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authoritarianism
'Absurd and Outrageous': UK Bars Entry to Climate Scholar, Palestinian Rights Advocate Andreas Malm
"This is a drift toward authoritarianism that didn't begin with me, and it's not going to end with me either."
Oct 30, 2026
The United Kingdom's Labour government has barred Swedish climate scholar and Palestinian rights advocate Andreas Malm from entering the country, without explanation, just days before he was scheduled to speak at a conference that will also feature a cofounder of Palestine Action—an organization banned by the UK government on highly dubious grounds.
Malm, an author and associate professor of human ecology at Sweden's Lund University, said Friday that he was "dismayed" by the UK Home Office's decision this week to cancel his Electronic Travel Authorization, noting that he has "been going to the UK for decades—this is where I did my archival research for my PhD dissertation and lectured at dozens of universities and participated in even more conferences."
Malm said the UK government's move was "nothing short of scandalous," and he linked the decision to his scheduled appearance at the conference organized by the socialist magazine Tribune. The event was billed as a discussion of "domination and resistance in the age of [US President Donald] Trump," featuring Malm and Palestine Action cofounder Huda Ammori.
"This is a drift toward authoritarianism that didn't begin with me, and it's not going to end with me either," Malm told Al Jazeera. "If I'm now being deemed a threat to the public good because I'm supposed to have a conversation with someone from Palestine Action, this is guilt by association."
Verso Books, Malm's publisher—including of his 2025 book The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth—said in a statement Friday that it is "shocked and disturbed by the Labour government’s decision to ban one of our leading authors."
"Never in over 55 years of publishing has a British government revoked the right of one of our authors to enter the country," said Tariq Ali, the chair of Verso's board of directors. "We can only assume, since no reasons have been given for banning him, that Andreas' positions on Palestine, no different from the [International Criminal Court] and UN commissions, is the cause."
"Verso Books condemns the silencing of critical voices and stands in support of writers and scholars who continue to speak out about important issues and contribute to open intellectual discourse," Ali added. "We urge the government to restore Andreas Malm's electronic travel authorisation immediately and allow him entry into the country."
Jeremy Corbyn, the former UK Labour leader who now serves as the Your Party MP for Islington North, joined the chorus denouncing the cancellation of Malm's travel authorization.
"This is an absurd and outrageous decision," Corbyn wrote on social media. "What kind of society are we living in where world-renowned authors and campaigners are treated as enemies and threats? The real threat is this government’s assault on freedom of expression."
"This is not an isolated incident—and the government should know that it is gaining a bad reputation for censorship and repression," added Corbyn. "We know why the government has taken this decision: because it wants to silence criticism of Israel, as well as its own complicity in genocide. It will not succeed."
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What Progressive Movements Around the World Can Learn From Serbia's Student List
Their success is the result of rebellion, energy, persistence, solidarity, courage, humor, nonviolence, utopian aspirations, and strong bottom-up organization.
Oct 28, 2026
Two years ago, Serbian students started their protests, endorsed by many citizens, in an honest, almost naive way. They declared that they wanted the end of corruption, press freedom, prosecution of the culprits behind the collapse of the Novi Sad rail station canopy, and, ultimately, another Serbia altogether. Students persistently claimed that entering politics was not their aim. But given all the issues they called in question, politics remained the name of the game. Nevertheless, they managed to stick with their grassroots methods of organization, and their influence spread.
For the last two years, students continued to act without leaders, and all decisions have been made in plenary meetings, a horizontal, non-hierarchical form of decision-making. This has been direct democracy at its best. It also represents an authentic form of political expression that transcends the impotence of the outdated options available within the existing system.
The ”Student List“ that appeared on the ballot in the recent Serbian elections emerged from the massive protests known as “Students in Blockade,” founded on September 9 with the slogan Students Are Winning. It became No. 3 on the ballot for the parliamentary election. Its program, the 11-point “Student Plan,” centers on the fight against corruption and organized crime and endorses new social measures in education, housing, and healthcare. It has been written in cooperation with experts from various fields, including farmers, doctors, teachers, social and cultural workers. According to its statute:
it is a voluntary, non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit association established for a fixed period to raise civic awareness of the importance of democracy and free and fair elections. Its goals include greater youth participation in democratic processes, monitoring elections and referendums, promoting the rule of law and freedom of speech, and holding those who break the law accountable.
The Student List consists not of students but of 250 academics, professionals, and public figures selected by student plenums, and is headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović. However, he is not, in the words of the students, the leader. In his own words, he is the first name on the Student List—though not its lead candidate. As he put it:
I don’t think that the invitation to the Student List was an invitation to be a candidate for deputy in front of a political option, but literally an invitation to get involved in the endeavour of Serbia’s victory over the mafia. The mafia stole our country, drove tens and hundreds of thousands of young people abroad, and ravaged the budget, eventually causing a tragedy in which 16 of my fellow citizens died.
