As Black History Month comes to a close, the celebrations and acknowledgements have felt less vibrant and more reserved. It is whiplash inducing to witness how quickly the outcry of public, corporate, and political support for racial equality quickly reverted to misinformation, dog whistling, and hate, especially after January 20.

Since Inauguration Day, when executive orders to curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) began raining down, a wave of fear has now hushed federal employees and even corporate behemoths. From workplaces retreating from DEI commitments to federal agencies banning identity-based observances, all throughout Black History Month no less, the signals are clear—our collective progress, which has been decades in the making, is under attack.

Around a week ago, President Donald Trump marked Black History Month at the White House by making an appearance at a reception. Yet during his speech, he made no mention of his anti-DEI policies that directly impacted those in the room with him. He never brought up the number of federal agencies that have banned celebrations related to MLK Jr. Day, Black History Month, Juneteenth, and other "special observances" to comply with his administration's directives. There was no mention of his recent fearmongering, insinuating the cause of a tragic plane crash over the Potomac was the fault of DEI. The threats to pull federal funding from schools over DEI programs were also oddly omitted. He was silent about the major corporations like Target, Walmart, and McDonald's that have scaled back or completely dismantled their DEI efforts under political-driven pressures. There was no comment on how Black History Month no longer exists on Google Calendars or how the U.S. Defense Department issued guidance declaring "identity months dead."

Black communities have carved paths forward, not just for themselves, but for democracy at large.

"Today, we pay tribute to the generations of Black legends, champions, warriors, and patriots who helped drive our country forward to greatness. And you really are great, great people," Trump said confidently.

But how can you truly pay tribute to these Black legends when you instruct others to rewrite, water down, or ignore their history of fighting against discrimination and racism? When you deny their life's work from continuing by dismantling the programs they helped build to better this nation? When you block opportunities to those from their community?

To deny our nation's businesses and institutions from providing DEI initiatives is to deny the progress that arose from centuries of resilience and resistance. And it's a willful act of revisionism to erase the stories, contributions, and sacrifices of Black Americans.

Slavery, segregation, and racism are not histories that should be kept secret; their impacts are still present and like any problem, cannot be solved by being ignored. America has never been a land of racial harmony. But it can never be one if we continue to believe that the best way to move beyond the legacies of racial hatred is to ignore them.

That is why DEI is so crucial to protect. It's a framework that ensures we acknowledge the truths of our history, fostering workplaces and educational systems that reflect the rich, multicultural fabric of our nation. Charles Chesnutt once wrote, "There is plenty of room for us all." This simple truth still holds. Acknowledging the painful complexities of our past does not diminish, it enriches—it creates space for all of us to grow together.

But instead of planting seeds for growth, many are burying their heads in the sand. The result? We see companies abruptly ending DEI programs, massive job cuts for diversity officers, and a national dialogue dominated by fear of "cancel culture" rather than confronting systemic inequities. This is emblematic of a broader issue—a culture that prioritizes comfort and status quo over change and discomfort.

To those retreating from DEI efforts, I ask—were you ever truly committed to them in the first place? At the heart of DEI is a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about race, gender, disability, and other issues that our country and its institutions have tried to erase through discrimination and violence. Abandoning DEI measures thus means abandoning your colleagues, your students, your community members.

"The last administration tried to reduce all of American history to a single year, 1619. But under our administration, we honor the indispensable role Black Americans have always played in the immortal cause of another day, 1776," Trump said at the event. "We like 1776."

But this is just another example of ignoring history to better serve your own narrative. There would not be America's founding in 1776 if it were not for 1619 and the Black lives that built this nation. Black history began on this continent before America was even established as a country, and we can not rewrite that truth.

While there have been attempts to quell the excitement surrounding Black History Month, our resolve has never been more steadfast. The fight for DEI is a fight for democracy itself. This is not a story of retreat. It's merely another chapter in a grander story of resistance.

Black history is not solely about celebration; it's a living testament to resistance tethered to the pursuit of democratic ideals. Black communities have carved paths forward, not just for themselves, but for democracy at large. When we resist unconstitutional actions, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and sexism, we do so not just for ourselves but for the affirmative vision of what the world should look like. And that takes work. Hard work that cannot be accomplished by ignoring our history and the problems at hand. To retreat now, to claim ignorance or to ignore the issues would be a disservice to the shoulders we stand on and the generations that will come after us.

They cannot erase the history that has carried us this far, and they cannot silence our calls for equality. We persist.

Earlier this month, as Elon Musk and his DOGE agents were initiating their chaotic takeover of the federal government, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) was asked what Democrats could do to slow Musk down or win concession in budget negotiations. In response, Jeffries literally threw up his hands and posed his own now-infamous question: “What leverage do we have?”

It was a wildly out-of-touch answer.

For one thing, the self-pitying tone is out of step with public opinion—Democratic voters and activists have been demanding more fight from their representatives. They want fewer (in fact, zero) Democratic Senators voting to confirm Trump nominees, and more spine in budget negotiation to get the simple concession of “no more unconstitutional impoundment of the funds we appropriate.” Fewer instances of Democratic representatives folding under the corrupting influence of crypto campaign cash to support industry-backed bills. More visiting and amplifying the voices of the people most harmed by DOGE’s cuts and firings.

As the minority party, Democrats certainly have less power, but they are far from powerless.

Further, Jeffries’ question suggests a concerning lack of familiarity with the modest—but substantial, and potentially impactful—array of tools at his and his colleagues’ disposal. In fact, as I lay out below, there are many things congressional Democrats can do, including requesting investigations from accountability offices; utilizing formal and informal hearings; writing letters to agency heads; and being opportunistic about accountability maneuvers at their disposal, even those unlikely to succeed in an immediate sense.

Congressional Oversight As The Minority Party

Democrats need to be winning the messaging battle, constantly telling the American people how Trump and DOGE are facilitating material harms. In that fight, Democrats have a key, but largely neglected, point of leverage: congressional oversight.

Prior to last year’s election, I wrote in Common Dreams that Democrats needed to better utilize their congressional oversight powers. But that was when Democrats had a Senate majority, and therefore the power to conduct official hearings, investigations, and issue subpoenas.

So, what can they do now?

Request Investigations from Accountability Offices

As the minority party, Democrats certainly have less power, but they are far from powerless. For starters, they can outsource investigations and research to nonpartisan offices like the Congressional Research Service, Inspectors General, or the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Each office has their usefulness, but given that President Donald Trump fired 17 Inspector General in a corrupt move that is currently being litigated, Democrats should focus on utilizing the GAO.

The GAO is an independent agency that acts as a watchdog at the request of Congress, conducting investigations to examine how federal dollars are spent and offering nonpartisan solutions on how to improve federal programs. (Essentially, GAO is what DOGE claims to be, minus the neo-nazi tendencies, complete lack of expertise, and rampant corruption.) Any member of Congress can request the GAO look into a given topic or program, though the office can take anywhere from a few months to over a year before finalizing reports.

For every instance of DOGE wreaking havoc, Democrats need to request a corresponding investigation, even if the GAO doesn’t have capacity to undertake each one or release the reports on an expedited timeline.

The long-term nature of the process can be leveraged strategically, though, with just a little bit of media savvy. In January of 2024, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) successfully requested a GAO report on the Community Health Center Fund and former President Joe Biden’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program. He and his Republican colleagues then utilized the investigation to hold press conferences and release statements attacking the Biden administration for “prevent[ing] students and families from accessing crucial financial aid.” They got the spotlight they were looking for on their issue of choice, even though the GAO report wasn’t issued until two months prior to the election. (Of course, Republicans have done nothing to help implement the recommendations GAO made, now that the report is out.)

Regardless of whether Republican concern was genuine, the utility is clear. Democrats can make headlines today simply by requesting and securing investigations they are entitled, by virtue of being members of Congress, to ask for. In fact, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently did just that, successfully asking the GAO to investigate Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent giving DOGE access to payment systems. Perhaps more importantly, however, Democrats can use the GAO report that will eventually result to remind the American people of Bessent’s lawlessness long after it was buried in the public’s mind under a deluge of other scandals.

This tactic needs to be used for every agency and program under attack from DOGE. Request the GAO to investigate how spending freezes at the USDA and USAID will affect farmers. Request a report on staffing cuts at the FAA and the effect on air safety and travel times. Spend tax season demanding a review of how decimating the IRS will increase tax avoidance by the wealthy and increase wait times. For every instance of DOGE wreaking havoc, Democrats need to request a corresponding investigation, even if the GAO doesn’t have capacity to undertake each one or release the reports on an expedited timeline. (If Democrats ever give votes to an appropriations process that once again governs federal spending, they should request the GAO expand its staffing. Sadly, there are many talented recent civil servants on the job market.)

Utilize Hearings, Both Formal and Informal

Without control in either chamber, Democrats have little say over official Congressional hearings. But they still have two important roles they can harness: calling witnesses and asking questions. Democrats cannot subpoena witnesses, but they can still choose a witness to voluntarily appear at hearings. This often results in experts that can calmly explain the intricacies of an issue and recommend how to improve the situation. This isn’t bad on its face, but in the era of DOGE decimation, Democrats should be discerning in their witness choices.

Each DOGE attack means someone lost their job and someone is a victim of the funding cuts. Leverage this harm! Bring in people who have been fired at a given agency to explain exactly who they used to help or protect. Bring in the victims to explain how their lives will now be worse because of Trump and Musk. Democrats can force Congressional Republicans to face the people affected by their failure to constrain Trump. As recent vitriolic town halls exemplify, there’s ample appetite to make Republicans answer publicly for their cowardice.

In the same vein, Democrats need to be combative in every hearing. We rolled out a series of suggested questions for Trump nominees in their confirmation hearings, including new questions that Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon needs to answer before her confirmation vote. Unfortunately, Democrats were woefully unprepared, even praising some nominees and failing to use their fully allotted questioning time. This needs to change. Every hearing is an opportunity to produce a viral clip that can break through to people otherwise not paying attention.

Additionally, as my colleague Emma Marsano explained in this newsletter last week, Democrats can also hold informal hearings that amplify the voices of people most impacted by executive overreach. There are, unfortunately, countless examples they could be elevating through hearings, social media, press hits, and coordination with influencers. Democrats could also creatively use their franking privileges—sending mail to their constitutions using their signature as postage rather than a stamp—to inform constituents on “matters of public concern” or issue “questionnaires seeking public opinion” to get an idea of how DOGE actions are affecting people locally.

Flood the Zone with Letters

Members of Congress regularly send letters to heads of executive departments demanding answers and information regarding happenings under their purview. To their credit, Democrats have made good use of letters: to OMB Director Russell Vought demanding he reverse attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; to the SEC and other agencies demanding an investigation into Trump’s meme coin; to HUD Secretary Scott Turner highlighting the effect that proposed staffing cuts will have on seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, among many others.

While this method of oversight is virtually all bark, it’s a useful tool in garnering headlines to amplify your message. Democratic members on each congressional committee should closely monitor DOGE and other executive branch attacks on government functions, then produce as many letters as possible with the goal of getting coverage in the media. Not every letter will be picked up, but every headline that tells the public “Democrats are Fighting Republican Attacks on [Fill in the Blank]” is useful. These letters can also be referred back to as launching points for formal investigations or hearings should Democrats regain either chamber in the midterms.

Take Longshots, Even if They Miss

Democrats can try to utilize subpoena and impeachment powers, even if they are longshots. My colleague Kenny Stancil explained yesterday in The American Prospect that Democrats can (and should) move to impeach Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for his capitulation to, and lying about, DOGE’s attempts to access payment systems. While unlikely to result in a successful impeachment vote, it raises the issue’s salience and forces congressional Republicans to own it.

Similarly, earlier this month Democrats in the Oversight Committee tried to rush through a vote to subpoena Musk while Republicans were out of the room. It was a long shot that fell short, but it’s worth trying such tactics at every opportunity, on the off chance it works one time.

To be clear, none of these tactics alone will save us. Trump’s administration will continue to terrorize the civil service, and congressional Republicans will continue to stand by. But with many months between now and the midterms, Democrats need to use—no, leverage—every form of oversight at their disposal to slow down the onslaught, inform the American public, and ensure Republicans pay a hefty price.

There are far too many tools at congressional Democrats’ disposal for them to throw up their hands and act as though nothing can be done—people elected them to do something, and they need to act like it, especially with so much at stake.

The recent directive by Jeff Bezos that The Washington Post editorial section should promote “personal liberties and free markets” is a stark reminder of how freedom under capitalism often boils down to the freedom of economic elites to dictate the parameters of public discourse. While Bezos has suggested that social media provides alternative perspectives, thus absolving his newspaper of the responsibility to represent diverse viewpoints, his decision is part of a broader trend of billionaire media ownership shaping acceptable discourse.

This phenomenon is visible across digital platforms as well. Elon Musk’s control over X (formerly Twitter) has demonstrated how ownership can shape public debate—both through direct interventions, such as the alleged suppression of progressive perspectives, and through more subtle changes to platform algorithms. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has faced repeated allegations of privileging certain political narratives while suppressing others, including ending its “fact checking” policy that could challenge far-right viewpoints.

Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.”

In each case, the rhetoric of “free speech” is selectively applied. While these platforms and newspapers claim to support open debate, their policies ultimately reflect the ideological preferences of their owners. This demonstrates a fundamental truth: In capitalist societies, freedom of expression is often contingent on the interests of those who control the means of communication. The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.

The Myth of Meritocracy and the Far-Right’s War on DEI

Bezos’ framing of free markets as inherently linked to personal liberties exposes a deeper ideological assumption—namely, that economic success is the result of individual talent and merit rather than systemic privilege. This assumption is not unique to Bezos but is foundational to the way many economic elites understand their own wealth and influence.

The logic behind Bezos’ editorial direction is similar to the arguments used by the contemporary far-right to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The opposition to DEI is rooted in a desire to preserve the myth that success is determined purely by hard work and ability, rather than by racial, gender, or class privilege. By rejecting policies that acknowledge structural inequalities, The far-right seeks to uphold a narrative that justifies existing economic and social hierarchies.

This worldview is deeply intertwined with the ideology of neoliberalism, which insists that markets are neutral mechanisms that reward the most capable individuals. However, history shows that markets are anything but neutral. The barriers faced by marginalized groups are not simply the result of individual shortcomings; they are the product of centuries of systemic exclusion. The far-right’s attack on DEI serves to obscure these realities, just as Bezos’ insistence on free markets seeks to erase the role of privilege and power in determining economic outcomes.

By positioning The Washington Post as a champion of free markets, Bezos is promoting the idea that capitalism functions as a pure meritocracy. This serves not only to legitimize his own position but also to delegitimize calls for policies that challenge structural inequality, whether in the form of DEI programs, labor protections, or wealth redistribution measures.

The Illusion of the Free Market and Its Political Implications

Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.” The notion of a truly free market, where economic actors compete on equal footing without government interference, is a fantasy. In reality, corporations like Amazon have thrived not because of unregulated competition, but because of significant government support.

