts have spread across the hills. Roads connect many of them to Israel and to one another. Palestinian land has been confiscated or become increasingly difficult to reach.
East Jerusalem is increasingly surrounded by settlements. Area C, more than 60% of the West Bank, remains under extensive Israeli control over planning, construction, and land.
In Area A, which was supposed to be under Palestinian civil and security control, Israeli forces continue to enter Palestinian cities and refugee camps and carry out arrests, demolitions, and road closures.
In Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps, more than 33,000 Palestinian refugees displaced since early 2025 remain unable to return home.
And then there is Gaza—part of the same Palestinian territory Palestinians entered Oslo believing would one day become their state.
If two states are made impossible, can anyone defend a permanent one-state reality in which Palestinians and Israelis do not enjoy equal national and political rights?
Between the handshake of 1993 and the map of 2026 lies the story of 33 years.
At its heart is one question: Who controls the land—and who is still able to remain on it?
Less than five months after Oslo was signed, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron during dawn prayers in Ramadan and opened fire on Palestinian worshippers, killing 29.
Less than two years later, Israeli extremist Yigal Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin because he opposed the political path Rabin had pursued.
The events were different, but both revealed early on the strength of the forces opposing any process that might eventually end Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.
Negotiations continued.
So did settlement expansion.
And this became Oslo's central contradiction: Palestinians were negotiating over a state while the land on which that state was supposed to exist was changing beneath their feet.
Perhaps no place illustrates this more clearly than E1.
The area lies between occupied East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. Its importance is not simply how many settlement homes may be built there, but what construction would do to the map.
Expansion in E1 threatens Palestinian territorial continuity between the northern and southern West Bank and further separates East Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings.
If the international community still speaks seriously about a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, where exactly is that state supposed to exist if the territory itself continues to be fragmented?
Governments can issue endless statements supporting two states.
But maps do not read statements.
They record what is built, who controls the land, and who is allowed to reach it.
The same contradiction appears in Area A.
The division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C was meant to be temporary. Yet what was temporary has become almost permanent, while the boundaries created by Oslo do not prevent Israeli forces from entering areas supposedly under Palestinian control.
Since early 2025, large-scale Israeli military operations have displaced more than 33,000 Palestinian refugees from Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams camps. Many remain unable to return.
For me, this is one of the most painful images of the post-Oslo era: A Palestinian refugee, whose family was displaced once before, being displaced again—this time from the refugee camp itself.
There are political arguments about Oslo, security arrangements, and who violated which agreement.
But what language describes a refugee becoming a refugee for a second time?
Settlement expansion, too, is often reduced to an image of houses appearing on a hill.
But for Palestinians living nearby, a settlement is not simply a house.
It is also a road, a checkpoint, a gate, an outpost, a field a farmer can no longer safely reach, and a grazing area a shepherd can no longer use.
During the first eight months of 2026, the United Nations documented more than 1,600 settler attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties or property damage across 275 communities.
But numbers alone do not explain what happens afterward.
Can the farmer return to his field after an attack?
Can the shepherd return to the same hill tomorrow?
Can a family continue to live where every journey to its land becomes a confrontation?
Consider Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.
By early September, more than 56 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage had been documented there during 2026.
Settlement outposts have expanded around the village, while access to agricultural and grazing land has become increasingly restricted.
On September 2, two Palestinian children were shot and killed by Israeli forces there amid another period of settler attacks and military operations.
At that point, settlement expansion is no longer simply construction on a hill.
It becomes a system of pressure on a village and on the ability of its people to remain.
Then there is water.
A Palestinian farmer may legally own his land. But what does ownership mean if he cannot water it?
This question is especially acute in the Jordan Valley.
In Bardala this year, Israeli forces demolished seven agricultural greenhouses covering about 11 dunums and destroyed the water networks connected to them.
It may sound like a small incident beside the headlines of war and killing.
It is not small to a farmer waiting for water to save his crop.
If water disappears for days, he may lose a harvest. If the problem continues, he may lose his income. If access to water becomes a permanent struggle, farming itself may become impossible.
And when farming becomes impossible, a Palestinian does not simply lose a crop.
He loses one of the strongest reasons he has for remaining on his land.
This is why displacement does not always begin with a bulldozer demolishing a home.