In the last month, however, some actions and proclamations of the students gave pause to sympathetic observers from Serbia and neighboring countries. Such commentators are asking about students’ positions toward Russia, the EU, Kosovo, and war criminal Ratko Mladić. In an excellent article published in the Serbian independent media, Dejan Ilić describes how the younger generations are infected by their upbringing in Serbia, which has been prone to selective memory and to a victim mentality. But he continues:
There is little that can be done about that overnight. All we can do is marvel at how courageously those children stood up and confronted an arrogant, heartless regime with an excessive propensity for violence. Now that they have risen, all we can do is stand beside them and try to protect them from excessive repression… We have elections ahead of us. And in those elections, there is one, and only one, important, shared objective: to be freed from the regime headed by Vučić… These are elections for liberation… we should fight for the chance to create a normal and decent Serbia… There is a well-known rallying cry of militant democracy: no democracy for the enemies of democracy. Something similar should apply to Vučić during this campaign: no polite conversation with an enemy of all conversation and all decency.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was by no means sitting around idle during the grassroots mobilization. Over the years, he seriously damaged independent media. He placed supporters with murky, often criminal background in tents known as Ćaciland, in Pionirski park in front of the Parliament in Belgrade as an intimidation tactic, and he used all known propaganda mechanisms to label students dangerous foreign agents ready to destroy Serbia. He recently stepped down as president of Serbia with the intention of becoming prime minister.
He continued a danse macabre that has ruined all the values of a democratic, civilized country, achieving everything which he has accused students of wanting to accomplish. He sucked up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, flattered US President Donald Trump, cozied up to China as a partner, and lied to the EU.
For good measure, he manipulated his own supporters mercilessly. Vučić told them that WWIII was inevitable. He warned that Croatians were intervening in the Serbian elections, together with unnamed foreign powers. Following Trump’s recipe, he bragged about his enormous achievements and the bright future that would soon come under his leadership At the last pre-election rally of his party, he roared: “Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it… Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!”
While Vucic was addressing this rather sparsely attended rally, at least 150,000 people gathered at Slavia, one of Belgrade’s main squares, which had witnessed innumerable protests over the years. In a completely different atmosphere, one of the student speakers said, “Today is the last rally, and it’s important that we all come here to send a message of love and peace and that we see each other on the 25th at the polling stations.”
Before Serbia’s 6.45 million voters went to the polls on October 25, several different scenarios were discussed in the press at home and abroad. One was that Vučić and his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive party (SNS) would win but that mass unrest would ensue. According to another scenario, Vučić would lose and not accept the results, which could lead to state violence against opposition activists. The third was that Student List would win and face numerous challenges in their effort to dismantle the long standing and thoroughly corrupt authoritarian bureaucracy. Government manipulation, civil unrest, and institutional paralysis figured in virtually all of the analyses.
Much also depended on the turnout. If turnout went above 70 or even 80%, the Student List could benefit. According to one Dutch commentator:
If there are long lines in front of the polling stations on Sunday morning—just like earlier in Hungary this year—the elections could lead to a historic upheaval for Serbia. If many voters stay at home, there is a good chance that Vučić has weathered the biggest protest storm in years, and the autocratic leader will be able to move the country further to his hand.
On Election Day
From early morning, citizens lined up in front of the polling stations, promising a hefty turnout. The turnout was 70%. From the outset, observers reported numerous irregularities, including suspicions of vote buying.
Tough guys with balaclavas and dressed in black began to appear as the voting day progressed. More and more physical attacks on citizens and journalists in all parts of Serbia have been reported. The possibility of violence provoked by the state and the ruling party was on everybody’s mind.
But the supporters of the Student List were in high spirits. As always, they made a lot of noise, including songs, and waved red-and-white balloons and banners. But at the same time, they called on citizens not to gather near places like the center of the capital where more and more police and non-uniformed persons were gathering.
The polling stations closed at 8:00 pm, and the waiting started. Croatian political analyst and philosopher Žarko Puhovski said, a few minutes after:
In Serbia, it is very important for that regime to leave, because I really think that Vučić’s regime is not only autocratic, but has also caused damage to Serbia by primitivizing those parts of Serbia that were not primitivized even during Milosevic’s time. In all countries you have primitive and backward regions, but Vučić primitivized the whole of Serbia. And that is why it is good that this country and its citizens finally get rid of him.
And they did.
After the Elections
At 9:35 pm, Aleksandar Vučić addressed the headquarters of the Serbian Progressive Party and admitted defeat. The Student List had won with 53% of the votes, which means 141 seats in the parliament. The United Serbia party of Vučić captured only 38.8% of the vote, which amounts to 103 seats. No other parties secured seats in the parliament except for a few very small parties representing minorities.
Outside, throughout Serbia, the singing immediately increased. The blaring of car horns became deafening as citizens filled the streets to celebrate the victory, many barely believing what had just happened. While celebration round the country was gaining momentum, cameras in Belgrade filmed the men in black running away from Ćaciland, while police forces watched in silence. The only time when citizens came close to violence was when they dismantled the Ćaciland tents, which had become the symbol of Vučić’s style of governing.