From tax incentives to government contracts, Amazon has received billions in subsidies that have allowed it to dominate the retail and logistics industries. Moreover, the U.S. government plays a critical role in enforcing corporate-friendly trade policies, suppressing labor movements, and protecting the interests of multinational corporations abroad. These interventions are rarely acknowledged in discussions of free markets, yet they are crucial to understanding the power dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.

Politically, Bezos’ editorial directive at The Washington Post serves to strengthen a broader ideological alignment between neoliberal economics and far-right nationalism. By framing free-market capitalism as an essential component of personal liberty, Bezos is laying the groundwork for a political agenda that fuses economic libertarianism with nationalist conservatism. This is significant because it provides an ideological foundation for challenging emerging economic policies that deviate from neoliberal orthodoxy—such as the rise of protectionism in response to globalization.

This alignment between free-market ideology and far-right nationalism is not new. Historically, neoliberalism has often coexisted with reactionary politics, as seen in the economic policies of figures like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Today, this synthesis is being revived as right-wing populists seek to defend corporate interests while simultaneously appealing to nationalist sentiments. Bezos’ intervention in The Washington Post should be understood within this broader context: It is not just about shaping editorial policy but about consolidating an ideological framework that benefits economic elites while limiting the scope of acceptable political debate.

The Dangers of Billionaire-Controlled Media

Bezos’ decision to impose a free-market ideology on The Washington Post is not an isolated event; it is part of a larger trend in which media ownership is used to shape public discourse in ways that serve elite interests. This phenomenon extends beyond traditional journalism to social media platforms, where billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg wield immense power over the flow of information.

At its core, this issue is about more than just media bias—it is about the fundamental tension between democracy and concentrated economic power. A truly free and open society requires a diversity of perspectives, yet the dominance of billionaire-controlled media threatens to constrain the range of acceptable debate. If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.

The consolidation of media power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals raises urgent questions about the future of democratic debate. If we are to challenge the ideological hegemony of economic elites, we must first recognize the mechanisms through which they shape public discourse. Bezos’ editorial mandate is not just about The Washington Post—it is a reflection of the broader struggle over who gets to define the boundaries of political and economic debate in the 21st century.

I learned early on in my career that it’s not easy to discuss alternatives to the Democratic Party, especially with labor union officials. In 1979, I was piloting the Labor Institute’s new political economy workshop with UAW Local 259, which represented Cadillac mechanics in the New York City area.

Sam Meyers, the president, was a labor radical who had survived the McCarthy era. He was militant and deeply committed to social democracy. He and Bernie would have gotten along nicely.

At the end of the course, in all naivete, I asked the workers what kind of political party they wanted to support – The Democrats? The Republicans? Or a new workers’ party? There was nearly unanimous consent for a new workers’ party.

Except for Sam, who jumped up and said, “You can’t do that. We have to stick with the Democrats.” And that shut down the discussion.

It’s been that way ever since. The leadership of nearly every progressive labor union is deeply entwined with the Democrats, even as half or more of their members have defected to MAGA.

Trump is in power for the second time because there is no magic formula that will stop the exodus of workers of all shades and proclivities from the Democratic Party.

As one national official told me, “The Democrats are the only political friends we have.” As a result, union members are not asked what they want politically, because the leadership fears the answer will divert the union from what it must do – stick with the Democrats at all costs.

But it’s a losing battle. Working-class support for Democratic presidential candidates has collapsed. Jimmy Carter received 52 percent in 1976. Kamal Harris got only 33 percent in 2024.

In rural America, the defections are even greater. Take Mingo County, West Virginia, the county that has lost 3,000 of its 3,300 coal jobs. In 1996, Bill Clinton got 70 percent of the vote. In each following national election, the Democratic vote has declined, with Joe ‘Six-Pack’ Biden getting 14 percent in 2020, and Kamala Harris getting only 12 percent in 2024. The research for my book showed that since the 1990s, as the mass layoff rate went up in rust-belt counties, the Democratic vote went down. (See Wall Street’s War on Workers.)

It’s hard not to sympathize with labor leaders as they cope with the day-to-day tasks of keeping their union alive and protecting their members from a system that is rigged against them. In that context, building something new is a fantasy, the idle dreams of pontificators (like me!). These leaders believe what others have been saying for decades – that third parties are impossible in the system we have.

Justifiable Worries about Third Parties?

There is some very good rationale behind their fears. Third-party efforts can be dangerous, acting as “spoilers,” which then help anti-labor candidates win. Ralph Nader’s presidential run in 2020 may have tilted Florida and the presidency to Bush. After all those hanging chads, third parties became anathema to political dreamers, as well as labor leaders.

Most third-party efforts fail because they attract so few voters. They are then viewed as time-consuming distractions – more like vanity projects with the potential to have serious negative consequences.

But that’s not inevitable. The spoiler effect can be mitigated if the third-party efforts refrain from electoral activities until they are large enough to seriously contend.

So here's a fresh question: What would you think if a million workers said they would be willing to back a new political effort?

One million names on a petition would show that the effort has a far wider reach than a fringe group or a self-promoter. One million names would signal to the political actors that there is mass support for building a new working-class political home. One million names might even push some Democrats to support pro-worker legislation.

Mobilizing a petition drive would cost relatively little and could start with a few progressive unions circulating one that read:

We the undersigned support building a new independent party of working people that would back working-class issues independent of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The new party would fight to:

• Stop big companies that receive tax dollars from laying off workers who pay taxes.
• Guarantee that everyone who wants to work has a decent-paying job, and if the private sector can't provide it the government will.
• Raise the minimum wage so every family can lead a decent life.
• Stop drug company price gouging, expand Medicare to cover everyone, and put price controls on food cartels.

The Billionaires have two parties. We need one of our own!

Once a million names, emails, and telephone numbers are recorded, ways could be found to support independent candidates who were willing to fight for this platform and organize around ballot initiatives or legislation that would push such demands forward. A website and newsletter could connect with those who have signed up.

But are there really a million working people out there who would sign this petition? We won’t know until it’s tried. Right now, approximately 1.7 million workers are suffering through involuntary layoffs each month. Federal workers are joining these ranks as Musk wields his axe. These are potential recruits for this petition, effort, let's call it the Committee of a Million.

Are there really a million working people out there who would sign this petition?

Dan Osborn, the former local union president, ran in 2024 as an independent for Senate in Nebraska on a powerful worker-focused populist campaign. He lost by seven points, while Kamala Harris lost the state by 20 points. Osborn is now setting up a political action committee to recruit and support more working-class candidates. Imagine what could happen if the Committee of a Million linked with his effort.

What are you smoking?

No! No! No! Say my friends in the labor movement. “We have to support the Dems to take back control of the House and stop Trump.”

But can’t we walk and chew politics at the same time? Can’t we work on those swing districts and support independents like Osborn? Don’t we have an obligation at least to ask our members what they really want? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to find out if they are willing to sign up for the Committee of a Million?

I can’t stop obsessing over brutal realities. Trump is in power for the second time because there is no magic formula that will stop the exodus of workers of all shades and proclivities from the Democratic Party.

Sure, it could fail. But continued failure is certain if we don’t try something new.

That ship has sailed. It’s time to link up with politically alienated workers and build something new outside of the two-party political oligopoly.

Sure, it could fail. But continued failure is certain if we don’t try something new.

If you have an alternative idea, please send it along. We’ve got to have this discussion.

In discussions of Ukraine, it is important to decolonize Western perspectives and recognize that Russia's ongoing imperialism has only served to strengthen NATO rather than weaken it. This expansionist agenda did not begin in 2022, 2014, nor did it emerge solely as a reaction to NATO enlargement, an argument that Mikhail Gorbachev himself has dismissed. Instead, it has deep ideological roots, as outlined in the geopolitical strategies of figures like Aleksandr Dugin. The vision of a "Eurasian" empire has informed Russian imperial ambitions for decades. This influence has manifested not only in ideological writings but also in concrete actions, including the activities of Eurasian youth movements operating within Ukraine and earlier efforts by members of the National Bolshevik Party, who faced charges for threatening Ukraine's territorial integrity.

These fringe ideas gradually became part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's political strategy as he embraced nationalism for ideological support, similar to how far-right ideologies from the 1990s have been absorbed into today's Republican Party in the United States. This is evidenced by his speech at the World Russian People's Council, where he framed the war in Ukraine as a "holy war" to preserve Russia's cultural and spiritual dominance. The rhetoric of protecting the "Russian World" (Russkiy Mir) has justified expansionist policies under the guise of historical and religious continuity. In his 2014 speech following the annexation of Crimea, Putin likened Crimea's significance to that of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, underscoring the sacralization of territorial conquest. More recently, the World Russian People's Council's declaration affirmed that Russia was engaged in a holy mission to shield the world from Western "Satanism" and that Ukraine was destined to fall under Russia's exclusive sphere of influence.

Understanding this broader history reframes Russia's aggression not as a reaction to NATO but as part of a long-standing effort to reassert imperial dominance. This colonial project aims to subjugate Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, treating them not as independent nations but as territories to be absorbed into a " Greater Russia." The narrative that Russia is merely defending itself against Western encroachment ignores the reality that its own actions have consistently driven its neighbors further toward NATO and Western alliances. Finland and Sweden's NATO bids, for example, are direct consequences of Russian militarism, not preemptive Western schemes.

A truly decolonial approach affirms Ukraine's struggle as one of self-determination against imperial rule, not merely a proxy in great-power politics.

The left has historically fought against imperialism in all its forms. Yet, some sections of the contemporary Western left have failed to apply their anti-imperialist principles to Russian expansionism, viewing NATO as the primary antagonist. True anti-imperialism requires solidarity with those resisting colonial domination, which in this case means supporting Ukraine's right to self-determination against Russian aggression. This aligns with the struggles of grassroots movements in Ukraine who have been on the frontlines of defending their communities from occupation and repression.

Resistance movements in Ukraine, such as those documented by Avtonom, 161 Crew's Ukraine War Reader, Solidarity Collectives, and the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, provide vital perspectives that counter the dominant geopolitical framing of the war. Avtonom's reporting emphasizes the need for direct antiauthoritarian resistance to both Russian imperialism and NATO militarization. It argues that we should not be caught in a binary trap but should instead prioritize grassroots solidarity with those directly resisting occupation. The 161 Crew Ukraine War Reader offers firsthand accounts from antifascist fighters, showcasing the diverse composition of Ukrainian resistance, which includes feminist, queer, and anti-racist activists.

Solidarity Collectives highlight the crucial role of mutual aid and self-organization in sustaining resistance efforts. They argue that the war is not just about state survival but about defending communities against violent colonial erasure. Their work provides material aid to resistance groups, ensuring that grassroots fighters have the resources to continue their struggle. The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign's feminist manifesto demonstrates the gendered dimensions of war and occupation, highlighting how Russian aggression exacerbates patriarchal violence and restricts bodily autonomy. These perspectives disrupt the simplistic portrayal of the war as a clash of geopolitical blocs, instead framing it as a fight for the survival of marginalized and oppressed communities.

In juxtaposition, Russia's imperial vision is deeply intertwined with the Russian Orthodox Church, which has provided ideological justification for war. Patriarch Kirill, a key figure in the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, has framed the invasion of Ukraine as a holy war against Western decadence. This fusion of nationalism and religious orthodoxy reflects broader patterns of colonial domination, where cultural and spiritual narratives are weaponized to justify expansion and subjugation.

One of the most insidious justifications for Russia's aggression has been the portrayal of Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine as oppressed minorities in need of protection. This mirrors tactics used by Russia in Transnistria, Georgia's breakaway regions, and other former Soviet territories, where Moscow has manufactured narratives to justify humanitarian intervention. From a historical perspective, Ukraine has faced centuries of colonial domination by Russia. This suppression dates to the Russian Empire's Russification policies, which sought to erase Ukrainian language, culture, and autonomy. The Soviet era continued these efforts, most notably through the Holodomor, which devastated the Ukrainian population and remains a defining trauma in the nation's collective memory. Recognizing this colonial history is critical in understanding why Ukraine's fight for sovereignty is not merely a geopolitical contest but a struggle against historical oppression.

One of the central arguments put forth by some in the "pro-peace" camp is that NATO expansion provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. This claim assumes that Russia's security concerns are legitimate while ignoring the desires of Eastern European nations. Countries like Ukraine have sought NATO membership not due to Western coercion but because of real and ongoing threats. The claim that NATO provoked Russia also misrepresents historical facts: While verbal discussions about NATO's role in post-Cold War Europe occurred, no legally binding agreement prohibited NATO expansion. Gorbachev himself later clarified that NATO expansion was not a topic of formal negotiation during German reunification.

This should not be misconstrued with support for NATO. However, even those on the left that had previously favored neutrality and condemned NATO had a change of heart after Russia's hybrid, and then full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was not only out of fears for security, but lack of other options. As a member of the Finnish political party Left Union stated "The consensus, as I understand it in discussions with comrades, is that we have not been able to provide any credible alternatives to NATO. We always emphasized that we had an independent, strong army that Russia would not dare to challenge—and since we were outside NATO, they had no reason to challenge us. After the invasion of 2022, such a defense policy was no longer perceived as adequate."

Ultimately, demands for Ukrainian neutrality and territorial concessions ignore the imperialist nature of Russia's war. Portraying Ukraine's resistance as merely a NATO-driven proxy war dismisses the agency of Ukrainians fighting against colonization. A truly decolonial perspective must acknowledge that Ukraine is not just a piece on a Western geopolitical chessboard but a people with a long history of resisting Russian domination.

That history informs current skepticism. Why should Ukraine trust new security assurances? The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was supposed to guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. Signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, it offered security assurances against military aggression in return for Ukraine's commitment to denuclearization. However, the failure to uphold these guarantees severely damaged the credibility of international security agreements. The same applies to the Minsk agreements, which Russia also disregarded, claiming they were not bound by them.

For Ukraine, the failure of past assurances serves as a stark reminder of the limits of nonbinding diplomatic guarantees, especially in the context of an anti-colonial struggle. Despite explicit commitments from major powers to uphold Ukraine's sovereignty, Russia blatantly violated the agreement, while the United States and the United Kingdom, though condemning Russia's actions and providing military aid, did not fully uphold their commitments under the Budapest Memorandum. As global powers attempt to influence Ukraine's decisions, it is entirely understandable that Ukraine would be skeptical of security promises, particularly those tied to concessions like territorial loss.

The implications of U.S. President Donald Trump's rhetoric heighten concerns about the normalization of imperialism. In recent statements, Trump suggested that because Russia took land and suffered military losses, its territorial conquest should be accepted. This perspective does not oppose imperial power but instead reinforces it by treating territorial expansion through war as a natural part of global politics. Such a stance directly contradicts anti-imperialist principles, which reject land grabs as a means of legitimizing power.

This concept of imperialists taking land is not peace, it is domination. It legitimizes conquest under the guise of diplomacy and excuses similar policies elsewhere. Trump's rhetoric extends beyond Ukraine, as seen in his proposal that the U.S. should " own Gaza" after having funded its destruction. Such suggestions reduce the right to self-determination to a bargaining chip for powerful nations. Moreover, his policies on extraterritorial detention, such as using Guantánamo Bay for mass deportations, reflect the same colonial logic where land, borders, and even human lives are treated as assets to be shuffled and controlled by imperial powers. This is not about security or peace; it is about consolidating power through force and coercion.

