Bolivia's self-declared interim president Jeanine Anez talks during a conference at the presidential palace on November 13, 2019 in La Paz, Bolivia. (Photo: Javier Mamani/Getty Images)
May 28, 2020
Returning to La Paz, Bolivia after last November's coup was like returning to the scene of a crime. Since Bolivian President Evo Morales was removed from power, right-wing interim President Jeanine Anez has led the country with an iron fist.
State repression immediately following the coup left dozens dead and the government has been throwing political enemies behind bars. The Anez administration, now using the pandemic as a pretext for further crackdowns on dissent, is part of a rising right across the Americas.
The fierce conflicts following the October 20 election had left their mark on the city when I visited in March. Intersections were scarred from barricade bonfires. Graffiti across La Paz denounced the "Murderer Anez." A general sense of fear hung in the air. Rumors of government surveillance and political arrests were rampant. Everyday life continued as usual in the downtown traffic and sun, while state violence was meted out in the shadows.
One morning, I took the city's aerial cable car system to El Alto to meet with journalist Julio Mamani. I passed hundreds of miners marching into La Paz from El Alto, their helmets shining in the sun, their yells blending with bus horns. Above, participants in a women's march gathered, wearing green bandanas and denouncing both Morales and Anez for rising feminicides.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism.
Mamani compared the Anez government to past Bolivian dictators. "I was a witness of the 1979 Massacre of Todos Santos of General Busch. Now [state repression] is more sophisticated. They won't hunt you down in the same manner. They use other forms, and in this case, it is intimidation."
"I call it a kind of revenge," he said.
The country arrived at this moment because of the coordinated efforts of the right. But many different elements converged to oust one of the most popular presidents in Bolivian history.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism. The indigenous rural poor benefitted greatly from this political project, and it's from this sector that the MAS enjoyed its base of support.
But in the eyes of Bolivia's racist right, this was a crime. They wanted their power and profits back.
Certain negative actions and policies of the MAS government over these years in power also contributed to its own crisis of legitimacy in the lead up to the October 2019 elections. Critiques from the left and various movements have been levelled against the MAS government for years for the rise in violence against women, the harmful aspects of deepening extractivism, the handling of last year's mass fires in the country, and state corruption and abuses of power.
"To understand what's happening right now in Bolivia, it's key to also understand the process of increased division and degradation that the social movements suffered during the tenure of Evo Morales," Bolivian sociologist and historian Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui wrote in November of last year. "The movements who were initially the president's support base were divided and degraded by a left that would allow only one possibility and wouldn't allow autonomy."
Such critiques and issues accumulated over the years. A breaking point was when Morales ignored the results of a 2016 referendum in which a majority of the population voted against allowing him to run again for president in 2019. In the lead up to the October 20, 2019 election, the MAS and Morales were already mired in a crisis of legitimacy, making them an easier target for the right, which had been consolidating forces and capitalizing off of the errors of the MAS.
Meanwhile, the opposition promoted a narrative about the likelihood of fraud in the weeks leading up to the election. The issue of fraud during the October 20th elections, which indicated Morales won another term, has been widely debated and investigated. Many of the people I spoke with in La Paz in March did not believe "monumental" fraud had been committed by the MAS, as the opposition claimed, but that a "typical" low level of irregularities had taken place. Regardless of the extent or existence of fraud, the Organization of American States strategically threw gasoline on the fire during a critical moment of the October crisis with their early claims of fraud, pushing the country into violence.
Following the election, protesters against Morales allied with right-wing leader Fernando Camacho and other racist figures, fomenting destabilization and violence in the country in an effort to force Morales out of office. These efforts ultimately created the pretext for a police and military intervention in the name of order, which is exactly what happened. On November 8, police across the country mutinied against the government, and the military "suggested" Morales step down on November 10.
Within this climate of violence and threats, Morales and other MAS leaders were forced to flee or go into hiding. Fearing for his life, Morales left the country for Mexico on November 10. The right, having planned for a seizure of the government, took advantage of the power vacuum and entered office with the crucial blessing of the Bolivian armed forces and the US embassy.
The coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Right-wing Senator Jeanine Anez declared herself president in front of an empty Congress on November 12. She celebrated entering office holding a massive Bible. "The Bible has returned to the government palace," she declared. "My commitment is to return democracy and tranquility to the country." Days later, state repression left over a dozen unarmed protesters and bystanders dead in Senkata and Sacaba, key areas of resistance to the coup regime.