Vučić’ didn’t wait long before revealing his true nature. His further comments in his concession speech are telling:
This was the validation of a revolution carried out with the direct support of various European countries and the American "deep state"—the faction that opposes President Trump… I congratulate them—though they are merely the ones carrying out the work, the "dirty work" devised by someone else to bring down a sovereign nation… You’ve succeeded for the moment. But for how long?… We will defeat this evil sooner than they think.
The Student List offers a lesson to all progressive movements around the world. Their success is the result of rebellion, energy, persistence, solidarity, courage, humor, nonviolence, utopian aspirations, and strong bottom-up organization. Their victory differs in two main respects from other comparable electoral efforts in other parts of the world. Serbian students formed a movement and not a party, and they do not have a strong, charismatic personality that could function like a father figure. And they succeeded.
The task in front of them is enormous, and it is hard to predict what the future will bring. As the poet Branko Miljković wrote, “Will freedom be able to sing as the slaves sang about her?” One can hope so.
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‘Good Day for Democracy’: Lula's Win in Brazil and Serbia Ousting Vučić Show Strength of ‘People Power’
"Israel could be next on Tuesday, then the US midterms the following week," said one human rights advocate. "The best case against the autocrats is the autocrat."
Oct 26, 2026
"There is nothing inevitable about the far right," said one former Obama administration official Sunday night as supporters of the left-wing Student List in Serbia poured into the streets of Belgrade and other cities across the Balkan country, celebrating their defeat of right-wing President Aleksandar Vučić, who has led the nation for nearly a decade and has been accused of corruption and autocratic rule.
The Student List's victory coincided with that of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was also backed by a student-led movement that marched through Rio de Janeiro and other cities in recent weeks, as US President Donald Trump was accused of election interference on behalf of right-wing Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula's opponent.
Both countries reported high voter turnout in the pivotal elections, proving, as journalist Anne Applebaum said, "that voters can alter what feels like a historical shift."
In Serbia, Vučić said it was "clear that we have lost the election,” as results showed his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had won about 105 seats while the Student List had won at least 135.
The Student List movement, officially registered by the Republic Electoral Commission as “Studentska lista—Studenti pobeđuju” (Student List—Students Win) began in November 2024 after the concrete roof of a newly renovated train station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people. Students and other Serbians blamed corruption and negligence by Vučić's government, and soon began blockades at a majority of the country's higher education institutions.
Rallies in the coming year drew hundreds of thousands of people. The political movement that grew out of the sustained protests called for an independent judiciary, a special prosecutor to hold public officials accountable, independent reviews of major infrastructure projects, a higher minimum wage, and better funding for education, healthcare, and agriculture.
A cardiologist and professor from Novi Sad, Ilija Srdanović, topped the list of 250 candidates that the Student List put forward ahead of the snap elections on Sunday, but the movement has said Srdanović will not automatically be its choice for prime minister. The list of candidates for Serbia's 250-seat Parliament includes doctors, farmers, activists, athletes, and actors.
“Never again tyrants in our country," Srdanović said after the defeat of Vučić, who was prime minister before becoming president in 2017 and has been Serbia's central political figure since 2012, developing a reputation for threatening his critics and cracking down on press freedom.
One Student List supporter, Sara, told The Guardian in Belgrade, “It’s very strange that on the very streets where the police beat us, on the streets where we retreated countless times in the face of the gendarmerie, we are now standing here as the victors."
Nebojsa Cosic said to Reuters: “The people have won! The people defeated a dictator! The people will lead Serbia!”
In Brazil, thousands rallied ahead of the runoff election between Lula and Bolsonaro, the son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt after his election loss in 2022.
Right-wing candidates won a significant number of seats in the earlier elections, which followed Trump's push to secure partnerships across Latin America—stoking fears that Bolsonaro could win Sunday's runoff and pushing students to lead pro-Lula rallies and marches across the country.
At a Copacabana Beach rally in Rio on Saturday, supporters carried a yellow and green banner that read, "We are going to turn this around!"
Isabella Graze, a retired teacher who joined a 10-million member WhatsApp group aimed at mobilizing pro-Lula voters, told The Guardian that “being a soldier in Lula’s army... means fighting for Brazilian democracy. This isn’t a normal election."
The Serbian and Brazilian elections came two days before Israelis are set to vote, potentially ending the long-running term of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an accused war criminal whose US-backed government has waged war on Gaza, killing more than 74,000 Palestinians, and pushed to violently take control of more of the occupied West Bank.
They also came just over a week before the midterm elections in the US, with Democrats pushing for congressional control to rein in Trump for the final two years of his term. The campaign has been marked by openly racist, anti-Muslim attacks by Trump and his allies on Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Republican ad claiming that Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton lied about her abusive childhood, and persistent claims by the president that the cost of living is down, contrary to all evidence.
"Feeling so much hope from the results out of Serbia and Brazil," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.). "This took tremendous people power, organizing, and grit. Now it’s time to turn our country around, too."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Sunday was "a good day for democracy."
"Israel could be next on Tuesday, then the US midterms the following week," said Roth. "The best case against the autocrats is the autocrat."