While some in Ukraine and Eastern Europe may be bewildered by a segment of the Western left's inability to stand in solidarity with their struggles, there are deeper reasons for this disconnect. These deeply held beliefs are not merely the product of internet conspiracy theories, flawed praxis, or misinformation. The Western left is keenly aware of its own governments' history of exploiting humanitarian intervention, breaking promises to foreign nations, and engaging in imperialism. This skepticism dates to the Cold War era, when it resisted red scare tactics and anti-communist propaganda that were wielded to justify war and nationalism.

Building solidarity and trust between the Western left and Ukrainians requires bridging this divide. While those in the West best understand their own governments and institutions, Ukrainians fighting for survival are confronting a different imperial force, Russia. Yet to many on the Western left, Russia has long been the manufactured boogeyman used to justify imperialist wars.

Decolonizing the narrative on Ukraine means rejecting the imperialist framing that treats territorial conquest as an inevitable outcome of war and instead centering Ukrainian voices. Too often, discussions are shaped by Western geopolitical anxieties rather than the perspectives of those resisting Russian domination. A truly decolonial approach affirms Ukraine's struggle as one of self-determination against imperial rule, not merely a proxy in great-power politics.

Trump's rhetoric reinforces imperialism, not peace. By suggesting that Russia's land seizures should be accepted due to its military losses, he legitimizes conquest as a political norm. This logic extends beyond Ukraine—his proposal that the U.S. should "own Gaza" and his calls to use Guantánamo Bay for mass deportations further reflect a colonial mindset where land, borders, and human lives are bargaining chips for the powerful.

Solidarity demands more than opposition to Western militarism; it requires confronting Russia's colonial ambitions and supporting those fighting for sovereignty. A just peace cannot be built on the normalization of land grabs and forced submission. Instead, it must be rooted in resisting empire in all its forms and standing with those asserting their right to self-determination.

Can economics fuel conflict and war? Absolutely, and history is full of such examples. But economics can also pave the way to lasting peace, according to progressive economist James K. Boyce.

In the interview that follows, professor Boyce discusses the economics of war and the role that economics can play in peacemaking, including in places like Ukraine and Gaza, although he acknowledges that daunting challenges lie ahead for these two war-torn areas of the world. As for U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, Boyce puts it side by side with the dispossession of Native Americans in the United States.

James K. Boyce is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a senior fellow of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). He is the author of Investing in Peace: Aid and Conditionality after Civil Wars and editor of Peace and the Public Purse: Economic Policies for Postwar Statebuilding and Economic Policy for Building Peace: The Lessons of El Salvador. He received the 2024 Global Inequality Research Award and the 2017 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. This interview is based on his seven-part video series released by the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

C. J. Polychroniou: Conflicts across the world have surged since 2020, making this one of the most violent periods since the end of the Cold War. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have been most visible in the news, but there have been dozens of other conflicts, too. What lessons can we draw from history about the economics of war, the topic of your recent video series from the Institute for New Economic Thinking? How about if we start with the wars of conquest during the era of colonialism?

James K. Boyce: Economics is not just about mutually beneficial exchanges entered into by mutually consenting adults, though you could be forgiven for thinking so if your only acquaintance with the subject was a typical textbook. Real-world economics also is about coercive relationships in which one side benefits and the other loses. Such interactions—which can be grouped under the general rubric of plunder—involve not only outright force but also the manipulation of governments and markets, often occurring in the grey area between what is legal and what is not.

Trump often is described as “transactional” with good reason: For him, policy is about making deals.

The colonial wars of conquest were a particularly naked example of plunder. Slavery, the appropriation of lands and minerals, and the monopolization of commerce were common features of the time, thinly cloaked, if at all, by the pretense of a “civilizing” mission. But it would be wrong to imagine that plunder disappeared with the end of formal colonial rule. It remains a ubiquitous feature of the world economy, now sometimes cloaked by the veneer of “modernization” or “development.” Because plunder is inherently antagonistic—it pits the plunderers against the those whose resources and livelihoods are plundered—it can and often does morph into violence and war.

C. J. Polychroniou: What about more recent conflicts, like the wars in Bosnia (1992-1995) and Afghanistan (2001-2021)? How did economics figure into these?

James K. Boyce: Economics is not the whole story in these or most conflicts, but it is an important part of why they begin, how long they persist, and how they finally end.

Bosnia emerged as an independent nation during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Some commentators blamed “ancient ethnic hatreds” for the violence that accompanied Yugoslavia’s dissolution, but tensions arising from economic disparities among its provinces were also at play. Within Bosnia, three main “ethnic” groups lived side by side—Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs—and the fighting largely devolved along these lines (I place “ethnic” in quotation marks, because apart from religious origins the three were hard to distinguish). But another underlying axis of conflict was the deep economic gulf between urban Bosnians (often Bosniaks), who benefited in Yugoslavia from good education, health, and pension systems, and rural Bosnians (often Serbs), who were excluded from the benefits of engagement in the formal economy.

Once war broke out, opportunities for plunder became a key driving force in the conflict. Hardliners who engaged in ethnic cleansing—killing minorities and driving them out—not only sought to establish homogeneous enclaves for “their” people but also to gain personally from seizing the businesses, homes, land, and other property the victims left behind.

Economic incentives, in the form of promises of postwar reconstruction aid, played a key role in the end of the war, too, persuading the warring parties to sign the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord. Dayton, in a sense, was an aid-for-peace bargain. So economics was very much implicated in all phases of the Bosnian conflict.

The 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan was in many ways a resumption of the 1979-1989 war, with the difference that now it was the United States instead of the Soviet Union that occupied Kabul while the countryside largely remained under the control of the Taliban and regional warlords. As in Bosnia, pronounced economic disparities between urban and rural areas fueled the Afghan conflict, and the Taliban tapped into rural discontent. Wide disparities between Kabul and the rest of the country predated the Soviet and American invasions, and were further exacerbated by the wartime influx of foreigners and their money. Meanwhile, by controlling the opium traffic and taxing cross-border trade, the Taliban built a viable economic base of their own.

Economics played a central role in the U.S. war strategy, but it was not a pretty picture. In 2002, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld instructed his senior aides to come up with “a plan for how we are going to deal with each of these warlords—who is going to get money from whom, on what basis, in exchange for what, what is the quid pro quo, etc.” The U.S. government poured nearly $1 trillion into Afghanistan—$145 billion in reconstruction aid plus $837 billion in military expenditures—this in a country with a GDP of less than $20 billion. War “became the Afghan economy,” as The New York Times put it. The Afghan leadership, unsurprisingly, was more attentive to the demands of foreign donors than to the needs of their own citizens. Massive corruption fueled by external assistance fatally undermined any possibility of building a legitimate and effective state. “Our money was empowering a lot of bad people,” a senior U.S. official recalled. “There was massive resentment among the Afghan people. And we were the most corrupt.”

Today 85% of Afghanistan’s people subsist on less than one dollar a day. Whether the Taliban government or the so-called international community will act to address their deprivation and build a lasting peace is an open question.

C. J. Polychroniou: What role can economics play in peace building?

James K. Boyce: There is much to be said on this topic—it is the focus of the video series—and space precludes a full answer here. Let me highlight just two points.

First, economic policies can either reduce inequalities and the accompanying tensions or exacerbate them. This means not only “vertical” inequality between rich and poor, but also “horizontal” inequalities between groups defined on another basis, such as region, ethnicity, race, or religion. A single-minded focus on the total size of the economic pie—the conventional goals of growth and efficiency—is misplaced when conflicts over how it is sliced threaten to smash the pie.

Second, economic policies can either strengthen or weaken the bargaining power of pro-peace forces vis-à-vis those who seek to perpetuate the conflict. In Bosnia, for example, a crucial postwar issue was the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their former homes. In some municipalities, local leaders welcomed them; in others, they actively obstructed returns, in part to protect their ill-gotten loot. In its “Open Cities” program, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees used reconstruction aid to reward municipalities that welcomed returns and to induce leaders on the fence to come down on the pro-peace side. The program’s implementation was not perfect, but the idea was sound. Again, “who” matters as much as “what.”

C. J. Polychroniou: How can we apply economics to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Can economic policies help to drive peace in those two war-torn areas?

James K. Boyce: The Trump administration’s “America first” stance seems likely to lead to a U.S. pullback from engagement in the tasks of peace building and state building in war-torn societies. In part, this reflects a disillusionment born of the dismal failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as those experiences suggest, disengagement may not be entirely a bad thing. But Ukraine and Gaza continue to loom large on the U.S. foreign policy agenda.

Trump often is described as “transactional” with good reason: For him, policy is about making deals. In both Ukraine and Gaza, economic considerations will be a big part of any deals we see. But it is by no means clear that forging a lasting peace will be the top priority for the dealmakers. If not, the end of the current wars could merely set the stage for future ones.

The Ukraine war is exhibit No. 1 of the dangers of fossil-fueled oligarchy. In addition to enormous environmental costs, fossil fuels carry a high political cost: They enable the autocratic rulers of petrostates to govern with little accountability to either their own citizens or norms of international law. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a case in point. As Ukraine illustrates, fossil fueled-oligarchy can metastasize into fossil-fueled war.

Putin has oil and gas; Netanyahu has the United States.

Oil and gas revenues have sustained the Putin regime, notwithstanding international sanctions. The sanctions do, however, drive a wedge between the world market price and what Russia receives, so the prospect of lifting them could act as an incentive for Russia to accept a negotiated settlement. But if the Trump administration eases the sanctions without a peace agreement, while at the same time cutting military and financial aid to Ukraine, this will tilt the terms of the settlement in Russia’s favor.

On the Ukrainian side, the prospect of large-scale reconstruction assistance—as well as an end to the carnage—may provide an incentive, too. It now appears that the responsibility for funding Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction will fall mainly on Europe; whether the European nations will be willing and able to shoulder this burden remains to be seen. In an effort to shore up U.S. support, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered a minerals-for-aid deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s deposits of lithium, uranium, and other critical minerals. But the minerals will be in the ground regardless of who controls the land above them, and it is not evident that the Trump administration will care much about that.

In Gaza, the latest war tragically illustrates what I call the “partition dilemma.” The 1994 Oslo Accord sought to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing the Palestinian Authority as a step toward a two-state solution. In the short run, partition can be an appealing way to stop the shooting. But in the longer run, it can set the stage for renewed conflict, as demagogues on both sides invoke fear of the other to enlist public support from their own people. Partition severely undermines the viability of leaders and parties that would appeal to pro-peace constituencies on both sides.

It is not surprising that 30 years after Oslo, we find Hamas on one side and the Netanyahu government on the other. The two feed off each other in a de facto alliance, each holding up the other as justification for its own politics of demonization. This helps to explain why the Netanyahu government not only tolerated but actively facilitated the flow of cash from Qatar to Hamas. In a candid moment back in 2015, Bezalel Smotrich, who is now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s finance minister, said that “Hamas is an asset.”

The chances that partition will lead to a lasting peace grow even slimmer if one side receives large-scale financial and military support with no strings attached—without peace conditionality—while the other does not. By emboldening one side and embittering the other, the resulting imbalance is a recipe for renewed conflict. Putin has oil and gas; Netanyahu has the United States. Rather than a negotiated settlement, the Israeli government now appears to be seeking a winner-take-all victory. Under the new U.S. administration, Netanyahu will face even fewer constraints than under the last one.

Trump’s talk of taking over Gaza and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” is reminiscent of plunder during the colonial era, including the dispossession of Native Americans in the United States. Yet in purely economic terms it makes a certain amount of sense: Beach resort development would indeed be a more profitable use of the land than maintaining Gaza as a place of confinement for 2 million refugees. Where other politicians see territory, Trump sees real estate.

The problem, of course, is what to do with Palestinians. There is one place that many of them might go willingly: the land of their grandparents, Israel. The fact that option this is unmentionable, even unthinkable, tells us a lot.

If the war in Gaza and ongoing displacement in the West Bank do not end with the complete expulsion or annihilation of the Palestinians—a prospect that still seems inconceivable—the eventual outcome will be a single state in which the surviving Palestinians have a subordinate and marginalized status. Their struggle will then become one for equal rights. Economic policies could prove helpful at that point, but history suggests it will be a long, hard road.

Earlier this month, software firm Workday announced that it would be laying off more than 1,700 workers—or about 8.5% of its workforce—to redirect investment toward artificial intelligence. The announcement was the latest in a series of mass layoffs that have put hundreds of thousands of workers at Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, and other tech companies out of work over the past several years. Google and Meta are among the tech giants that have cited the need to invest resources in AI development as the reason for cutting jobs. AI is also a part of the rationale behind the raft of mass federal employees layoffs.

Much of the narrative about AI and jobs has focused on the threat of automation: What can AI do as well as—or better than—humans? Research on AI-driven job displacement often focuses on forecasting which jobs or tasks machines could perform in the future, and then estimating how many workers might be displaced due to this automation. A report might tell us that 30% of work hours could be automated by 2030, or a study might predict that 5% of work tasks across the economy could be performed by AI in the next 10 years.

While automation is a risk that needs to be understood and taken seriously, this framing misses a key aspect of what's happening in the economy now. After many tech firms overhired during the pandemic, companies are cutting jobs and investing in AI not to directly replace workers with machines, but to signal to investors that they're focused on future growth and profitability.

Fortunately, workers and unions are fighting back, both against AI-driven job displacement in private industry and against DOGE's attempts to dismantle the public service.

Mass layoffs are nothing new. As Les Leopold argues in his book Wall Street's War on Workers, for decades corporations have carried out mass layoffs not out of fiscal desperation, but as part of a strategy to further enrich wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks and leveraged buyouts. But now we are seeing how AI hype has become the latest justification for firing workers en masse. Tech firms aren't waiting around to see what roles AI can and can't replace before laying workers off. Instead, they're slashing jobs and redirecting resources to AI initiatives because the mere promise of AI-driven efficiency is enough to excite investors and drive up stock prices.

This strategy creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where tech firms devalue human labor to make automation seem inevitable. By carrying out mass layoffs, tech firms signal to investors and workers themselves that workers are replaceable. By reinvesting those resources in AI, firms make it more likely that AI will eventually become capable enough to replace the workers they already decided to eliminate.