Various elements contributed to the coup, from the MAS's crisis of legitimacy to the resurgence and orchestrations of the Bolivian right. Yet the coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Following Anez's seizure of power, Bolivia has endured the worst state violence and political persecution it has seen in decades.
"They're criminalizing social protest and social leaders--all of them are under severe investigations," Bolivian journalist Fernando Molina explained to me at a cafe in La Paz. "If they are found to be linked to Evo Morales, they are detained and investigated. This fascist society uses justice so that their lynchings are not so vulgar, but rather more institutional. It's a disaster for human rights."
"There's a 'Bolsonarization' of Bolivia," Molina explained, referring to Brazil's far-right President Bolsonaro. "It's the Latin American version of the alt-right in the US, Trumpism."
The coup and Anez's government empowered this movement. "In general," he said, "I see a right-wing movement, anti-institutional, anti-party, pro-arms, pro-Trump, catholic or evangelicals, as in the case of Anez, also Camacho, the Santa Cruz leader. Anti-gay movements, anti-feminist - those groups are very powerful and they were consolidated by these actions."
The Anez government threatens to roll back major progressive policies of the MAS, as well as victories won in the streets by Bolivia's broad social, labor, and indigenous movements.
"The coup d'etat is not just against the state, the government, but also the social movement organizations," Aymara feminist activist Adriana Guzman explained last November.
"What we lose is the possibility of carrying forward this process of transformation alongside the state," Guzman said. "But we don't lose hope. We don't lose conviction, we don't lose our dreams, we don't lose the urgency of making another world possible. It is much more difficult in a fascistic state, but we will continue to do it."
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Benjamin Dangl
Benjamin Dangl is a Journalism & Communication Lecturer at University of Vermont. He has a PhD in Latin American history from McGill University and has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America for over fifteen years, covering politics and protest movements for outlets such as Common Dreams, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Nation, Salon, Vice, and NACLA Report on the Americas. He is the author of the books "The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia;" "Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America;" "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia," all published by AK Press. Follow him on Twitter: @bendangl
Returning to La Paz, Bolivia after last November's coup was like returning to the scene of a crime. Since Bolivian President Evo Morales was removed from power, right-wing interim President Jeanine Anez has led the country with an iron fist.
State repression immediately following the coup left dozens dead and the government has been throwing political enemies behind bars. The Anez administration, now using the pandemic as a pretext for further crackdowns on dissent, is part of a rising right across the Americas.
The fierce conflicts following the October 20 election had left their mark on the city when I visited in March. Intersections were scarred from barricade bonfires. Graffiti across La Paz denounced the "Murderer Anez." A general sense of fear hung in the air. Rumors of government surveillance and political arrests were rampant. Everyday life continued as usual in the downtown traffic and sun, while state violence was meted out in the shadows.
One morning, I took the city's aerial cable car system to El Alto to meet with journalist Julio Mamani. I passed hundreds of miners marching into La Paz from El Alto, their helmets shining in the sun, their yells blending with bus horns. Above, participants in a women's march gathered, wearing green bandanas and denouncing both Morales and Anez for rising feminicides.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism.
Mamani compared the Anez government to past Bolivian dictators. "I was a witness of the 1979 Massacre of Todos Santos of General Busch. Now [state repression] is more sophisticated. They won't hunt you down in the same manner. They use other forms, and in this case, it is intimidation."
"I call it a kind of revenge," he said.
The country arrived at this moment because of the coordinated efforts of the right. But many different elements converged to oust one of the most popular presidents in Bolivian history.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism. The indigenous rural poor benefitted greatly from this political project, and it's from this sector that the MAS enjoyed its base of support.
But in the eyes of Bolivia's racist right, this was a crime. They wanted their power and profits back.
Certain negative actions and policies of the MAS government over these years in power also contributed to its own crisis of legitimacy in the lead up to the October 2019 elections. Critiques from the left and various movements have been levelled against the MAS government for years for the rise in violence against women, the harmful aspects of deepening extractivism, the handling of last year's mass fires in the country, and state corruption and abuses of power.
"To understand what's happening right now in Bolivia, it's key to also understand the process of increased division and degradation that the social movements suffered during the tenure of Evo Morales," Bolivian sociologist and historian Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui wrote in November of last year. "The movements who were initially the president's support base were divided and degraded by a left that would allow only one possibility and wouldn't allow autonomy."