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'Nothing and No One Is Off the Table for NSPM-7,' Warns Analysis of Trump Crackdown on Dissent
“The NSPM-7 blueprint enables efficient coordination across federal agencies to disrupt our democracy and go after the greatest number of people through surveillance, investigation, and prosecution."
Oct 21, 2026
The Trump administration is using a sweeping "national security" framework to investigate and potentially prosecute political opponents, civil society groups, and people engaged in constitutionally protected activities, according to an analysis published Wednesday warning that the crackdown on dissent could intensify ahead of next month's midterm elections.
The report, “Enemies of the State: NSPM-7 and the Trump Plan to Crush Dissent,” was co-authored by Shilpa Jindia and Nora Benavidez at the advocacy group Free Press. The publication examines the yearlong implementation of President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which ostensibly targets domestic terrorism and organized political violence.
Over 28 pages, the analysis examines how the administration is coordinating federal agencies to target people whose political beliefs or activism conflict with Trump’s agenda. Activities potentially caught up in the crackdown include protesting immigration enforcement, distributing information about constitutional rights, monitoring immigration officials, and supporting election integrity.
“The NSPM-7 blueprint enables efficient coordination across federal agencies to disrupt our democracy and go after the greatest number of people through surveillance, investigation, and prosecution,” said Jindia, who is Free Press' policy counsel. “The aim is to levy the heaviest penalties across agencies to achieve the harshest sentences."
"While the methods, severity, and application of the blueprint are explicit, the framework sets no standards for application—whether physical, geographic, thematic, or constitutional," she added. "As a result, nothing and no one is off the table for NSPM-7 to sweep up and target.”
Although NSPM-7 by itself does not grant the government new legal powers, the report contends that the framework enables more aggressive coordination among existing agencies, empowering prosecutors and investigators to work together against perceived political adversaries.
Benavidez, Free Press' senior counsel, warned that the approaching midterm elections—whose integrity Trump has baselessly attacked in a similar manner to his "Big Lie" that Democrats "stole" the 2020 presidential contest—offer particularly dangerous opening for the administration to intensify its crackdown on dissent.
“The midterm elections are at our doorstep; the president is eagerly pursuing election-fraud narratives, telling voters he will pay them off if they vote for Republicans—and leveraging his executive power to sway election results if he can,” she said. “Already [Department of] Homeland Security officials have investigated more than 150 nonprofit organizations under the guise of ‘election integrity.’"
"It’s by no means outside the realm of possibility that NSPM-7 becomes the vehicle to shut down civic engagement and political expression in the weeks and months to come," Benavidez added.
The analysis urges Congress and civil society groups to take action to defend constitutional freedoms and prevent further expansion of the crackdown.
Earlier this year, dozens of Democrats in the House of Representatives launched an inquiry into the US State Department's "ideologically driven visa restriction policy" and the Treasury Department's "pledged financial enforcement mechanisms directed against civil society."
"Trump has made clear his intentions to interfere in the November midterm elections," Jindia and Benavidez wrote. "Losing control of Congress could subject the administration to investigations and hearings, including potential impeachment hearings of Trump and his Cabinet officials."
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'Go Vote': Poll Shows 70% of US Voters Doubt Trump Will Accept GOP Walloping in Midterms
"Too many Americans fought and died for democracy. Trump’s authoritarianism will not prevail," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "We WILL win this election whether Trump likes it or not."
Oct 20, 2026
Seven in 10 Americans doubt President Donald Trump would accept the results of next month's midterm elections if Republicans suffer major losses, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Tuesday that spurred one progressive senator to implore people to get out and vote.
The poll, conducted October 9-13 among 2,545 US adults, found that just 28% were very or somewhat confident that Trump would accept the election results if Republicans lose, while 70% were not confident. Half of respondents said they were "not at all" confident he would accept a decisive GOP defeat.
While an overwhelming majority of Democratic respondents— 94%—and 77% of independents doubted Trump would accept a Republican midterm loss, 36% of Republicans also expressed doubts. Among Republicans, 63% said they were confident Trump would accept the results, although only a quarter were very confident.
Sixty-one percent of respondents also said they believe Trump is not committed to ensuring free and fair elections, up from 56% last year.
Still, the new polling suggests that confidence in Trump's willingness to respect electoral outcomes is substantially weaker than confidence in the voting process itself, as about 6 in 10 respondents said they were confident the midterms would be conducted fairly and accurately, while 65% said they believed that votes would be correctly counted.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) responded to the poll in a social media post urging Americans to vote in order to thwart Trump's attacks on democracy.
"Too many Americans fought and died for democracy," Sanders asserted. "Trump’s authoritarianism will not prevail. Go vote. We WILL win this election whether Trump likes it or not."
The poll's findings come as Democrats seek to regain control of Congress, and Trump continues to promote baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, which his own administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency called “the most secure in American history.”
According to the poll, Democrats are leading Republicans by eight percentage points among likely voters in congressional races, 52% to 44%. Trump has continued campaigning for Republican candidates as his approval ratings have tanked amid dissatisfaction over the economy and the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran.