The strategy of hyping AI to justify mass layoffs is exemplified by Swedish tech firm Klarna. As Noam Scheiber reports in The New York Times, when the company laid off 700 customer service workers last year, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski didn't just announce the cuts—he celebrated them. In media appearances and investor calls, Siemiatkowski proudly predicted that the company's workforce would eventually shrink to less than half its size thanks to AI-enabled productivity gains. As Scheiber reports, Siemiatkowski may even have overstated Klarna's progress in automating jobs to try to make the company more appealing to investors. For example, while the CEO claimed that AI enabled the company to become so efficient that it halted all new hiring a year and a half ago, journalists have found that the company continues to post job listings for vacant positions. The Klarna example shows how, for some companies, automation isn't just about replacing workers with machines; it is about redefining human labor as a temporary necessity to be tolerated until AI makes it obsolete. Like many tech firms, Klarna is betting that by hyping AI's potential while disinvesting in workers, they can make their vision of an automated future into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is now bringing the AI-fueled mass layoff strategy to the federal government. Through DOGE, Musk and his allies are experimenting with AI tools "to identify budget cuts and detect waste and abuse," in agencies like the Department of Education and the General Services Administration (GSA). Staffers report that DOGE aims to reduce GSA's budget by up to 50%. As The Washington Post reports, "DOGE associates have been feeding vast troves of government records and databases into artificial intelligence tools, looking for unwanted federal programs and trying to determine which human work can be replaced by AI, machine-learning tools, or even robots." In other words, Musk is exploring how he can use AI as justification for carrying out mass layoffs across the federal government. The message these tactics send is clear: Decades of public service experience can be dismissed in minutes if an AI system suggests your role is redundant.

The DOGE-led mass layoffs are part of a decades-long conservative project of shrinking the federal workforce and weakening the administrative state. But what's new is how AI hype, and the guise of Silicon Valley efficiency, is being used to add a veneer of technological inevitability to this political project. "The federal government is suddenly being run like an AI startup," writes Kyle Chayka in a recent piece in The New Yorker. When DOGE staffers cite AI assessments as justification for eliminating positions, they're following the same playbook as tech CEOs: using speculative claims about AI capabilities to make workforce reduction seem like an unavoidable consequence of progress rather than a deliberate choice. DOGE's promises of AI-driven efficiency mask the reality that many government functions still require human judgment, institutional knowledge, and public service experience that no algorithm can replace. This combination of hostile management and AI hype isn't just about cutting costs—it's about redefining public service as something that can be evaluated by an algorithm and eliminated at the whims of a tech oligarch.

Fortunately, workers and unions are fighting back, both against AI-driven job displacement in private industry and against DOGE's attempts to dismantle the public service.

Workers are successfully using collective action to establish guardrails around AI usage and ensure technology serves rather than replaces human labor. The nearly five-month strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in 2023 was motivated in large part by concerns that Hollywood studios would seek to use AI in ways that undermine workers or replace them altogether. SAG-AFTRA and WGA eventually won contracts that established frameworks for how studios can and cannot use AI during the production process, ensuring that AI cannot replace human writers and actors without their consent and fair compensation. As labor journalist Alex Press reports, similar fights have played out across workplaces in the hospitality, tech, and logistics industries. Through effective strikes and collective bargaining, workers can influence how AI is implemented in the workplace, and secure protections against mass layoffs.

Unions representing federal employees are also mounting a host of legal challenges to protect workers and preserve government services. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions filed suit to block what it called "arbitrary and capricious" job cuts laid out in the Trump administration's federal worker buyout program. Meanwhile, the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has filed a lawsuit challenging Trump's directive to halt the bureau's operations, which the union alleges violates the constitutional separation of powers. While not directly a response to DOGE's use of AI, the lawsuits show how unions are taking action to oppose efforts to weaken federal agencies and devalue the work of career civil servants. As DOGE looks to use AI to justify mass layoffs, these lawsuits could establish important legal precedents to help protect workers from arbitrary dismissal based on algorithmic assessments.

Recent job cuts in the tech sector and in the federal government show how AI hype is being used to justify mass layoffs. Through collective action, workers are showing that AI's impact isn't predetermined by technology—it can be shaped through worker power.

This article first appeared on Power at Work and is republished here with permission.

Since assuming office, World Bank President Ajay Banga has pursued a clear agenda: mobilize vast amounts of private capital in service of the bank’s goal to end poverty on a livable planet. There are many valid criticisms of this approach, but none speaks louder than a deeper look into the World Bank’s own private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, or IFC, and its dealings.

Urgewald’s research on IFC trade finance in Financial Year (FY) 2022 and FY2023 shows just how slippery the private sector slope can be. Indeed, the IFC trade finance program’s alarming developments exemplify the World Bank’s overall trajectory: throwing good money after bad, neglecting environmental and social standards, and prioritizing private profit over public well-being.

Larger Sums, Lagging Standards

From FY2017 to 2023, the IFC trade finance portfolio saw a hefty 86% increase. In FY2023, trade finance amounted to 58% of the IFC’s total portfolio. (Trade finance refers to a range of financial instruments and services designed to facilitate international trade. It provides liquidity and risk mitigation for exporters and importers, enabling transactions that might otherwise not be viable. Instruments such as letters of credit, guarantees, and working capital loans ensure that buyers and sellers can engage in global trade with reduced financial risks.)

The private sector’s profit orientation is incompatible with the World Bank Group’s public service mandate.

While the sums for trade finance are growing exponentially, the checks and norms for their disbursal are stagnating. The environmental and social standards that apply to trade finance have not been updated for at least a decade, and financial flows are shrouded in mystery.

The stated goal of ending poverty on a livable planet presupposes transparency, accountability and sustainability. And yet the meteoric rise of IFC trade finance transactions in recent years comes with opacity, outright unwillingness to disclose basic information about individual transactions, and the long shadow of fossil fuel favoritism.

More Trade Finance for More Fossil Fuels

So, what’s the number? In FY2023, $4.7 billion, or nearly one-third of total IFC trade finance commitments, may have supported fossil fuel-related projects. This figure represents a 28% increase compared to FY2022.

The Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) alone accounted for $3.7 billion of possible oil and gas-related financing, 41.7% of its total commitments. Transparency issues persist as the IFC fails to disclose detailed information about specific trade transactions and beneficiaries.

The World Bank Group’s own Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) indicates that in the past, significant shares of IFC trade finance investments went into fossil fuel financing, particularly in Africa (50%) and the Middle East (28%).

Money Out the Private Sector Window

The dangerous trend of enabling fossil fuel transactions in fragile countries expands when we look at the IFC Private Sector Window (PSW). It was established in 2017 to encourage private sector investments in high-risk, low-income countries, particularly in IDA-designated regions. The PSW provides risk-sharing mechanisms and facilitates trade finance and other investments that might otherwise be deemed too risky. Between FY2020 and FY2024, $1.03 billion, or about a quarter of PSW approvals, were allocated to trade finance projects. These funds enabled $5.1 billion in trade finance, underscoring the PSW’s leveraged impact.

This fivefold impact, however, remains controversial. Despite its commitment to sustainable development, the PSW lacks exclusion criteria for fossil fuels. Thus, it allows for investments in oil and gas. Transparency remains a significant issue, and information about specific projects and the traded commodities is sparse. PSW-supported trade finance’s environmental and developmental impacts are questionable at best.

Pitting Private Sector Logic Against Public Sector Goals

Many of these problems precede President Banga’s tenure. However, it is vital to highlight and address them now because his laser focus on mobilizing private capital is likely to exacerbate the issues highlighted above. The private sector’s profit orientation is incompatible with the World Bank Group’s public service mandate. The IFC’s growing trade finance portfolio highlights the organization’s critical role in shaping global trade. The significant share of fossil fuel commitments in that portfolio undermines the World Bank Group’s mission of fostering sustainable development.

To align with international climate objectives, the IFC must adopt urgent reforms to enhance transparency; exclude harmful investments; and prioritize clean, fair, decentralized renewable energy—especially in poor and high-risk regions of the world that need them most. To better align the PSW with its mission, the allocation of Private Sector Window funds should prioritize renewable energy and sustainable development projects. Additionally, stringent exclusion criteria and improved reporting standards should ensure greater accountability and alignment with climate and social goals.

These changes are clearly at odds with President Banga’s agenda, and yet only through them can the World Bank Group stay true to its noble goals.

Billionaires controlling key elements of the media are helping U.S. President Donald Trump establish an authoritarian regime. Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, has become a poster child for the phenomenon.

American democracy may be a casualty.

From the beginning of Trump’s political career, Fox News, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcasting, and other right-wing outlets have spread his propaganda. But now titans who control mainstream media are pandering to Trump in ways that compromise their publications.

Once a Hero

Not so long ago, Bezos was on the correct side of a historic struggle. In August 2013, he bought The Washington Post and boosted its investigative reporting staff. After Trump won the 2016 election, the Post adopted the first slogan in the paper’s 140-year history: Democracy Dies in Darkness.

In May 2016, Bezos discussed his reasons for buying the paper: “I think a lot of us believe this, that democracy dies in darkness, that certain institutions have a very important role in making sure that there is light.”

For the next eight years, the Post honored that mission relentlessly. The paper fact-checked Trump’s assertions and documented his lies. By its count, Trump had made more than 30,000 “false or misleading claims” during his first four-year term alone.

Prior to the 2020 election, the Post’s editorial page had characterized Trump as a threat to the American democratic experiment. The editorial board described Trump as “the worst president of modern times” and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden to replace him.

The board continued:

Mr. Trump’s negative example has demonstrated how essential in a president are decency, empathy, and respect for other human beings.
…
Democracy is at risk, at home and around the world. The nation desperately needs a president who will respect its public servants; stand up for the rule of law; acknowledge Congress’ constitutional role; and work for the public good, not his private benefit.And Now a Sycophant

All of the Post’s criticisms of Trump in 2020 were even more on point in 2024. Shortly before the 2024 election, the Post’s editorial board had signed off on the paper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. But it never ran. Bezos personally killed it and, for the first time in decades, The Washington Post did not endorse a U.S. presidential candidate.

The fallout was immediate. Prominent columnists resigned, and more than 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.

A few hours after Bezos’s “no endorsement” decision became public, officials from his Blue Origin aerospace company, which has a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA, met with Trump. Bezos claimed that he didn’t know about that meeting.

In December, Bezos flew to Mar-a-Lago where he and his fiancée dined with President-elect Trump. A few weeks later, another Bezos company—Amazon—paid $40 million to license a documentary about Melania Trump, who personally will receive $28 million. At Trump’s inauguration, she told CEOs in attendance that they could be mentioned as “sponsors” at the end of the film and receive invitations to the yet-to-be-produced film’s premiere. The price: $10 million each.

And on February 26, Bezos announced a new rightward shift: The Post would now advocate for “personal liberties and free markets” and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.

The paper’s opinion section editor, David Shipley, resigned in response to the change.

A Dangerous Anti-Democratic Theme

Bezos is not alone among the moguls who are helping Trump along the road to autocracy. In future posts, I’ll discuss some of Trump’s other major media accomplices.

Meanwhile, on February 25, Trump announced that he would break decades of precedent and handpick the media outlets that would be allowed to participate in the presidential press pool—the small, rotating group of reporters who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public. Previously, the White House Correspondents’ Association, a 111-year-old group representing journalists who cover the administration, determined which reporters would participate in the daily pool. Most often, the pool has consisted of journalists from major organizations such as CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News, and The New York Times.

Except, of course, in early February Trump banned the AP from the Oval Office and Mar-a-Lago because it continued referring to the “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Trump’s new name for that body of water, the “Gulf of America.”

Democracy dies in sunlight too.

The House Republican budget passed Tuesday night calls for massive cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and help paying for college, among some other areas, to pay for huge tax giveaways for wealthy households and businesses. This betrays President Trump’s campaign promises to protect families who struggle financially, as well as his specific pledge to not cut Medicaid, which provides health coverage for 72 million people. While raising costs for families and increasing both poverty and the number of people without health coverage, the budget would swell deficits — all to further Republicans’ expensive and skewed tax agenda.

Both the House and Senate budgets significantly miss the mark on what should be their basic goals: lowering costs, increasing opportunity, and responsibly addressing our nation’s long-term priorities, including reducing future economic risks associated with high deficits. But the enormity of program cuts called for by the House budget stand as a singular threat to the well-being of people in every state, city, and rural community, threatening to take away their health coverage, make health care more expensive, and make it harder to afford food and college.

The Senate should reject the House cuts both now and if Congress ultimately moves ahead with a second budget plan and reconciliation bill this year.

The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: the cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1 percent — $1.1 trillion through 2034 — equals roughly the same amount as the proposed potential cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The House Republican budget’s path of higher costs for families, more people without health coverage, increased poverty and hardship, and higher debt — all in service to tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable business interests — is the wrong direction for our nation.

Under what set of values does a budget target those who struggle to pay their bills for severe cuts, while giving an annual tax cut averaging $62,000 for those who make $743,000 or more a year? The tax cut for these wealthy households is greater than the annual family incomes for most of the 72 million people — 1 in 5 people in the U.S. — who have health coverage through Medicaid. And the $62,000 figure doesn’t account for the likelihood that this budget would shower large corporations with more tax breaks, given that it allocates $900 billion more than extending the existing tax cuts would cost.

The enormous cuts this budget calls for would increase costs, hardship, and poverty for individuals and families across the country. To be clear, the specific proposals that House Republicans have been considering for weeks to make these program cuts are largely not about curbing fraud and abuse, as some claim. For example, proposals to cap federal funding, shift costs to states, or impose harsh work requirements that trip people up with red tape are aimed at cutting health coverage and food assistance for honest people who need help, not reducing fraud.

And the impact of these cuts could be grave: think of a person who loses health coverage through Medicaid and can’t get cancer treatment, an older and frail adult who loses the home-based care they need to stay out of an institution, a young adult who can’t get insulin to control their diabetes, a parent who skips meals so their children can eat, or an older worker who loses their job and has no way to buy groceries. Make no mistake, these cuts would affect people in every state and of all races and ethnicities. At the same time, the impacts would often be especially severe in poorer states with less ability to fill in for federal cuts and among Black, Latino, and Indigenous people and people in rural communities, who have lower incomes and thus are more likely to qualify for food assistance and health coverage.

The House budget would require the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut at least $880 billion; the Agriculture Committee to cut at least $230 billion; the Education and Workforce Committee to cut at least $330 billion; and other committees to also cut programs to reach a cumulative target of at least $1.5 trillion in cuts through 2034. The magnitude of these reductions would force congressional committees to make enormous cuts in Medicaid, SNAP, student loan assistance and other vital sources of support when they develop the “reconciliation” spending and tax bill that follows the budget resolution.

But as massive as these cuts are, they don’t show the full picture of the overall program cuts that the House budget may generate. The committee targets are minimums or “floors” — meaning the committees must cut at least that amount and may cut more. And a provision included by the House Budget Committee during its consideration of the resolution pushes the committees to cut more, by requiring the overall level of program cuts to reach $2 trillion to retain the full $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

Beyond this budget’s basic effects of taking away health, food, and other vital assistance from people who struggle to afford the basics and making student loans more expensive to partially offset tax cuts for the wealthy, it would have at least three other harmful impacts.

First, the House budget resolution and the proposals House Republicans are considering could result in enormous cost shifts to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, which are already facing tougher fiscal conditions than in recent years. For example, some of the proposed cuts in Medicaid and SNAP would force states to pick up a much larger share of the programs’ costs or leave people without needed help. In reality, states will not make up for all or even most of the federal cuts, and families will lose health coverage and food assistance.