Such critiques and issues accumulated over the years. A breaking point was when Morales ignored the results of a 2016 referendum in which a majority of the population voted against allowing him to run again for president in 2019. In the lead up to the October 20, 2019 election, the MAS and Morales were already mired in a crisis of legitimacy, making them an easier target for the right, which had been consolidating forces and capitalizing off of the errors of the MAS.
Meanwhile, the opposition promoted a narrative about the likelihood of fraud in the weeks leading up to the election. The issue of fraud during the October 20th elections, which indicated Morales won another term, has been widely debated and investigated. Many of the people I spoke with in La Paz in March did not believe "monumental" fraud had been committed by the MAS, as the opposition claimed, but that a "typical" low level of irregularities had taken place. Regardless of the extent or existence of fraud, the Organization of American States strategically threw gasoline on the fire during a critical moment of the October crisis with their early claims of fraud, pushing the country into violence.
Following the election, protesters against Morales allied with right-wing leader Fernando Camacho and other racist figures, fomenting destabilization and violence in the country in an effort to force Morales out of office. These efforts ultimately created the pretext for a police and military intervention in the name of order, which is exactly what happened. On November 8, police across the country mutinied against the government, and the military "suggested" Morales step down on November 10.
Within this climate of violence and threats, Morales and other MAS leaders were forced to flee or go into hiding. Fearing for his life, Morales left the country for Mexico on November 10. The right, having planned for a seizure of the government, took advantage of the power vacuum and entered office with the crucial blessing of the Bolivian armed forces and the US embassy.
The coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Right-wing Senator Jeanine Anez declared herself president in front of an empty Congress on November 12. She celebrated entering office holding a massive Bible. "The Bible has returned to the government palace," she declared. "My commitment is to return democracy and tranquility to the country." Days later, state repression left over a dozen unarmed protesters and bystanders dead in Senkata and Sacaba, key areas of resistance to the coup regime.
Various elements contributed to the coup, from the MAS's crisis of legitimacy to the resurgence and orchestrations of the Bolivian right. Yet the coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Following Anez's seizure of power, Bolivia has endured the worst state violence and political persecution it has seen in decades.
"They're criminalizing social protest and social leaders--all of them are under severe investigations," Bolivian journalist Fernando Molina explained to me at a cafe in La Paz. "If they are found to be linked to Evo Morales, they are detained and investigated. This fascist society uses justice so that their lynchings are not so vulgar, but rather more institutional. It's a disaster for human rights."
"There's a 'Bolsonarization' of Bolivia," Molina explained, referring to Brazil's far-right President Bolsonaro. "It's the Latin American version of the alt-right in the US, Trumpism."
The coup and Anez's government empowered this movement. "In general," he said, "I see a right-wing movement, anti-institutional, anti-party, pro-arms, pro-Trump, catholic or evangelicals, as in the case of Anez, also Camacho, the Santa Cruz leader. Anti-gay movements, anti-feminist - those groups are very powerful and they were consolidated by these actions."
The Anez government threatens to roll back major progressive policies of the MAS, as well as victories won in the streets by Bolivia's broad social, labor, and indigenous movements.
"The coup d'etat is not just against the state, the government, but also the social movement organizations," Aymara feminist activist Adriana Guzman explained last November.
"What we lose is the possibility of carrying forward this process of transformation alongside the state," Guzman said. "But we don't lose hope. We don't lose conviction, we don't lose our dreams, we don't lose the urgency of making another world possible. It is much more difficult in a fascistic state, but we will continue to do it."
Benjamin Dangl
Benjamin Dangl is a Journalism & Communication Lecturer at University of Vermont. He has a PhD in Latin American history from McGill University and has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America for over fifteen years, covering politics and protest movements for outlets such as Common Dreams, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Nation, Salon, Vice, and NACLA Report on the Americas. He is the author of the books "The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia;" "Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America;" "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia," all published by AK Press. Follow him on Twitter: @bendangl
Returning to La Paz, Bolivia after last November's coup was like returning to the scene of a crime. Since Bolivian President Evo Morales was removed from power, right-wing interim President Jeanine Anez has led the country with an iron fist.