Trump campaigned on promises to tackle the affordability crisis and not wage new wars. As of last month, the benchmark consumer price index has soared by nearly 30% since Biden's administration, while Trump has ordered military attacks against 10 countries during his two terms—more than any president in modern history.
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Poll: Majority Fear Trump as Dictator
The survey also found that people in the country see the president's far-right MAGA movement as "more threatening" than Democratic Socialists of America.
Oct 20, 2026
A majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump is a “potentially dangerous dictator” whose power must be checked, a new national survey released Tuesday revealed amid deepening public pessimism about the country's direction ahead of next month's midterm elections.
The 2026 American Values Survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institution, found that 58% of Americans agree that “President Trump is a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.”
That's up from 52% who said the president is a possibly dangerous dictator in last year's survey.
Among Democrats, 90% consider Trump a dangerous dictator, while 64% of independents and 20% of Republicans felt the same way.
Two-thirds (68%) of respondents said their opinion of Trump has mostly worsened over the last two years, including in communities that had been among his core supporters. Trump’s favorability among Hispanic Protestants has dropped from 51% in 2024 to 31%, and Hispanic Trump voters were twice as likely as white Trump voters to say they regret supporting the president.
“The coalition that put Donald Trump back in the White House is breaking apart, with 76% of Americans saying the economy is on the wrong track,” PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman said in a statement. “His 2024 gains are clearly not a long-term realignment, as we see Black, Hispanic, and young male voters moving back to Democrats.”
Meanwhile, just 37% of those surveyed agreed with the statement that Trump is “a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.”
Regarding one of those powers—the ability to set immigration policy—a majority of Republicans (62%) and white evangelicals (53%) said they support locking up undocumented immigrants in "internment camps," a policy backed by 16% of Democrats and 28% of independents.
Nearly half of those surveyed (48%) said the Make America Great Again movement "poses a serious threat to the country," compared with 36% who said the same of the Democratic Socialists of America. More than 8 in 10 Democrats (82%) see MAGA as a serious threat, while 7 in 10 Republicans (72%) said the same of the DSA.
The survey showed that only about half (52%) of respondents have confidence in US elections, and that 82% of Republicans believe that the biggest problem in the nation's elections is "ineligible people casting votes," while 80% of Democrats said the biggest problem is "eligible voters being denied the right to vote."
More than one-third (35%) of respondents said that “if there are serious concerns about voter fraud in a local voting location, the president should order federal agents to seize the ballots and take over the vote counting,” with 6 in 10 Republicans agreeing with the statement.
A slim majority (51%) of respondents were more likely to agree with the statement, “Socialism is best understood as a system in which the government provides benefits such as health insurance, retirement support, and access to free higher education” than with the statement, “Socialism is best understood as a system in which the government controls major parts of the economy, such as utilities, transportation, communications, and banks," with which 43% concurred.
Four in ten Americans (41%) agree that capitalism is no longer working for average Americans and the country should consider adopting some aspects of socialism – including nearly half of Americans ages 18-29 (48%).
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— PRRI (@prri.org) October 20, 2026 at 5:43 AM
The survey showed growing dissatisfaction regarding the country's trajectory. Seven in 10 respondents (71%) said the United States is headed in the wrong direction, while 76% said the same of the economy. Both figures have risen substantially since last year.
The survey also found that an "empathy gap"—the level of belief in the importance of empathy—is growing between white conservatives and other Americans. While two-thirds of Americans, including 84% of Democrats and 70% of independents, said they believe that “empathy is a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society," only 54% of Republicans and 48% of white evangelical Protestants agreed.
Fifty-four percent of white evangelical Protestants said they believe the opposite: that “empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.”
“As Christian nationalist leaders attack the sentiment of empathy, a disturbing ‘empathy gap’ has opened, separating Republicans and white evangelicals from most other Americans,” PRRI president and founder Robert P. Jones said in a statement. “Such orchestrated attacks are typical of violent authoritarian movements and should be disturbing to all who care about the moral foundations of our pluralistic democracy.”
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Amid GOP Midterm Woes, Trump Allies—Including Convicted Election Denier—Push for Martial Law
The president hasn't exactly assuaged the worries of those who fear he could go to extreme measures to maintain his party's grip on power.
Oct 16, 2026
As President Donald Trump's broken promises to end the affordability crisis and not wage new wars drag Republicans down in the polls ahead of next month's midterm elections, people close to the president are reportedly urging him to declare martial law in the name of preventing voter fraud, an issue that's exceedingly rare and statistically negligible.
Axios' Brittany Gibson reported Friday that Republican activists with Trump's ear are advocating extraordinary measures to prevent what they insist, without evidence, could be a rigged midterm election.
Among them is attorney Peter Ticktin, who has been Trump's friend since high school and who said during a September 30 video call for MAGA election activists that "there would have to be martial law" in the event of "another rigged election."
Ticktin was referring to the 2020 contest, which the Trump administration's own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) called "the most secure in American history."