Second, while this budget aims to extend all of the tax cuts skewed to the top, it fails to call for extending a tax cut that is well targeted to people who need it: the improved premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. Failure to extend this tax cut would raise health care premiums for more than 20 million people, including at least 3 million small business owners and self-employed workers.

And third, even with the budget’s huge cuts in assistance, and the suffering those cuts would inflict on individuals and families, it would still increase our nation’s debt because of the enormous cost of its tax cuts. When you strip away this budget’s fuzzy math with its $2.6 trillion macroeconomic gimmick — which is far beyond expert organizations’ estimates (including estimates of conservative organizations) of possible economic effects from extending the tax cuts from President Trump’s first term and enacting potential new tax cuts — the federal debt under the House budget would increase over the next ten years compared to Congressional Budget Office projections of current law.

Even with the budget calling for a $4 trillion increase in the statutory debt limit, we calculate this limit would be reached in November 2026, only 21 months from now, under the policies assumed under this budget.

The House Republican budget’s path of higher costs for families, more people without health coverage, increased poverty and hardship, and higher debt — all in service to tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable business interests — is the wrong direction for our nation. It is also directly at odds with the recent election in which so many people expressed concern about their ability to afford food, housing, health care, and other necessities — and at odds with the promises made to them by President Trump.

USAID is by no means a perfect organization. It has a long and storied history—some of it good, some of it bad. On the one hand, it provides food for starving people, helps prevent and treat HIV, and provides disaster relief and support. On the other hand, it harms the development of agriculture in client states, acts as a front for the CIA, and meddles in the internal affairs of other countries to the detriment of popular grassroots movements.

There’s waste and inefficiency in any large-scale human undertaking. USAID is no exception. If only we humans were as efficient as ants.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk chose to take a chainsaw and cut down the entire USAID tree rather than prune the dead and diseased wood.

But in relation to the size of the federal discretionary budget, USAID is small potatoes. In the chart above, the entire USAID budget is the skinniest slice of the pie.

The biggest slice—the one that takes up half of the entire pie—is the Pentagon budget. The Pentagon—just the civilians—represents more than one-third of the entire federal civilian workforce.

The Pentagon is America’s biggest spender, biggest waster, and the most corrupt department in the entire federal government. It took 1,700 auditors to conclude that they just can’t find $4.1 trillion in assets.

The Pentagon has never passed an audit, but every year, Congress gives them more money. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that manufacturers of shoddy weapons systems invest tens of millions into congressional members’ reelection campaigns. Then these weapons contractors hire lobbyists, usually former Pentagon employees themselves, to wine, dine, and otherwise schmooze the senators and representatives who sit on defense appropriations committees. In turn, these members vote to keep the gravy train running to the tune of billions. Weapons contractors reap the rewards, which come out to be about a 450,000% return on their investment. Not to mention the 50-plus members of Congress who either directly, or through spouses, hold stock in these companies that continue to price gouge the Pentagon. If the Pentagon were a public company listed on NYSEC, its top executives would all be in jail.

There is some good news to be had. President Trump and Elon Musk say they are gunning for the Pentagon next. No doubt they will not chop down the whole tree, instead choosing to prune, unlike their strategy for minor-spending USAID. Let’s hope they plan to cut the Pentagon budget down to what’s necessary to defend the land we live on, and pull back from our previous strategy of controlling the entire world by military force. Instead of just fiddling around the edges and focusing on thousand-dollar soap dispensers, let’s hope Trump meant it when he talked about cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons systems that have nothing to do with defending the U.S. To get into it at the Pentagon, Elon is touting one of his “top DOGE team members,” a young genius gent who goes by the name of “Big Balls.”

Well, Big Balls, should you choose to take on the Pentagon behemoth, know that you have your work cut out for you. Much of its waste is hidden in plain sight: Thousands of nuclear weapons are already overkill, with thousands more planned. Weapons systems that don’t work and cost American taxpayers billions. Corrupt weapons manufacturers price gouging the government for weapons that spend more time in the shop than available for service. Warplanes that are so needlessly complex that only the contractor who constructed the piece of crap is capable of repairing them. Former Pentagon generals, who take their insider knowledge straight to the source in their retirement, often lining up cushy board seats at these very same weapons manufacturers, fleecing the American people.

Those are some mighty foes and entrenched interests for you to take on, Big Balls. Hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, abuse, and insane, irrational, and immoral policies are at stake. There’s going to be a lot of war profiteers who will attack you. It will be a David and Goliath-esque undertaking. And it’s going take some really big balls to end it and to change this Department of War (That’s DOW as in the stock prices that are at stake) into a true Department of Defense, whose job is defending the land we live on, rather than controlling the entire world through endless wars.

When U.S. President Donald Trump declared on February 19 that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—not Russian President Vladimir Putin—was the real dictator, he wasn't only spouting inflammatory rhetoric. He was launching a calculated assault on our collective memory and shared reality. From our reality-star king-in-chief this is not just another chaotic distraction that we slap the word unprecedented on—it's an active threat that puts millions of Ukrainian lives at risk and fuels violent instability across Europe.

But it's also a direct insult to the American people, who witnessed these events unfold in real time just two years ago. Most voters can recall the horror of watching a sovereign nation be invaded by an army. Trump's audacious attempt to rewrite current events follows the authoritarian playbook to the letter: Deny reality, rewrite the narrative, and weaponize chaos and confusion until the public's grip on truth begins to slip. The end goal is crystal clear: total power, sacrificing democracy and millions of lives in the process.

The strategy is painfully familiar because we've already lived through it. Within hours of his inauguration, Trump continued his rewriting of January 6—yet another event we all witnessed in real time. The pardon he issued is far from popular or celebrated by voters, as 83% of Americans disapprove of this decision, disapprove of this rewriting of history. We watched his supporters, inflamed by his lies, storm the Capitol to block the peaceful transfer of power. That poll indicates that the American people know what we saw no matter how many executive orders he signs. We recall how the violence was methodical: smashed windows, destroyed barricades, ransacked offices. The human cost was devastating: lives lost, lawmakers running for safety, democracy itself under siege. For 187 excruciating minutes, Trump—then still the sitting president—ignored pleas to stop the violence, instead making calls to senators urging them to object to the election while watching the chaos unfold on Fox News. When he finally spoke, it wasn't to condemn the violence but to validate it: "We love you... I know your pain... the election was stolen." He watched democracy burn and poured gasoline on the flames. And now, he's reaching for the gas can again.

Fact-checking isn't just a journalistic practice—it's an act of civic resistance that each of us must embrace.

This pattern isn't just about misstatements or confusion. This is about the systematic dismantling of shared reality—a tactic many authoritarian heads of state have relied on. In Romania, where I was born, the brutal dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu didn't just control the present; he rewrote the past. His regime banned books, silenced histories, and maintained lists of names that couldn't be spoken aloud. The goal wasn't just censorship—it was the eradication of collective memory. It was also necessary for his attempts to target specific communities. If our histories were not honored it was easier to deny our human rights.

Putin's Russia shows us this same pattern. He claims Ukraine has no legitimate history as a nation, that it was "entirely created by Russia." These aren't just words—it's the groundwork for invasion and occupation. When Trump echoes these lies about Ukraine and Zelensky, he's not just parroting Putin's propaganda. He's signaling his allegiance to the authoritarian practice of bending reality itself to serve power.

And of course, we need to talk about Hitler's Germany. Not only because the Nazi salute is suddenly being flaunted before conservative audiences in the U.S., but because that is exactly what we are seeing unfold right here in the United States. When the White House posts an ASMR video of an undocumented person in chains being taken to a concentration camp, we need to talk about Nazi Germany. Like Trump, the Nazi regime didn't begin with death camps; they began with propaganda, with book burnings, with the systematic rewriting of history to support their white supremacist ideology. North Korea too maintains its grip on power through absolute control of information and historical narrative. These aren't distant cautionary tales—they're blueprints being followed by Trump.

The architects of alternative facts fear one thing above all: truth told boldly and repeatedly. Since 1848, when the Associated Press was founded with an emphasis on factual reporting, journalism has served as a check on power. It's no coincidence that Trump has now banned AP reporters from the White House press corps for their factual reporting about the Gulf of Mexico. When facts become the enemy, we're watching authoritarianism in action. But defending truth isn't just the job of journalists, though their freedom remains essential to democracy's survival. The front line in this battle runs through every conversation we have, every social media post we share, every time we choose to speak up rather than stay silent. Fact-checking isn't just a journalistic practice—it's an act of civic resistance that each of us must embrace.

The more chaotic and overwhelming these attacks on truth become, the more essential it is that we refuse to normalize them. Speak up. It matters. It makes a difference. Each book banned, each journalist silenced through intimidation or exile, each historical event rewritten—these are not isolated incidents. They are coordinated strikes against our collective power to resist.

It often feels like we are at the point of no return, especially when we look at the complicity of Congress. Congress' willingness to surrender its constitutional role has become apparent to many Americans. Rather than draft legislation or serve as a check on executive power, Republican lawmakers have chosen to let Trump rule by decree. Why bother with the messy work of democracy when you can simply allow a demagogue to issue orders? This isn't just institutional failure—it's institutional surrender and they are betraying every American by doing so. The Republicans in Congress have traded their dignity and our democracy for positive tweets from Elon Musk and Trump.

Though this is undeniably bleak, I don't believe it means defeat. It means we must make a collective decision: Will we perform what Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience" (especially since a majority of the orders are unjust, unconstitutional, and illegal), or will we hold onto our shared reality with fierce determination? History isn't just a record of what happened—it's a guide for resistance. When we allow our past to be rewritten, we surrender the lessons that could save our future. When someone thinks they can rewrite the past, they believe themselves to be God in control of events. We have to make sure we declare that Trump is no King nor God.

The path forward isn't through individual action or protecting our personal freedoms. This moment demands collective resistance, a tall order in a country that is being told it must destroy its neighbors to survive. But we know better. We love our neighbors. We see the labor and care our national park service workers are investing and we believe the firing of the 100,000 federal workers who maintained our freedom is unjust and needs to be reversed. We know that in a democracy, an unelected billionaire does not have the right to treat Americans as pawns. We are smarter than Elon and Trump are acting like we are. Every time Trump attempts to rewrite January 6 or parrot Putin's propaganda about Ukraine, we must respond not with outrage (after all, this was all written in Project 2025), but with unwavering commitment to truth. We must refuse to let our shared reality be negotiated away in service of authoritarian ambition.

History is clear on this point: When leaders wage war on truth itself, silence equals surrender. We cannot afford to surrender now. Read the books. Refuse to obey in advance unjust, unconstitutional, and illegal executive actions. Gather with your neighbors and friends and speak the truth. Refuse to believe in the lie that we are now against one another, for our individual survival. We must gather and speak the truth in unison: Trump is no King nor God.

The budget plan that the House is scheduled to consider this week would add to the deficit as it calls on committees to cut $2 trillion primarily from programs that help people secure health coverage, buy groceries, and pay for college to partially offset a $4.5 trillion tax cut, with benefits that are skewed toward the wealthy. Yet the House Budget Committee (HBC) Republicans attempt to hide their plan’s additions to the deficit with unrealistic assumptions of how tax cuts will drive economic growth.

They assert that the economy will grow more than 40 percent faster each year over the coming decade than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects, yielding a ten-year “economic bonus” that would reduce the projected deficit by $2.6 trillion. Their budget math rests on this flawed bonus. Without it, the HBC plan would increase the deficit relative to CBO’s projections, even with its massive spending cuts in Medicaid and SNAP that would take away health care and food from people who are struggling to afford the basics.

This economic bonus is not credible.

CBO projects that real economic growth — growth after considering inflation — will average around 1.8 percent per year from 2026 to 2035. In contrast, the House assumes growth of 2.6 percent a year. This increase is far beyond a typical “rosy scenario” and instead reflects “fantasy math,” as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget aptly describes it.

HBC Republicans have defended their assumed growth rate by saying it is below the post-war historical average. But that is misleading. The nation’s labor force grew strongly in the post-war years, particularly as the baby boomers reached working age and because women joined the labor force in large numbers. Today, the baby boomers are retiring, and current population growth depends on immigration, which the Trump Administration is seeking to curb.

Republicans point to the extension of the expiring provisions of the 2017 tax cuts as a key driver of their assumed additional growth. But CBO comes to a much different conclusion. In its baseline projection, CBO assumes the tax cuts expire as scheduled and concludes that “the expiration of the individual income tax provisions of the 2017 tax act does not significantly affect CBO’s projections of real GDP.”

That means that extending the expiring tax cuts, as the Republicans propose, would similarly have little effect on economic growth. Overall, CBO has found that the positive economic effects of the tax cuts alone were quite modest, and that their high cost (which increases federal borrowing and leads to lower private investment) offsets any resulting economic growth. Thus, even if the costs of the tax cuts were completely offset, the economic bonus would be only a small fraction of what HBC Republicans claim. To the extent the program cuts harm investments in the future — economic support and good health care for children, education at all levels, medical and scientific research, infrastructure maintenance and development — those cuts work against better sustainable economic growth.

CBO is not alone in its findings. Economists at a range of other institutions — such as the Joint Tax Committee, Tax Foundation, Tax Policy Center, Penn-Wharton Budget Model, Yale Budget Lab, and American Enterprise Institute — have also examined the economic effects of extending the 2017 tax cuts. None came up with estimates anywhere near those assumed by the House plan.

The House Republicans point to other Trump Administration actions as further rationale for their economic assumptions, such as spending cuts, deregulation, and increasing production of fossil fuels. But their views of the impact of the Administration’s policies on the economy are one-sided, ignoring its policies that are likely to slow growth. For instance, the Administration’s policy of mass deportations and restrictions on new lawful immigration will dampen labor force growth. Analysts estimate that immigration will fall from 3 million in 2024 to 500,000 in 2026.

Similarly, the Trump Administration’s tariff policy could increase prices, possibly by 1.7 to 2.1 percent, and lower economic growth as much as 1.0 percentage point, according to recent estimates by the Yale Budget Lab.

In the end, the assumed economic bonus is a pure gimmick that House Republicans are using to try hide the true effects of their agenda that raises costs, takes health care away from people, increases poverty and hardship, worsens inequality, and increases the deficit.

America’s richest have never been richer. Our over 800 billionaires ended 2024 worth a combined $6.72 trillion. Today, almost two months later, Americans make up 14 of the 15 richest people in the world. Just these 14 alone hold a combined net wealth of over $2.5 trillion.

One predictable consequence of numbers like these: Our world’s “super yacht” sector is doing spectacularly well, as the annual Miami International Boat Show this month convincingly confirmed. The star of this year’s show turned out to be a super yacht nearly the length of a football field.

Drivers on America’s highways and byways, meanwhile, are now needing to make room for the newly released latest luxury super car from Rolls-Royce. The new Black Badge Spectre can “sprint from zero to 60 mph in just 4.1 seconds.” The base price: a mere $490,000.

We need more, let’s all agree, than shows and movies that skewer the rich.

Amid all this excess, the fortunes—and power—of America’s most fortunate just keep mounting ever higher. At the expense of the rest of us. The world’s wealthiest billionaire, Elon Musk, has found an particularly lucrative new hobby: axing the jobs of federal employees working at agencies that protect the health and economic security of average Americans.