State repression immediately following the coup left dozens dead and the government has been throwing political enemies behind bars. The Anez administration, now using the pandemic as a pretext for further crackdowns on dissent, is part of a rising right across the Americas.
The fierce conflicts following the October 20 election had left their mark on the city when I visited in March. Intersections were scarred from barricade bonfires. Graffiti across La Paz denounced the "Murderer Anez." A general sense of fear hung in the air. Rumors of government surveillance and political arrests were rampant. Everyday life continued as usual in the downtown traffic and sun, while state violence was meted out in the shadows.
One morning, I took the city's aerial cable car system to El Alto to meet with journalist Julio Mamani. I passed hundreds of miners marching into La Paz from El Alto, their helmets shining in the sun, their yells blending with bus horns. Above, participants in a women's march gathered, wearing green bandanas and denouncing both Morales and Anez for rising feminicides.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism.
Mamani compared the Anez government to past Bolivian dictators. "I was a witness of the 1979 Massacre of Todos Santos of General Busch. Now [state repression] is more sophisticated. They won't hunt you down in the same manner. They use other forms, and in this case, it is intimidation."
"I call it a kind of revenge," he said.
The country arrived at this moment because of the coordinated efforts of the right. But many different elements converged to oust one of the most popular presidents in Bolivian history.
President Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party governed the country for 14 years. During that time, the MAS dramatically reduced poverty, used funds from the Bolivia's vast natural resource wealth for popular social programs, and exerted economic and political sovereignty in the face of US imperialism and global capitalism. The indigenous rural poor benefitted greatly from this political project, and it's from this sector that the MAS enjoyed its base of support.
But in the eyes of Bolivia's racist right, this was a crime. They wanted their power and profits back.
Certain negative actions and policies of the MAS government over these years in power also contributed to its own crisis of legitimacy in the lead up to the October 2019 elections. Critiques from the left and various movements have been levelled against the MAS government for years for the rise in violence against women, the harmful aspects of deepening extractivism, the handling of last year's mass fires in the country, and state corruption and abuses of power.
"To understand what's happening right now in Bolivia, it's key to also understand the process of increased division and degradation that the social movements suffered during the tenure of Evo Morales," Bolivian sociologist and historian Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui wrote in November of last year. "The movements who were initially the president's support base were divided and degraded by a left that would allow only one possibility and wouldn't allow autonomy."
Such critiques and issues accumulated over the years. A breaking point was when Morales ignored the results of a 2016 referendum in which a majority of the population voted against allowing him to run again for president in 2019. In the lead up to the October 20, 2019 election, the MAS and Morales were already mired in a crisis of legitimacy, making them an easier target for the right, which had been consolidating forces and capitalizing off of the errors of the MAS.
Meanwhile, the opposition promoted a narrative about the likelihood of fraud in the weeks leading up to the election. The issue of fraud during the October 20th elections, which indicated Morales won another term, has been widely debated and investigated. Many of the people I spoke with in La Paz in March did not believe "monumental" fraud had been committed by the MAS, as the opposition claimed, but that a "typical" low level of irregularities had taken place. Regardless of the extent or existence of fraud, the Organization of American States strategically threw gasoline on the fire during a critical moment of the October crisis with their early claims of fraud, pushing the country into violence.
Following the election, protesters against Morales allied with right-wing leader Fernando Camacho and other racist figures, fomenting destabilization and violence in the country in an effort to force Morales out of office. These efforts ultimately created the pretext for a police and military intervention in the name of order, which is exactly what happened. On November 8, police across the country mutinied against the government, and the military "suggested" Morales step down on November 10.
Within this climate of violence and threats, Morales and other MAS leaders were forced to flee or go into hiding. Fearing for his life, Morales left the country for Mexico on November 10. The right, having planned for a seizure of the government, took advantage of the power vacuum and entered office with the crucial blessing of the Bolivian armed forces and the US embassy.
The coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Right-wing Senator Jeanine Anez declared herself president in front of an empty Congress on November 12. She celebrated entering office holding a massive Bible. "The Bible has returned to the government palace," she declared. "My commitment is to return democracy and tranquility to the country." Days later, state repression left over a dozen unarmed protesters and bystanders dead in Senkata and Sacaba, key areas of resistance to the coup regime.
Various elements contributed to the coup, from the MAS's crisis of legitimacy to the resurgence and orchestrations of the Bolivian right. Yet the coup would not have been successful without the support of the police, military, and US embassy.