Trump's "Big Lie" that Democrats stole the election fueled the deadly January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Pressed on the matter by Axios, Ticktin doubled down on endorsing extreme measures, saying there will "probably need to be commandeering of ballots and election equipment to make sure that we can get to the bottom of it before anything further occurs."
Ticktin represented former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted in 2024 of seven felony and misdemeanor counts arising from a plot to illegally access her county's election system in an effort to investigate unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Peters—whose 9-year prison sentence was commuted in May by Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis—was also on the September 30 call. She has been pushing for the replacement of electronic voting systems with hand-marked paper ballots tallied by manual recounts.
This, despite the Trump-era CISA saying after the 2020 election that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Trump fired CISA Director Christopher Krebs after he repeatedly defended the integrity of the election in the face of mounting MAGA misinformation in the weeks before the Capitol attack.
According to a report published Tuesday by Votebeat, Peters has said she traveled to Washington seven times and met with senior officials at the Justice and Commerce departments. She and Ticktin also visited Trump at the White House in June, and Peters met with the president again this month.
Also on the September 20 video call was Cleta Mitchell, who participated in Trump's infamous January 2021 phone call in which the president pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to reverse his narrow loss in the state. Mitchell now heads the right-wing Election Integrity Network and is pushing the administration to use federal authority to force changes to election procedures.
“I can call the president anytime I want to—and I have,” said Mitchell, who declined to say when she last spoke to Trump. “I told the president this: I wish that the people in your administration knew or cared as much about election integrity as you do.”
Other election deniers, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, have called on Trump to issue a national emergency declaration to ban voting machines or even suspend the election—something most legal experts say he cannot do.
"Emergency powers are not just a blank check for the president to go do whatever they want," Derek Tisler, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice's elections and government program, told Axios. "The president still has to act within the Constitution and within statutes set by Congress."
Election fraud is an exceptionally rare occurrence. A Brennan Center study of voter fraud research found that studies put the incidence of voter impersonation fraud at between 0.0003% and 0.0025%, while a Washington Post analysis cited by the center found just 31 credible instances of voter impersonation fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast between 2000 and 2014.
While isolated instances of election fraud do occur, researchers have repeatedly found that they are nowhere near the scale required to alter the outcome of a national election. Many allegations turn out to be administrative errors, mistaken records, or unsubstantiated claims.
There is also no credible evidence that foreign-manufactured voting machine components have been used to orchestrate the sort of nationwide electoral conspiracy described by Ticktin and other MAGA allies.
Calls for extraordinary election interventions come as Trump and Republicans face deep voter dissatisfaction. A Financial Times–Focaldata poll published earlier this week found Trump's overall approval rating at 34%, with only 25% of registered voters approving of his handling of the economy and roughly 20% approving of his management of inflation.
The president's economic woes have been compounded by the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran, which has driven up consumer costs—especially for fuel—amid an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
According to Reuters, consumer prices rose 3.7% this year through September, while gasoline prices jumped 9.1% in a single month. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 78% of Americans blamed Trump's policies for inflation.
All of this has Republicans increasingly concerned about losing control of Congress.
Citing its own polling, Fox News reported Wednesday that "if the election were today, 54% of voters say they would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 45% would support the Republican. That is outside the margin of error and is a wider lead than last month, when Democrats were ahead by 51%-44%."
All of this has left numerous election experts worried that the president could resort to extreme measures. He hasn't exactly assuaged their concerns.
In an August interview, conservative broadcaster Wayne Allyn Root on Real America's Voice asked Trump about declaring a national security emergency ahead of the midterms.
"Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK?" Trump replied. "I'll leave it at that."
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Should We Fear Communism or the Authoritarianism in the Republican Party?
President Donald Trump has reenergized the Red Scare by labeling Democrats as communists, but this is ironic as today’s real threat is Trump’s authoritarianism and his dictatorial goals.
Oct 16, 2026
In his 1951 treatise, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer saw the fanatical leaders of communist and fascist states—Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler specifically—as fundamentally products of the same cloth, cloth different from, he quoted, the “Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss.” Stalin may have been a communist and Hitler a fascist, but similarly each a dictator.
Stalin forged a centralized, and brutal, control of the national economy under the guise of continuing the proletarian class struggle earlier led by Vladimir Lenin. Hitler led a racial struggle murdering millions of Jews and others with the goal of establishing a nation for the so-called Aryan race.
Today, with the midterm elections in November, President Donald Trump frames Democrats as the embodiment of communism, as the authoritarian threat America faces. This while Trump has also praised the communist leader, Xi Jinping, in China; Vladimir Putin in Russia; and the right-wing leadership of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, among similar leaders.
the hypocrisy is clear in Trump saying if Democrats win in the midterm elections they would threaten individual liberty as a caucus of communists.
And what is the leadership style shared by Orbán, Jinping, and Putin? Authoritarianism is the correct answer. Leaders, in Hoffer’s treatise, of the same cloth. Cloth Trump appears to want to dress himself in.
Since the defeat of Hitler, with the advent of the Cold War after World War II, communism has been seen as the major threat to the American way of life. Concern with the global spread of communism, after all, framed the context leading the US into the Vietnam War.