Researchers and analysts worldwide are, for their part, continuing to carefully track the ongoing—and historic—concentration of America’s wealth. But Hollywood, these days, may actually be tracking this concentration even closer.

The wealth, privileges, and formidable clout of our richest, Hollywood understands, are outraging average Americans. We’ve become a nation hungry for entertainment that expresses that outrage, and Hollywood has been all too happy to offer up that entertaining.

“The popularity of ‘eat the rich’ media—like Saltburn, White Lotus, Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu, Infinity Pool, The Fall of the House of Usher, and the Knives Out movies—has reached a fever pitch,” as the culture critic Kelsey Eisen puts it.

This “vilification of the rich,” adds Eisen, regularly includes “rich characters undergoing some terrible event—ranging from marital troubles to shipwrecks to even death—as some sort of comeuppance for being wealthy.”

“We do love watching the 1% get their comeuppance, don’t we?” agrees Adrian Lobb, another widely published and perceptive writer on contemporary culture.

Lobb last year interviewed Jason Isaacs, one of the stars of The White Lotus, an Emmy Award-winning comedy drama created for HBO. Isaacs told Lobb that he also “absolutely” loves the joy of the “comeuppance” moments swirling all around us.

“We watch these people who look like they’ve got everything,” Isaacs explains, “and console ourselves with the fact that they’re miserable as hell.”

The White Lotus features “sun, sea, sex” and super-rich secrets, notes the culture analyst Lobb, “with a side order of slaying.” Each season of the series showcases a set of gastronomically obsessed wealthy out to enjoy life at an exotic luxury resort, with no guest, quips writer and filmmaker Alyssa De Leo, “safe from being skewered—figuratively and literally.”

Another skewering of the “successful” takes place, De Leo observes, in the widely acclaimed film Triangle of Sadness, the story of an ultra-wealthy cruise ship that sinks and leaves the survivors “stranded on a desert island” with “the upper-class guests lacking any resources or knowledge of how to survive.”

Still another popular entry in the “comeuppance” genre, the thriller You’re Next, has a wealthy family celebrating an anniversary in a country mansion that masked assailants suddenly besiege. The assailants turn out to be hired guns that some members of the family had retained to ensure and hasten the inheritances they saw as their due.

And atop the genre’s most-watched list sits Squid Game, “one of Netflix’s most important and impactful television shows ever.” This “too-close-for-comfort dystopian thriller,” the Observer’s Brandon Katz celebrates, “cleverly spins socioeconomic inequality into thriller life-or-death games.”

Are entertainments like these seriously acknowledging the deep-seated anxieties—and anger—that Americans are feeling today? Or is the entertainment industry just shamelessly exploiting those anxieties and that anger? Are “eat the rich” films and series, as the arts critic Kelsey Eisen muses, “moving the political conversation forward” or merely “providing soothing, satisfying, and self-congratulatory entertainment”?

Eisen herself sees the answer to that question through the latter prism. She considers “eat the rich” entertainment as “less of a political statement and more of a soothing concession,” as “basically class-anxiety pornography, pure catharsis without a real message or call to action.”

Even so, Eisen readily confesses that she does indeed enjoy watching many of today’s “eat the rich” shows and movies and does see real value “in using art to encapsulate popular sentiments and anxieties and to normalize progressive sentiments.”

So should you dare enjoy “class anxiety-soothing media”? Sure, Eisen concludes. Just be sure that this media “doesn’t soothe you into being too complacent to ever actually do anything” to end that class anxiety.

Amen. We need more, let’s all agree, than shows and movies that skewer the rich. We need, now more than ever, a political movement powerful enough to break the billionaire lockgrip on our future.

What is occurring now in the United States has very little to do with making the government more “efficient,” or rooting out “incompetence," or “depoliticizing” parts of government that should be nonpartisan.

Nor is it motivated chiefly by President Donald Trump’s desire get rid of “DEI” and “woke,” or “weaponize” law enforcement, or establish white Christian nationalism, or wreak vengeance on his enemies.

The real story is this.

In every part of the government that involves the use of force—the military, the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the authority to arrest, the capacity to hold individuals in jail—Trump is putting into power people who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States.

As he tries to consolidate power, we must protect the institutions in our society still able to oppose Trump’s tyranny—independent centers of power that can stop or at least slow him.

He has purged (or is in the process of purging) at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Inspectors General, and the FBI, anyone who is not personally loyal to him.

Trump is rapidly gaining a personal monopoly on the use of force. This is his most fundamental goal. This is the essence of tyranny.

On Friday, he fired Air Force General CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, as well as the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense, and National Security Council.

This was followed by the firings of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.

The media sees the firings as “part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.” This may be part of Trump’s motivation, but it is not the major driver. The firings are part of a campaign to purge the Defense Department of leaders who are not totally loyal to Trump.

For Brown’s replacement, Trump has nominated retired Air Force Lt. General John Dan “Razin” Caine—a career fighter jet pilot.

Caine has not served in any of the positions—Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command—that nominees are legally required to have held in order to be nominated. By law, a president may waive those requirements if he “determines such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Trump isn’t putting Caine in this pivotal position because of the national interest. He’s putting Caine there because of Caine’s unequivocal personal loyalty to Trump. Trump boasted to an audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine had told him, “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.”

The same is occurring at the Justice Department, where Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal lawyer who’s now the chief enforcer there, is imposing a Trump loyalty test on prosecutors—demanding they comply with Trump’s demands, however unacceptable and incompatible with norms, or leave.

It’s no accident that Bove has targeted the Justice Department’s most powerful officials and divisions—shaking up the national security division, insisting that the FBI’s acting leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on the Capitol riot investigations, and targeting the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (the most prestigious U.S. attorney’s office in the country, known for guarding its independence).

Trump says he’s “depoliticizing” law enforcement in response to former President Joe Biden’s supposed bow to partisan politics. But Biden’s actions had nothing to do with partisan politics. And, ironically, neither are Trump’s: His are about personal loyalty.

On Sunday night, Trump announced that MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino will be deputy director of the FBI, alongside newly installed chief Kash Patel. Bongino is a former cop, Secret Service agent, conspiracy theorist, and Fox News commentator who joined Trump’s MAGA world in the 2010s and now hosts a popular podcast.

The media sees this as another example of Trump embracing Fox News (Bongino is the 20th ex-Fox News host, journalist, or commentator to bag a senior job in the new Trump administration).

But that’s not it. Bongino’s most important attribute is the same as Patel’s—unswerving personal loyalty to Trump. As elsewhere, Trump is turning the FBI into an extension of his personal will.

Every tyrant throughout history has gained a personal monopoly on the use of force so he can impose his will on anyone, for any purpose. Tyrants achieve this by delegating power only to people personally loyal to them.

Trump is even testing the personal loyalty of federal judges.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump recently posted on social media (a direct nod to Napoleon and other dictators), attached to a headline that his administration refuses to obey a district court order unfreezing billions of dollars in federal grants.

All this is happening just as Trump is effectively handing over large swaths of the world to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—the only world leaders he respects and understands, because they, too, are tyrants.

On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and 14 other authoritarian Moscow-friendly countries against a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly nonetheless.

Why am I telling you this when you’re probably already feeling rage and despair over what’s happening? Because seeing the whole for what it truly is — rather than being upset by this or that part of it — is essential for fighting back.

We—the vast majority of people in the United States—do not want to live in a dictatorship. Yet we now have a president and a regime bent on an authoritarian takeover of America and on joining the other major authoritarians of the world.

As he tries to consolidate power, we must protect the institutions in our society still able to oppose Trump’s tyranny—independent centers of power that can stop or at least slow him. Not this Congress, tragically, but federal courts and judges. Many of our state governors and attorneys general, state legislatures, and state courts. Perhaps even our state and local police. Hopefully, our communities.

Ultimately this will come down to our own courage and resolve: To engage in peaceful civil disobedience. To organize and mobilize others. To fight against hate and bigotry. To fight for justice and democracy.

Remember this: Tyranny cannot prevail over people who refuse to succumb to it.

According to the preliminary results of the Bundestag, or parliamentary, elections, the extreme right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the second-strongest force in Germany. It now has 20.8% of the vote, doubling its result compared to the last election. The conservative CDU/CSU got 28.5%. The Social Democrats and the Greens, who have been in government so far, were punished, receiving 16.4 and 11.6% of the vote, respectively.

However, the party Die Linke was able to achieve a success. For a long time, it was stuck in polls well below the 5%, which is the mark to enter the Bundestag. But in a final sprint, it was able to significantly increase the result and garner 8.7%. Above all, strong speeches by Member of Parliament Heidi Reichinnek against the anti-migration agenda of all other parties and for real social change were able to mobilize.

Now the established parties and the mainstream press are engaging in the usual complaints and soul-searching about how things could have come to this. In the face of the rapid rise of the Alternative for Germany, journalists and political commentators often say that dissatisfaction with the established parties is the reason why more and more people are voting for the AfD. The dissatisfaction is then mostly seen as created by "mass immigration," the rejection of climate protection, and a left-liberal view of society ("wokeness")—in other words, a growing front against overly left-wing, progressive, liberal politics. This is seen to be the central cause of the shift to the right in society. Politicians must now respond to this.

The political class is reaping what is has sown and now is shedding crocodile tears about the results.

This is a narrative that is not only convenient and leads to false right-wing solutions, but also distorts reality by blaming those who are supposedly rebelling against progressive politics and thinking backward. At the same time, the other parties and their supporters appear as a haven of reason and morality, striving to hold society together.

The thesis that a shift to the right in the population is the reason for the rapid rise of the AfD also obscures the root of the problem. Looking closer, large portions of today's AfD voters have by no means been attracted to the AfD and its better policy proposals.

Even significant portions of AfD voters agree with the majority of Germans on polls that favor a fair solution to refugee protection and a quarter believe that the energy transition is indispensable; only a few describe themselves as extreme right and "only" 40% have right-wing tendencies. Most of them demand a social policy that benefits them, as many of them are unemployed or low-income earners, while the AfD takes a diametrically opposed, extreme position on all these issues, and their neoliberal program would make the rich even richer and the poor poorer.

In fact, more and more people were driven from the so-called "extreme center" into the arms of the AfD. In some ways, the political class is reaping what is has sown and now is shedding crocodile tears about the results.

The term "extreme center" was coined 10 years ago by the British intellectual Tariq Ali in his book The Extreme Centre: A Warning. It essentially refers to what often is referred to as "bourgeois parties," "parties of the political center," "established parties," sometimes also as "democratic parties" or "parties capable of forming a government." In Germany, these are the CDU/CSU, SPD, the liberals FDP, and the Greens. They distinguish themselves from the "extremes" on the left and right, which they regard as a danger to society and democracy, and see themselves as a force that balances interests and creates harmony.

According to Tariq Ali, the parties of the so-called center have been indistinguishable from each other in important policy areas since the 1980s. In the Western industrialized countries, a kind of "government of national unity" has emerged. It has implemented and maintained extreme policies—including the neoliberal turn and an aggressively oriented foreign policy under U.S. leadership—against the needs of the general population.

In the process, the space for alternative policy proposals and democratic debate has been reduced to a minimum. It created a dangerous democratic vacuum. This vacuum can now be exploited in particular by extremist parties on the right.

Let's take a look at how the "non-partisan political class, beyond particular interests" has operated in Germany in recent decades. Since the 1990s (or even earlier, in the years under chancellor Helmut Kohl, CDU), various governing coalitions have implemented policies that have led to Germany becoming the country in Europe with the greatest material and social inequality.

On the one hand, the established parties created a high concentration of wealth through various neoliberal measures. On the other hand, parts of the middle class were put under financial pressure. A huge low-wage sector was built up, widespread poverty (especially child and old-age poverty) was created, and the welfare state was dismantled.

Many services that people in the country rely on to live in safety have been commercialized, privatized, and "streamlined." The state of Germany's railways, healthcare system, pensions, agriculture, real estate markets, and education systems shows where this has led. Once in comparatively good condition, these infrastructures are now dysfunctional, expensive, unjust, and environmentally harmful.

The austerity for the poor and many ordinary citizens, and the welfare state for the rich and super-rich, has led to Germany becoming increasingly divided—especially the eastern federal states that were hit hard by the inequality policy after reunification.

The Agenda 2010, introduced and enacted under the red-green government in the early 2000s, was pushed forward by massive pressure from corporate and business lobbying groups (see the tens of millions of euros spent on the so called "reform movement," including the Initiative für Soziale Marktwirtschaft led by the employers' federation of metal and electronics industry Gesamtmetall) has finally turned on the inequality turbo. As a result, the lower and middle classes have become poorer and the rich and hyper-rich fantastically richer.

This process is uncontroversial today. According to the Global Wealth Report, in 1970 the top 1% of the German population (around 800,000 people) owned 20% of the total private wealth. That, too, is enormous, meaning that Germany was by no means a balanced or even just society at the time.

By 2020, the share had risen to 35%. The super-rich, the top 0.1% (around 85,000 Germans), can now claim up to 20% of the national wealth for themselves (as much as the top 1% in 1970). The top 10% own around 67%, which corresponds to two-thirds of total private wealth. Like many large properties, corporate assets are almost exclusively in the hands of the top 1%. The lower, poorer half of the population in Germany, on the other hand, owns practically no wealth, apart from a few small credit-financed and self-occupied apartments, houses, or cars.

This extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of very few continues to grow without countermeasures being taken. For example, the number of millionaires in Germany rose from 2.1 million to 2.8 million between 2019 and 2024, an increase of 30% in just a few years. A similar curve can be seen among billionaires. In 2001, there were 69 billionaires in Germany; by 2022, this number had already risen to 212, and last year there were 249 (including extended families) who own a billion or more.

According to the Global Wealth Report and other studies, "wealth inequality in Germany is higher than in other large Western European countries. For example, the Gini coefficient [it measures inequality: 100% means that all wealth is in one hand, at zero everyone would own the same] for wealth in Germany is 82%, compared to 67% in Italy and 70% in France."

In other rich industrialized countries, a comparable process of concentration and inequality can be observed, despite slight differences. The division of society is increasing everywhere in Western democracies, deliberately set in motion and nourished by the politics of the extreme center.

The regime of inequality has been further expanded in the United States and Great Britain than in Germany. There, neoliberal programs were initiated under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s and 1980s, and were implemented particularly rigorously in the U.S. by the business class and the political establishment.

Above all, these were drastic tax cuts for the rich and super-rich, i.e. for capital, and the deregulation of the financial industry, while the real wages (purchasing power adjusted for inflation) of the lower and middle classes fell and the welfare state, on which large sections of the population depended, was forced to retreat.

The U.S. extreme center, both Republicans and Democrats, wanted it that way. The media celebrated the policy as a dynamic growth strategy, even though growth rates and productivity were significantly lower than in the three "golden decades" before.

The direct effects of these neoliberal measures are mind-boggling. A 2020 study by the U.S.-based Rand Corporation shows that the top 1% of income earners in the U.S. have siphoned off $50 trillion (50,000 billion) from the bottom 90% in recent decades.