Following Anez's seizure of power, Bolivia has endured the worst state violence and political persecution it has seen in decades.
"They're criminalizing social protest and social leaders--all of them are under severe investigations," Bolivian journalist Fernando Molina explained to me at a cafe in La Paz. "If they are found to be linked to Evo Morales, they are detained and investigated. This fascist society uses justice so that their lynchings are not so vulgar, but rather more institutional. It's a disaster for human rights."
"There's a 'Bolsonarization' of Bolivia," Molina explained, referring to Brazil's far-right President Bolsonaro. "It's the Latin American version of the alt-right in the US, Trumpism."
The coup and Anez's government empowered this movement. "In general," he said, "I see a right-wing movement, anti-institutional, anti-party, pro-arms, pro-Trump, catholic or evangelicals, as in the case of Anez, also Camacho, the Santa Cruz leader. Anti-gay movements, anti-feminist - those groups are very powerful and they were consolidated by these actions."
The Anez government threatens to roll back major progressive policies of the MAS, as well as victories won in the streets by Bolivia's broad social, labor, and indigenous movements.
"The coup d'etat is not just against the state, the government, but also the social movement organizations," Aymara feminist activist Adriana Guzman explained last November.
"What we lose is the possibility of carrying forward this process of transformation alongside the state," Guzman said. "But we don't lose hope. We don't lose conviction, we don't lose our dreams, we don't lose the urgency of making another world possible. It is much more difficult in a fascistic state, but we will continue to do it."
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LATEST NEWS
'Endangering Every American's Health': 9 Former CDC Chiefs Sound Alarm on RFK Jr.
Their "astonishing, powerful op-ed," said one professor, "drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost."
Sep 01, 2025
Nearly every living former director or acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the past half-century took to the pages of The New York Times on Monday to jointly argue that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "is endangering every American's health."
"Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the CDC, the world's preeminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations," Drs. William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy Cohen highlighted.
What RFK Jr. "has done to the CDC and to our nation's public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced," the nine former agency leaders wrote.
Known for spreading misinformation about vaccines and a series of scandals, Kennedy was a controversial figure long before President Donald Trump chose him to lead HHS—a decision that Senate Republicans affirmed in February. However, in the wake of Monarez's ouster, fresh calls for him to resign or be fired have mounted.
This is powerful. Nine former CDC leaders just came together to defend SCIENCE.Maybe it’s time we LISTEN TO THEM—not the loud voices spreading MISINFORMATION.Science saves lives. Lies cost themwww.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
[image or embed]
— Krutika Kuppalli, MD FIDSA (@krutikakuppalli.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 10:35 AM
As the ex-directors detailed:
Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven "treatments" while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of US support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez—which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
Monarez was nominated by Trump, and was confirmed by Senate Republicans in late July. As the op-ed authors noted, she was forced out by RFK Jr. just weeks later, after she reportedly refused "to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior CDC staff members."
"These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a CDC director," they wrote. "Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary's demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities."
After Monarez's exit, Trump tapped Jim O'Neill, an RFK Jr. aide and biotech investor, as the CDC's interim director. Critics including Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's health research group, warn that "unlike Susan Monarez, O'Neill is likely to rubber-stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy's handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity."
The agency's former directors didn't address O'Neill, but they wrote: "To those on the CDC staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it's clear that the agency is hurting badly."
"We have a message for the rest of the nation as well: This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American," they continued. The experts called on Congress to "exercise its oversight authority over HHS," and state and local governments to "fill funding gaps where they can." They also urged philanthropy, the private sector, medical groups, and physicians to boost investments, "continue to stand up for science and truth," and support patients "with sound guidance and empathy."
Doctors, researchers, journalists, and others called their "must-read" piece "extraordinary" and "important."
"Just an astonishing, powerful op-ed that drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost," said University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman. "We are so incredibly fortunate to live with the advances [of] modern medicine and health science. Destroying and stymying it is just unforgivable."
'Brazenly Anti-Worker': Labor Day Reports Highlight Trump Attacks on Unions
"This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.
Sep 01, 2025
Although US President Donald Trump's administration likes to boast that he puts "American workers first," several news reports published on Monday document the president's attacks on the rights of working people and labor unions.
As longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse explained in The Guardian, Trump throughout his second term has "taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous."