The house may remain standing while the field goes dry, grazing land shrinks, the road closes, and attacks continue.
Eventually, a family packs its belongings and leaves.
From a distance, that departure may look voluntary.
But it did not happen in a vacuum.
And then there is Gaza.
Not because Gaza and the West Bank have experienced the same reality.
They have not.
But both were part of the Palestinian territory Palestinians entered Oslo believing would eventually become their state.
In 2005, Israel removed its settlements from Gaza and withdrew its permanent ground forces from inside the territory. While settlements disappeared from Gaza, the settlement project continued expanding in the West Bank.
After Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel imposed a severe blockade, while Egypt also maintained restrictions on the Rafah crossing.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched a large-scale attack on Israel. Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed, and hostages were taken into Gaza.
That is a fact, and it should be stated.
But it does not tell the story of what followed.
By September 9, 2026, the reported Palestinian death toll in Gaza since October 2023 had reached 73,669, with 174,652 people reported injured, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.
Entire neighborhoods have been devastated. Families have been displaced repeatedly. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed, alongside hospitals, schools, roads, water networks, and other essential infrastructure.
In September 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed and were continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In June 2026, the commission issued further findings concerning violations against Palestinian children and concluded that the deliberate targeting of children had resulted in acts of genocide,, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Israel has rejected those findings and denied committing genocide.
But Gaza does not need legal language or statistics alone to tell its story.
Ask one family a simpler question: Is there still a home to return to?
And in the West Bank, ask another: Will Palestinians still be able to remain on their land at all?
The experiences are different.
But in both places, the ability to remain has itself become a political and human question.
Put these realities on one map, and the picture becomes difficult to ignore.
In Gaza: killing, destruction, and repeated displacement.
In East Jerusalem: settlement expansion, demolitions, and displacement.
In Area C: settlements, outposts, and pressure on Palestinian communities.
In E1: a threat to territorial continuity.
In the Jordan Valley: a struggle not only over land, but over the water that determines whether people can farm and remain.
These realities are not identical.
But they lead back to the same question: Who will still be able to remain on the land?
After 33 years, it is no longer enough for governments to say they remain committed to the two-state solution.
If the world genuinely wants two states, it must protect the physical possibility of a Palestinian state now—an independent and sovereign state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Stopping settlement expansion, preventing displacement, protecting Palestinian land and water resources, and halting projects that destroy territorial continuity are not issues that can be postponed until another negotiation.
They determine whether there will still be something left to negotiate.
But if the international community continues to speak about two states while, on the ground, one state consolidates control over the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, then another question can no longer be avoided: If two states are made impossible, can anyone defend a permanent one-state reality in which Palestinians and Israelis do not enjoy equal national and political rights?
It is not for me, or for this article, to decide on behalf of Palestinians and Israelis what the final political arrangement must look like.
But one principle should be simpler than every map and every negotiating formula: The future cannot be the permanent domination of one people by another.
Either there are two real states: Israel and an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Or, if the reality created on the ground makes that solution impossible, there must be one democratic state in which Palestinians and Israelis live with equal rights and equal citizenship.
The international community cannot defend the two-state solution in words, accept one-state control in practice, and reject equal rights within the reality that emerges.
In September 1993, the world watched Arafat and Rabin shake hands
The question then was: When will the Palestinian state be established?
Thirty-three years later, another question comes first: What land will remain for that state—and who will still be there to live on it?
Maps do not record intentions.
They record outcomes.
When a farmer is prevented from reaching his land, when a shepherd loses his grazing ground, when water no longer reaches a field, when a home is demolished, and when a refugee is displaced again from a refugee camp, it is not only individual lives that change.
The map changes.
That is why the question is no longer simply: Where is the Palestinian state?
It is also: Is there still enough connected land for such a state to exist—and will Palestinians still be able to remain on it?
We can disagree over the name, borders, or structure of the eventual solution.
But no permanent solution can mean one people enjoying full national and political rights while another remains under its control without the same fundamental rights.
A bombing may stop. A military raid may end. A bulldozer may leave. A checkpoint may be removed.
But if a family has lost its home, if a farmer has lost access to his land, if a crop has died because water no longer reaches it, or if a refugee has been displaced once again, the result remains visible on the map.
The land stays where it is.
What changes is who is able to remain on it.
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