If the more equitable distribution of the approximately 30-year post-war period had continued, with wages rising in line with productivity, the total annual income of the bottom 90% of American workers in 2018 would have been $2.5 trillion higher, or about 12% of gross domestic product. In other words, the upward redistribution of income has enriched the top 1% by about $50 trillion at the expense of American workers.

Or to put it another way, the average income of a full-time employee in the U.S. in 2020 was $50,000. If wages had kept pace with economic output since the mid-1970s, the average worker's salary would be around $100,000 today.

But politicians and corporations blocked wage increases in the wake of the growing national income and handed out ever greater proportions of it with "reform measures" (i.e., redistribution measures) to the hyper-rich. U.S. labor unions speak of a "trillion-dollar robbery," criticizing an extremely successful "class war from above."

For decades, the extreme center has offered the right something that it continues to deny the left to this day: mobilization platforms for its political proposals.

A similar redistribution from bottom to top has taken place in Germany, albeit not as blatantly as across the Atlantic. Even though there is no comparable study for Germany to that of the Rand Corporation, most Germans would earn significantly more today if it had not been for the neoliberal redistribution policy.

The structural change, or rather the structural break, has had of course far-reaching effects. Studies show that the effects of inequality range from very negative to destructive. Accordingly, inequality generates and promotes economic crises and ecological catastrophes and intensifies conflicts, wars, global injustice, and the plight of refugees. Kate Pickett, professor of epidemiology at the Department of Health Sciences, and Richard Wilkinson, professor at the University of York, have been systematically studying the effects on living standards in rich countries for many years.

Their research, summarized in the books The Spirit Level and The Inner Level, shows that income inequality—the gap between rich and poor—has a strong influence on people's health and well-being, as well as on human capabilities and social cohesion. Inequality causes health and social problems.

This ranges from lower life expectancy and lower levels of education and social mobility to higher levels of violence and mental illness. The scientists argue that inequality hinders the creation of sustainable economies that ensure the well-being of people and the planet.

Above all, inequality undermines solidarity, provision for future generations, and social cohesion, and encourages more and more people to vote for right-wing or even far-right parties—initially as a form of protest, but then increasingly out of conviction.

In general, inequality and isolation lead to selfish, even authoritarian and irrational attitudes that lack solidarity. When a large part of the population sees a tiny minority amassing enormous wealth and bathing in luxury while many others do not know how to make ends meet in the face of skyrocketing rents and prices and a lack of public services, this is toxic for any society.

Instead of addressing these problems and their causes, the parties and the major media have chosen a different strategy to counter the growing dissatisfaction in the country. And that has created a second mobilizing factor for far-right answers, alongside inequality.

In principle, it is the well-known logic of "Divide and Rule" or "Us" against "Them" that allows frustration to be deflected and groups to be set against each other. It is simple but very effective: It is not the hyper-rich, entrepreneurs, and profiteers of the redistribution from bottom to top (the 0.1 or 1% class), including the political extreme center and their accomplices in the media, who are responsible for the conditions and frustration. It is "the others." They take away the prosperity of the Germans and make them dissatisfied.

This has allowed the privileges of those who own the companies and large portions of German wealth, as well as the politics that serve their interests, to be protected from real reform, while also deflecting people's anger at inequality and grievances from the causes of that frustration.

To illustrate this, Guardian columnist Fatma Aydemir cites a joke: A banker, a welfare recipient, and an asylum-seeker are sitting at a table. In front of them are 12 biscuits. The banker takes 11 biscuits and says to the welfare recipient: "Watch out, the refugee wants your biscuit."

In this way, minorities were declared scapegoats, marginalized, and stigmatized as a danger to the lower and middle classes. In the 1990s, after the Yugoslavian wars and the NATO bombings, opinion makers and prominent politicians blamed refugees from the Balkans for social and economic problems and ultimately shredded the right of asylum enshrined in the German constitution.

The same spectacle has been taking place since 2015. In major waves of campaigning, people fleeing from war, persecution, and misery have been presented by the media and politicians as the central threat to the social order.

They are portrayed as illegitimate "social parasites" and ungrateful "misogynists" (see the artificially scandalized "Sodom and Gomorrah" of Cologne during New Year's Eve 2015-2016, of which nothing remained in the investigation committee of the NRW state parliament) or terrorists and knife murderers (see the exaggerated coverage of isolated acts by mostly traumatized asylum-seekers and refugees) who want to snatch the last biscuit from the Germans.

The AfD was finally able to reap the political rewards, the grapes of wrath. In 2015, the party was in a tailspin after a desperate attempt to capitalize on anti-E.U. sentiment. Internal squabbles weakened it more and more, so that in September 2015 it plummeted to 4% in the polls and was on the verge of disappearing into insignificance.

But then came the dramatic turnaround. In the fall of the same year, the party's unstoppable rise began when the extreme center decided to spread a historic moral panic through all channels in the wake of the so-called "refugee crisis" of 2015-2016. A year later, in September 2016, the AfD was at 16% in the polls. Riding the wave of success, it was able to push ahead with political radicalization and spread "Vogelschiss" (bird droppings) theories about the insignificance of the Holocaust.

The AfD did not become what it is today on its own. It was the political class and the mainstream press that served and continue to serve up the "illegal intruders" as the perfect scapegoats for the authoritarian right. Only then did the far-right experience a rapid rise, successfully campaigning on the issue of refugees, who were widely vilified, and winning votes.

It is often claimed that the refugees, their influx, and their numbers have strengthened the right wing. The blame lies with the "migration pressure." But that is not true. As stated in the 2018 annual report of the Mercator Forum Migration and Democracy (Midem) Migration and Populism, it was not the influx of refugees that was the central factor, but the media and political discourse about the crisis.

As long as the reduction of inequality and social grievances are not placed at the top of the political agenda and addressed properly, while the extreme center keeps pursuing right-wing cultural wars as a distraction, rational answers to frustrations will have to swim against a powerful current.

Support for the AfD fell, as already mentioned, to four% in the opinion polls between 2015 and late summer of the same year (from 9% the previous year), while—calculated from 2014—750,000 refugees came to Germany during this time. Support for the AfD was indeed negatively correlated with the sharp increase in the number of refugees in Germany. During this period, more refugees actually led to a decline in support for the AfD.

From October 2015, when the discourse of crisis was launched by politicians and the media, the AfD's poll numbers rose sharply, reaching a preliminary high of 18% in September 2018. During this "AfD growth phase," the number of refugees coming to Germany and the E.U. dropped significantly, so that by the end of 2018, when the AfD reached its peak, almost no refugees were able to enter Germany thanks to the brutal sealing of the country's borders under the leadership of the Merkel government.

Hence, also during the "crisis phase," support for the AfD correlates negatively with the influx of refugees, according to the rule: fewer refugees, more support for the AfD. The actual influx of refugees is obviously not the reason for the success or failure of the AfD. What the AfD has actually benefited from since 2015 has been the political discourse of permanent crisis and alarmist reporting on asylum-seekers and "illegal migration."

Even today, the rise of the AfD is still associated with a conjured up second "refugee crisis." Although asylum-seekers from the southern Mediterranean region make up only a small proportion of those admitted (190,000 compared to over a million Ukrainians in 2020), they are once again the focus of media debate, which, as with the last "refugee crisis," focuses on deportation and strengthening "Fortress Europe"—a "refugee crisis" that in fact was a crisis of the European repulsion regime that was met with even more sealing off.

Meanwhile, the Germans at the bottom of society are also being discredited in order to deflect the frustration of the groups above them, especially the middle classes, onto them (and not upward, onto the culprit of the frustration). Thus, journalists and politicians discredited the unemployed and welfare recipients as "social parasites" and "work-shy" in order to push through the Hartz IV reforms to pressure the unemployed and the dismantling of the welfare state against popular resistance. As surveys show, majorities were against it and wanted a different, more solidarity-based modernization.

And while today the multimillionaires and billionaires in the country can hardly walk because of all their wealth, property, and investment portfolios, more and more money is being put into their pockets, while for those who (due to a lack of jobs, low wages, or exploding rents and prices) have to stay afloat with state support, every euro is questioned. So the political opinion makers argue about a too-high support for the long-term unemployed, the so called "Bürgergeld" (now 563 euros for a single person per month), with the adjustment in recent years barely offsetting inflation, but they don't talk about the constant pampering of millionaires and billionaires.

The mainstream media continue to spread the myth that basically everything is fine and a few Band-Aids here and there would suffice: a euro more minimum wage, for example—which would do no more than compensate for inflation and is often undermined by companies anyway.

But anyone who wants to address the extreme salaries and wealth, the capital gains of investors and companies (often parked in tax havens), is either met with ignorance (see the left-wing demands in the Bundestag) or attacked with economic doomsday scenarios.

And yet another group has become the target of the political establishment. Politicians and journalists have fueled toxic narratives on climate protection. To appease fossil lobbies and slow down the transition to renewable energy, the establishment (or rather, significant parts of it) sabotages the energy transition, denounces calls for immediate action, discredits demonstrators as "eco-terrorists" and presents climate protection as an economic burden and a brake on prosperity, especially for the lower and middle classes. At the same time, wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars are drawn into culture wars.

This makes it easy for the AfD and right-wing forces to present climate policy as an elite project and to portray themselves as guardians of ordinary people, protecting them from the burdens and costs of the energy transition. Similar things could be said about the "wokeness" debate—pushed by conservative sectors of the extreme center, while the resulting defensive reactions in the population could be used by the extreme right for campaigns.

The "political center" has created an extreme social situation, from which only the AfD is profiting in Germany. Its rise is closely linked to the failures of the establishment, which has shifted the overall frustration onto the weak, while the representatives of the political class shed crocodile tears over the popularity and election wins of the AfD. The same is true in other European countries and the United States.

The question remains as to why left-wing solutions have not been able to fill the gap created by the extreme center in the same way as right-wing extremist ones could—although the surprising election result of the Left Party on Sunday shows that this does not have to remain the case. Certainly, mistakes have been made by left-wing parties. But the real reason lies elsewhere. For decades, the extreme center has offered the right something that it continues to deny the left to this day: mobilization platforms for its political proposals.

While AfD talking points such as the threat posed by refugees, an energy transition that is harassing citizens, and a mass indoctrination of wokeness have been flooding the media for decades, a debate on progressive measures that address the social causes of frustration is suppressed.

As the asylum law and the sealing-off regime are tightened ever further and the energy transition is blocked, people continue to wait for the reintroduction of the wealth tax in Germany (suspended in 1997), a real inheritance tax for the hyper-rich, a closure of tax havens and loopholes, the end of destructive subsidies, the regulation of the finance industry, or a revival of the welfare state. If anything, Germans are put off with vague promises before elections. After that, the popular ideas are put on ice or not seriously addressed.

The progressive political climate, as it existed to at least some extent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has been systematically deprived of oxygen ever since—a very significant process that effectively blocked democracy. However, as long as the reduction of inequality and social grievances are not placed at the top of the political agenda and addressed properly, while the extreme center keeps pursuing right-wing cultural wars as a distraction, rational answers to frustrations will have to swim against a powerful current. To the detriment of society, its prosperity, and stability.

On February 10, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA was the first law in modern history to ban a country’s own citizens and companies from bribing foreign officials.

Citing the law as one of the “excessive barriers to American commerce abroad,” President Trump has instructed the attorney general to—at her discretion—“cease the initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions.” The executive order further requires the DOJ to provide remedial measures for those who have faced "inappropriate" penalties as a result of past FCPA investigations and guilty verdicts.

This move by the Trump administration to pause enforcement of the foreign bribery law now and allow it to be put on the shelf later risks a revival of the pre-1970s period, when bribery was a routine practice among major U.S. arms contractors.

If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to “stop the war profiteering and to always put America first,” it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well.

In the post-Watergate reform period in Congress, in late 1975 and early 1976, Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s Subcommittee on the Conduct of Multinational Corporations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee exposed widespread foreign bribery on the part of U.S. oil and aerospace firms, with the starring role played by Lockheed Martin, which bribed officials in Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia in pursuit of contracts for its civilian and military aircraft.

The revelations caused political turmoil in the recipient countries, led to the resignation of Lockheed’s two top executives, and prompted Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.

The repercussions were most severe in Japan, where Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested and convicted of receiving bribes in the scandal—the first time a sitting Japanese prime minister had been arrested, in what one analyst called “Japan’s biggest scandal of the postwar era.”

Sen. Church made it clear that in his mind, the problem went far beyond the question of corruption: “It is no longer sufficient to simply sigh and say that is the way business is done. It is time to treat the issue for what it is: a serious foreign policy problem.”

Among the issues he cited were potential destabilization of democratic allies and closer ties with reckless, dictatorial regimes driven by financial motivations rather than careful consideration of U.S. security interests.

As noted above, President Trump’s primary reason for freezing enforcement of the anti-bribery law is that he believes it has been used unfairly, to the detriment of U.S. companies and U.S. security. This argument does not hold up to scrutiny.

First of all, there is no evidence that outlawing bribery has hurt the U.S. arms industry. The United States has been the world’s largest arms supplier by a large margin for 25 of the past 26 years, and major U.S. arms offers reached near record levels of $145 billion last year.

The real issue is how to stop dangerous, counterproductive arms transfers, not how to make it easier to cash in on sales that too often undermine U.S. interests.

A 2022 Quincy Institute study found that U.S.-supplied weapons were present in two-thirds of the world’s active conflicts, and that at least 31 clients of the U.S. arms industry were undemocratic regimes. Fueling conflicts and supporting reckless authoritarian regimes are destabilizing to regions of importance to U.S. security. They also risk drawing the United States into a direct, boots-on-the-ground conflict.

If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to “stop the war profiteering and to always put America first,” it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well. Just last October, RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) was forced to pay over $950 million in fines after it was found to have engaged in multiple schemes to defraud the Department of Defense and violate the FCPA and the Arms Export Control Act by paying bribes to Qatari officials in pursuit of major military contracts with that nation.

Not only should the FCPA be vigorously enforced to stop bribery of foreign officials by U.S. companies, but the law must also be strengthened to combat the flip side of the corruption coin—foreign bribes accepted by American officials. The recent sentencing of former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to 11 years in prison after being found guilty of bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Egypt and Qatar underscores the need for stronger enforcement mechanisms.

Menendez’s guilty verdict as well as Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Texas) indictment on charges that included unlawful foreign influence and bribery reveal how those who wield influence over American foreign policy can be paid off in exchange for exerting unwarranted influence on behalf of a foreign government.

The debate over bribery may be obscuring a larger truth: U.S. arms sales policy is in desperate need of an overhaul. The governing legislation—the Arms Export Control Act—was passed in 1976, when the world was a very different place than it is today.

The law gives Congress the authority to block a major arms sale by passing a joint resolution of disapproval in both houses. But given that they would be opposing a sale already approved by the Executive Branch, they would likely need a veto-proof majority. This standard is too hard to meet. For example, when Congress voted against a sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia in the midst of that nation’s brutal intervention in Yemen, the measure was vetoed by President Trump

A major change that could have a significant impact on U.S. arms sales decisions is legislation that would “flip the script” by requiring an affirmative vote of Congress before major sales to key countries are allowed to go forward. This would strengthen Congress’ hand and make it easier to stop reckless sales that might fuel conflict or enable human rights abuses.