Richard Nixon, when the vice president, wrote on the threat of communism opening his essay in 1960 stating that, I quote, the “major problem confronting the people of the United States and free peoples everywhere in the last half of the 20th century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the militant aggressiveness of international communism.”
Nixon’s warning followed the Red Scare that gripped America after World War II, often referred to as McCarthyism for the Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy’s singular claim to fame, and eventual disgrace, was his anti-communism agenda in the 1950s as the chair of the Senate Permanent Investigation Subcommittee with his allegations of communist infiltration in the US government, the Army and, notoriously, Hollywood.
Cometh Today Trump’s McCarthyism
President Trump in his speech on July 4, during this year’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States on the National Mall, hailed the triumph over both fascism and communism saying that “after we vanquished fascism [in World War II], Americans stood against the evil of communism in the Cold War.”
Ever since, as far as I am aware, he hasn’t mentioned any war against fascism. He targeted only communism in the reminder of his speech on July 4, telling the audience: “America will never be a communist country. Won’t happen... It’s like a cancer. You have to cut it out and you got to cut it out fast.”
Trump has polished his aim as the midterm elections in November have grown closer, alluding to the Democratic Party becoming the seat of communism in America. At the Republican midterm convention in Texas on September 9, Trump said that (his words) “the Democrat establishment has been overthrown and replaced by crazed lunatics and radicals. They call themselves Democrat socialists, but actually they’re communists.” Then he added that if “they win the greatest legislative body in history will for the first time ever be controlled by a communist caucus.”
In labeling Democratic candidates as communist, Trump diverts attention from failures in his policies and his growing and sustained disapproval.
The backdrop to Trump’s painting votes for Democrats as a vote for a communist takeover of the United States has been the emergence of a small minority of Democratic candidates with membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), following the success of Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s DSA-member mayor.
With that backdrop fueling Trump’s anti-communism rhetoric, other Democratic candidates in the midterm elections unaffiliated with DSA, like Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, have even had to emphasize they are not socialists and embrace capitalism.
Opinions of Americans on Socialism (and Authoritarianism)
The terms “socialism” and “communism” seem for many to represent the same entity, though in practice meaningful distinctions exist. In any case, polls have focused on opinions of socialism.
The subtitle to a research report in 2022 from Pew Research Center on views of socialism among Americans reads: “Many Democrats say socialism meets people’s basic needs; Republicans say it restricts individual freedoms.”
Among Democrats and those Democrat leaning in 2019, 65% reported viewing socialism positively, with 57% so viewing in 2022. Only 15% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters held a positive view of socialism in 2019, with 14% doing so in 2022.
In a more recent survey by Gallup in 2026, 65% of Democrats had an overall positive view of socialism compared with 45% among Independents and 14% of Republicans.
Regarding Authoritarianism. In her 2016 article at Vox, Amanda Taub chronicled research on how the rise of American authoritarianism, especially in the Republican Party, preceded and fertilized Trump’s rise to power. She highlighted the work of social scientists like Stanley Feldman, who saw authoritarianism more as a personality trait than simply a political preference. A trait highly valuing hierarchy, order, and conformity over other attributes. A trait Feldman measured by four questions on child-rearing goals, such as, “Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-reliance?”
Vox commissioned a study in 2016 on the relationship between authoritarianism and perceived threats to one’s way of life. Summarizing some of the findings, Taub wrote:
…that 44% of white respondents nationwide scored as "high" or "very high" authoritarians, [and that] people in this 44% only vote or otherwise act as authoritarians once triggered by some perceived threat, physical or social. But that latency is part of how, over the past few decades, authoritarians have quietly become a powerful political constituency without anyone realizing it.
Over 65% of those scoring highest on Feldman’s authoritarianism scale were Republican voters. Whereas individuals whose scores were the most non-authoritarian, by always selecting the non-authoritarian parenting answers, were almost 75% Democrats.
These results, Taub emphasized, didn’t mean authoritarian-leaning folks were inherently Republicans. Rather, changes in the Republican Party’s platform attracted more authoritarians. Becoming the party promising “to stave off social change and, if necessary, to impose order happened to speak powerfully to voters with authoritarian inclinations,” Taub wrote. On the other hand, Taub wrote, “Democrats, by contrast, have positioned themselves as the party of civil rights, equality, and social progress—in other words, as the party of social change, a position that not only fails to attract but actively repels change-averse authoritarians.”
A more recent study in 2024 by the Public Religion Research Institute had related findings using a different measure of authoritarianism, the Right-Wing Authoritarian Scale. Among Republicans, 67% scored high on this authoritarianism scale, compared with only 35% among independents and 28% of Democrats.
A Perplexing Phenomenon. Those with more authoritarian inclinations, that is Republicans, are also more likely to view socialism as an authoritarian menace threatening their freedoms.
Perhaps the answer to this riddle is that the scope of concern over freedom among those with ingrained authoritarian traits may be more limited to concerns over their freedoms only, not freedoms among other groups; a hypothesis worthy of further study.