Among other things, Greenhouse cited Trump's decision to halt a regulation intended to protect coal miners from lung disease, as well as his decision to strip a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, told Greenhouse that Trump's actions amount to a "big betrayal" of his promises to look out for US workers during the 2024 presidential campaign.
"His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious," she said. "He talks a good game of being for working people, but he's doing the absolute opposite. This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires."
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, similarly told Greenhouse that Trump has been "absolutely, brazenly anti-worker," and she cited him ripping away an increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors that had been enacted by former President Joe Biden as a prime example.
"The minimum wage is incredibly popular," she said. "He just took away the minimum wage from hundreds of thousands of workers. That blew my mind."
NPR published its own Labor Day report that zeroed in on how the president is "decimating" federal employee unions by issuing March and August executive orders stripping them of the power to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
So far, nine federal agencies have canceled their union contracts as a result of the orders, which are based on a provision in federal law that gives the president the power to terminate collective bargaining at agencies that are primarily involved with national security.
The Trump administration has embraced a maximalist interpretation of this power and has demanded the end of collective bargaining at departments that aren't primarily known as national security agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service.
However, Trump's attacks on organized labor haven't completely intimidated government workers from joining unions. As the Los Angeles Times reported, the Trump administration's cuts to the National Park Service earlier this year inspired hundreds of workers at the California-based Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks to unionize.
Although labor organizers had been trying unsuccessfully for years to get park workers to sign on, that changed when the Trump administration took a hatchet to parks' budgets and enacted mass layoffs.
"More than 97% of employees at Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks who cast ballots voted to unionize, with results certified last week," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "More than 600 staffers—including interpretive park rangers, biologists, firefighters, and fee collectors—are now represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees."
Even so, many workers who succeed in forming unions may no longer get their grievances heard given the state of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
As documented by Timothy Noah in The New Republic, the NLRB is now "hanging by a thread" in the wake of a court ruling that declared the board's structure to be unconstitutional because it barred the president from being able to fire NLRB administrative judges at will.
"The ruling doesn't shut down the NLRB entirely because it applies only to cases in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, where the 5th Circuit has jurisdiction," Noah explained. "But Jennifer Abruzzo, who was President Joe Biden's NLRB general counsel, told me that the decision will 'open the floodgates for employers to forum-shop and seek to get injunctions' in those three states."
Noah noted that this lawsuit was brought in part by SpaceX owner and one-time Trump ally Elon Musk, and he accused the Trump NLRB of waging a "half-hearted" fight against Musk's attack on workers' rights.
Thanks to Trump and Musk's actions, Noah concluded, American oligarchs "can toast the NLRB's imminent destruction."
Trump Voter ID Threat Condemned as 'Unconstitutional'
"The Constitution gives this authority to the states and Congress, not you!" said the head of Democracy Defenders Fund, threatening a lawsuit.
Sep 01, 2025
US President Donald Trump continued his "authoritarian takeover of our election system" over the weekend, threatening an executive order requiring every voter to present identification, which experts swiftly denounced as clearly "unconstitutional."
"Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Saturday. "I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!"
Less than two weeks ago, Trump declared on the platform that "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES." He claimed, without evidence, that voting by mail leads to "MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD," and promised to take executive action ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Those posts came as battles over his March executive order (EO), "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections," are playing out in federal court. The measure was largely blocked by multiple district judges, but the president is appealing.
Trump's voter ID post provoked a new threat of legal action to stop his unconstitutional attacks on the nation's election system.
"Go ahead, make my day Mr. Trump," said Norm Eisen, who co-founded Democracy Defenders Fund and served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform during the Obama administration.
"We at Democracy Defenders Fund immediately sued you and got an injunction on your first voting EO," he noted. "We will do the same here if you try it again. The Constitution gives this authority to the states and Congress, not you!"
In addition to pointing out that Trump is "an absentee voter himself," Democracy Docket explained Sunday that "the US Constitution gives the states the primary authority to regulate elections, while empowering Congress to 'at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.' The Framers never considered authorizing the president to oversee elections."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures: "Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. The remaining 14 states and Washington, DC use other methods to verify the identity of voters."
Those laws already prevent Americans from participating in elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
"Overly burdensome photo ID requirements block millions of eligible American citizens from voting," the center's voter ID webpage says. "As many as 11% of eligible voters do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements, and that percentage is even higher among seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students."
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