Whatever the case, the hypocrisy is clear in Trump saying if Democrats win in the midterm elections they would threaten individual liberty as a caucus of communists.
The Republican Party remains today a major seat of authoritarianism in the United States, and the supportive arm of Trump’s would-be dictatorial rule threatening individual freedoms.
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Ilhan Omar’s Office Slams Trump Deportation Plot as ‘Authoritarian Move to Silence an Opponent’
"To Trump, no American value or principle is too important to be shredded for his own personal gain."
Oct 15, 2026
The office of Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed the Trump administration on Thursday over its reported plot to have the Minnesota Democrat stripped of her US citizenship.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the raid on Omar's home carried out earlier this week by Department of Homeland Security agents was part of and effort to build "a case to strip her of her US citizenship and ultimately deport her."
"The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the US from Somalia decades ago," the Journal explained. "Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father."
Omar spokesperson Jackie Rogers responded to the report by accusing President Donald Trump of engaging in "desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power."
"This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade," Rogers told HuffPost. "He has lied about her family, about her immigration history, and about her love of this country."
Rogers also accused Trump of acting like a dictator by singling out a member of the opposition party for punishment.
"This isn’t a legitimate law enforcement action," said Rogers, "it is an authoritarian move to silence an opponent right before an election where he and his party will be rejected by Americans in historic proportions... To Trump, no American value or principle is too important to be shredded for his own personal gain."
Author John Ganz on Thursday published an analysis of the reported Omar deportation plot, which he said is "undoubtedly driven by racial and religious animus" and also "a serious assault on the constitutional order being carried out through the executive branch’s legal and bureaucratic machinery."
Ganz argued that a serious attempt to strip Omar of her citizenship and remove her from the country would be a major escalation from the Trump administration toward establishing an outright totalitarian state.
"Authoritarian governments suppress political opposition and deprive their subjects of particular rights," Ganz explained. "Totalitarian movements aspire to something much more radical: the destruction of the independent political and juridical personhood. They attack not merely the liberties of particular citizens they seek to repress, but the concept of citizenship itself—and then, ultimately, the concept of shared humanity."
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Colombians Defy Presidential Decree 'Criminalizing Protest' in Rallies Against Right-Wing Government
Leftist formerde President Gustavo Petro called the nationwide protests "a wake-up call" for Colombia's "tyrannical" government.
Oct 14, 2026
Colombians took to the streets Wednesday to protest the right-wing government of President Abelardo de la Espriella, denouncing austerity measures, renewed ties with Israel amid its genocidal assault on Gaza, and policies protesters fear will roll back hard-won social and worker rights.
The nationwide mobilizations—which are backed by trade unions, Indigenous organizations, students, and political opposition groups—came one day after de la Espriella signed a controversial decree expanding police power to violently quash demonstrations.
Leftist former President Gustavo Petro joined demonstrators in Bogotá, where protesters carried Colombian and Palestinian flags and condemned the government's rapprochement with the United States and Israel.
In a message addressed to Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara, Petro said: “A decree without prior public notice is not valid. Mr. Lara, stop wasting time and study law again.”
De la Espriella's foreign policy has marked a sharp break with Petro's government, which severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 2024 over its assault on Gaza and suspended Israeli arms imports. De la Espriella has restored relations, reopened trade ties, and moved to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights. On Wednesday, Colombia also opened an embassy in Jerusalem, a deeply controversial move given the city's disputed status, with Palestinians also claiming it as their capital.
The de la Espriella administration's economic policies have also fueled the new demonstrations. Protesters voiced opposition to funding cuts affecting public institutions, including the National Learning Service, the agency responsible for reintegrating former combatants, and electricity subsidies—particularly in the Caribbean region. Labor organizations and student groups are also demanding protections for workers, public education, and university autonomy.
In stark contrast, under Petro—Colombia's first left-wing president—the government expanded access to public universities, increased the minimum wage, and improved labor protections.
The protests are taking place amid growing alarm over de la Espriella's Decree 1525, signed Tuesday, which revises police protocols for responding to demonstrations.
Ana Erazo, a Colombian lawmaker from the leftist Historical Pact party, slammed the decree for "criminalizing protest."
The president's order establishes a five-stage protest intervention framework, which starts with "preventive engagement" and dialogue and escalates toward use of force. However, it specifies that, under certain circumstances involving violence, officers can skip the dialogue phase before responding with force.
While insisting that the right to peaceful protest is guaranteed by Colombia's Constitution, de la Espriella said Tuesday: “Never again a permanent blockade of a highway. Never again an urban bus lane turned into a trench. Attacking a person, throwing objects to injure someone, detaining someone, or using a child in a protest is not protest; it is a crime and will be treated as such."
In the streets of Colombia's cities, demonstrators decried what they described as an erosion of rights under de la Espriella.
“I feel like we have no guarantees," teacher Ester Guerra told Agence France-Presse in the capital Bogotá, "and that the little we did obtain... we’re about to lose."
Jimena Rodriguez, a 20-year-old student protester, said she believes that de la Espriella “just wants to hand the country over to the United States, to Israel."
"I feel dark times are coming," she added.
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