Instead of lifting restrictions on bribery to grease the wheels for additional foreign arms sales by U.S. weapons makers, Congress and the Trump administration should be crafting a policy designed to make sure overseas arms sales are governed by U.S. national interests, not special interests that profit from selling ever more weaponry to any and all customers.

In the capricious tapestry that is U.S. foreign policy, you can find a recurring pattern: Washington champions sovereignty as a holy principle of the international order when it aligns with its interests—think Ukraine under Biden—but casually disregards it when inconvenient.

The latest thread in this tapestry is last Thursday’s unprecedented State Department decision to formally designate eight groups, including major Mexican drug cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Beneath the Trumpian tough-on-crime pose lies a policy that threatens to violate Mexico’s sovereignty and destabilize a vital relationship, and reinforces the imperialist tendency that has caused so much damage here in the U.S. and across the globe.

Labeling cartels as FTOs isn’t just a symbolic gesture; it opens the door for military intervention under the guise of counterterrorism. The U.S. could justify drone strikes or cross-border raids without Mexico’s consent—a blatant affront to its sovereignty. President Claudia Sheinbaum highlighted: “This classification should not serve as a pretext for the United States to invade our sovereignty.” Any such military intervention would violate Congress’s constitutional war powers, but Trump is unlikely to respect such legal niceties.

The desire to rise out of extreme poverty can not be bombed out of existence.

Elon Musk has made this clear. Musk recently declared on his social media platform that the FTO designation would make cartels “eligible for drone strikes,” a comment that is both legally dubious and deeply unsettling.

They’re Entrepreneurial Criminals, Not Terrorist Ideologues

Mexican cartels are not terrorists in the way most people understand that word. They’re not trying to overthrow governments or spread extremist beliefs. Yes, they commit horrific acts of violence—killings, kidnappings, extortion—but their primary motive is profit, not ideology. As the narcocorrido (“drug ballad,” a musical genre popular on both sides of the border) "Clave Privada" by Banda el Recodo goes:

I was poor for a long time
Many people humiliated me
I began to earn money...
Things are flipped around now
Now they call me boss.

Understanding the driver of these cartels isn’t rocket science: it’s all about the Miguelitos (i.e. the 1000 peso note). Imposing travel bans might inconvenience cartel leaders but it won’t dismantle their billion-dollar empires. The terrorist designation is unlikely to even cut profit margins because many cartels are already designated as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), so the FTO designation does not provide significant new policy tools to target their finances.

Drone attacks are unlikely to stop a notoriously violent business where cartel leaders are already frequently killed in assassinations by competitors or shootouts with government forces. The war on terror has shown to the U.S. that “Decapitate the Kingpin” is a loser’s game. In fact, Mexico’s own “kingpin strategy” targeting and elimination of high-ranking cartel members has created power vacuums and increased violence. Combining the failed strategies of the war on terror and the war on drugs is not just misguided—it’s doubling down on failure.

The desire to rise out of extreme poverty can not be bombed out of existence. Meanwhile, the other main drivers of this problem are illicit markets fueled by U.S. demand for drugs and corruption within Mexico—issues that require smarter policies to address. Words matter in policymaking. Using “terrorist” as a catch-all term is already destructive and distorting, from the U.S. “war on terror” to the Netanyahu-Biden-Trump war in Gaza to China’s oppression of the Uighur in Xinjiang. This action exacerbates the problem.

The Imperialist Echo

There’s something disturbingly familiar about this whole idea—a familiar whiff of paternalism. For decades, the U.S. has intervened in Latin America under various pretexts: fighting communism during the Cold War, waging war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, and now combating “terrorism.” The results have often been disastrous for the region. Designating cartels as FTOs feels like another chapter in this playbook: framing another country’s problems as existential threats to justify American imperialism. So long liberal internationalism, hello Make the Monroe Doctrine Great Again.

This approach doesn’t work in today’s interconnected world. Problems associated with drug trafficking—and migration—don’t respect borders; they require multilateral solutions rooted in trust and mutual respect—not unilateral declarations from Washington. Meanwhile, Trump is cutting thoughtful, nonviolent programs like U.S. funding for an organization that has reduced the number of children recruited by gangs to help move drugs and migrants across the border. Trump froze another program targeting fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking at key ports.

A Smarter Path Forward

None of this is meant to downplay the seriousness of cartel violence or its devastating impact on both sides of the border. Tackling this issue requires nuance and humility—especially from the U.S.. Instead of designating cartels as FTOs, policymakers should focus on strategies that address root causes: reducing demand for drugs through treatment programs; cracking down on gun trafficking from the U.S. into Mexico as some members of Congress are working to do; supporting anti-corruption efforts within Mexico; and strengthening bilateral cooperation rather than undermining it.

On August 24, 2023, a headline blared “La Maga Nostra” over the front page of the New York Post.

Dominating the layout was a photo of then-ex-President Donald Trump, his chin slightly raised in veiled contempt. The comparison was unmistakable: Trump as Don Corleone, the shadowy figurehead of The Godfather.

An accompanying news box underscored the irony. Trump had been hit with RICO charges, a legal framework famously pioneered by his own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to bring down New York’s mafia families, including the infamous “Teflon Don,” John Gotti.

Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.

The former real estate mogul has long invited comparisons to the mafia. His favorite films include The Godfather and Goodfellas, and his personal style—big pompadour hair, boxy suits, and flashy red ties—reflects that influence.

Michael Cohen once described himself as Trump’s consigliere, akin to Tom Hagen in The Godfather. Former FBI Director James Comey, who spent part of his career investigating organized crime, remarked that Trump’s approach to cultivating loyalty gave him “flashbacks” to his days taking down capos.

Then who could forget Trump’s infamous dig at Chris Cuomo, calling him “Fredo”—a jab that prompted one of the cringiest displays of Italian American male insecurity in decades.

From his “Teflon” ability to evade legal consequences to his swaggering machismo and Joe Pesci-like fragile ego, the affinity is laid bare.

Recent attempts on his life all but cemented Trump’s image as a modern-day mafia man. Whether or not the Post’s editors realized it, they captured the essence of his appeal.

It’s often remarked that unchecked social and economic pain leads to the emergence of “strong men.” In the classic authoritarian model, outlined by thinkers like Theodor Adorno, the disenfranchised turn to leaders who embody defiance, control, and simplicity in the face of chaos.

For millions of Americans mired in debt, struggling to pay rent, and unlikely ever to own a home, calling our society “neo-feudal” hardly feels hyperbolic.

It also tracks with the history of the mafia. The mafia evolved out of feudalism’s wake in southern Italy. As absentee landlords managed vast estates from afar, a vacuum was filled by vicious overseers and middlemen—figures the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia called “parasitic intermediaries.”

Sciascia is widely credited as Italy’s first “anti-mafia” voice, following his 1961 novel The Day of the Owl. He viewed the mafia’s emergence in Sicily, shortly after the country’s unification in 1861, as a metaphor for the modern corruption of power—representing a distorted “ideal” of justice that promises order and protection for society’s have-nots while thriving on internal exploitation.

That this distorted image developed within a historical context marred by colonization and exploitation in Sicily—where peasants often romanticized the mafia and longed for a return to monarchy—pained Sciascia.

Equally, he recognized similar patterns in other contexts.

Trumpism operates in a similar way—not as a rejection of power consolidation, but as its acceleration.

Recent developments in Trump’s second term illustrate how a cartel-like consolidation of power among billionaires is carving out fiefdoms and aligning their interests with Trump’s administration in ways that echo mafia-like dynamics.

Peter Thiel’s role in “disrupting” the establishment sees him pumping money into Trump-friendly candidates and tech ventures that favor the privatization of state functions—a classic power consolidation strategy.

Jared Kushner’s financial deals with Saudi Arabia suggest a patronage model where money secures access and influence. Saudi investments in Silicon Valley, defense, and U.S. real estate could be seen as a geopolitical deal—leveraging Trump’s power for long-term economic control.

Elon Musk’s role, however, may be the most revealing. If Trump is the Don, Musk is shaping up to be his new consigliere, not unlike the old mafia’s lawyer-fixers—except with a global tech empire at his disposal.

His control over X (formerly Twitter) allows him to dictate the flow of political discourse, much like a mafia boss controlling the press. If Cosa Nostra kept power through silence—omertà—Musk ensures loyalty through algorithms, shadowbans, and the subtle privileging of certain voices over others.

Federal deregulation benefiting Musk’s empire (Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink) might reflect the kind of crony capitalism once associated with political machines, but at a planetary scale. Meanwhile, Trump sides with Musk over H-1B visas, even as the MAGA rank and file rebelled, and Musk called them “retarded.”

The direction we are headed in is shocking. But it would be a terrible mistake to view it as aberrant. Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.

His rise exposes a sickening continuity. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton played the game with suit-and-tie professionalism—the neoliberal, financialized version of patronage. Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney did it through defense contracting and old-money oil interests.

Trump now strips this down to its rawest level: outright transactionalism, loyalty oaths, and a government that operates like a family business.

He presents himself as the “honest liar,” exploiting well-founded perceptions of corruption while openly admitting to behaviors that elites deny. His blatant displays of donor back-scratching feel almost refreshing in their vulgar transparency.

Just like the old Sicilian mafia called itself Cosa Nostra—meaning “our thing”—Trump presents himself as “Our Monster,” so to speak; a kind of anti-hero who embodies the public’s disgust with a distant and dismissive establishment.

Like Al Capone, who opened a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Great Depression, he swoops in to get “close” to the people. As a distorted Robin Hood-like figure, he plays up his everyman appeal, toggling between his gilded digs and disaffected base. His diction is street-level, his parlance tabloid. He eats the food (McDonald’s). He speaks the language.

Sciascia wrote about the insidious spread of corruption, describing how “the palm line”—as a symbol of mafia influence—creeps northward from Sicily to Rome.

In America, Trump represents its teleological end. He doesn’t need to resort to brute violence.

His power lies in painting a romanticized picture—MAGA—over a bleak reality—“American Carnage.” In an Italian context, Sciascia dubbed this Sicilianità: the tendency to “decorate” harsh realities and mask corruption with rhetorical flourish. The Democrats tried to do something similar with “Joy.” But it failed.

The one thing that Sciascia hated more than the mafia was fascism. Yet in a sense, he viewed them as codependent. Ultimately, he viewed the mafia’s power as resulting from a “historic failure, the failure of the Centre-Left,” and the ravages of “eternal bourgeoisie fascism”—the inability of elites to distinguish their dream-hoarding interests from the needs of the masses.

Which brings us to Musk—a billionaire who sells himself as a free-thinking outsider while constructing a world where he remains the gatekeeper of discourse itself.

If Trump’s rise was a mafia movie, Musk’s role makes it something else entirely—a Pirandellian farce, in which power’s corruption is so blatant that it becomes surreal.

We are now through the looking glass. And whatever comes next will be even more profane than the system Trump claims to oppose.

I think that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have been misinformed. I don’t disagree with their shutting down USAID, but I think it’s rather small fry. There are much, much bigger fish to fry if you want to really save U.S. government money that is being wasted in programs that are mischievously justified as aid to the poor people of the world.

Elon, hear me out: if you walk northwest from your headquarters at the Eisenhower Executive Building along Pennsylvania Avenue, you’ll come after one long block upon two ugly buildings squatting beside each other. One is the World Bank. The other is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). You can actually just walk in and demand to look at their books since they are extensions of the U.S. government. And you would have a very good reason to do so, since these are two of the most questionable and controversial institutions directly or indirectly funded with U.S. taxpayers’ money.

The IMF and the World Bank are monuments to misguided economic thinking and policies that have brought much misery to the peoples of the Global South.

Let me start with the World Bank, which is located at 1818 H St NW. This institution has so-called development projects throughout the Global South, otherwise known as developing countries. This agency says that its mission is to end poverty in the developing world. To fulfill this goal, its lending has risen from nearly $55 billion in 2015 to $117.5 billion in 2024. Yet, despite this massive increase, the bank admits that global poverty reduction “has slowed to a near standstill, with 2020-2030 set to be a lost decade.” Some 3.5 billion people, or 44% of the globe, remain poor, after decades of massive World Bank lending. And a major part of the reason is that World Bank programs have created poverty instead of alleviating it.

Living in Luxury While “Fighting Poverty”

To manage its operations, the Bank’s full-time staff rose from nearly 12,000 in 2015 to over 13,000 in 2023. These figures are just the tip of the iceberg. If one includes all employees—permanent, non-permanent, contractual, part-time—throughout the world, the bank employs close to 41,000 people. The vast majority, 26,000, or 63%, work out of the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., and only 3,200 are located in Africa, where most people in extreme poverty live.

The Bank’s economists and top administrators are among the highest paid financial functionaries in the world, which explains the reason why the bank is a major cause of the brain drain from developing countries: a great number of highly trained economists from developing countries prefer to work at the bank instead of their home countries, with some going straight from Ivy League or British graduate schools to Washington, D.C. Many within the bank and the International Monetary Fund complain about the “South Asian Mafia” that they claim controls employment opportunities for economists and higher-level staff in the two organizations.

The World Bank has come under fire for the billions it has spent supporting fossil-fuel projects throughout the Third World that have contributed to global warming and to mega-dam projects that have displaced millions. The bank, along with the fund, has also gained notoriety for imposing “structural adjustment” programs guided by the radical principles of the “Washington Consensus” that are designed to promote globalization but have, instead, increased poverty and deepened inequality. The reason World Bank projects and programs don’t work or create exactly the opposite of their intended goals is because they are based on questionable propositions built on little or no empirical evidence. An assessment made a few years ago by an all-star team of renowned economists led by Princeton’s Angus Deaton, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, was damning:

[The] panel had substantial criticisms of the way that the research was used to proselytize on behalf of bank policy, often without taking a balanced view, and without expressing appropriate skepticism. Internal research that is favorable to bank positions was given great prominence, and unfavorable research ignored. In these cases, we believe that there was a serious failure of checks and balances that should have separated advocacy and research. The panel endorses the right of the bank to strongly defend and advocate its own policies. But when the bank leadership selectively appeals to relatively new and untested research as hard evidence that these preferred policies work, it lends unwarranted confidence to the bank’s prescriptions. Placing fragile selected new research results on a pedestal invites later recrimination that undermines the credibility and usefulness of all bank research.

The bank’s refusal to acknowledge real-world refutations of its pro-globalization advocacy and its unbalanced, one-sided research led to justifiable rejection of its advice by the people who were suffering from the policies it was implementing, confessed Paul Collier, head of the Research Development Department of the Bank from 1998 to 2003:

The profession has been unprofessional, fearful that any criticism would strengthen populism, so that little work has been done on the downsides of these different processes [of globalization]. Yet the downsides were apparent to ordinary citizens, and the effect of economists appearing to dismiss them has resulted in widespread refusal of people to listen to “experts.” For my profession to reestablish credibility we must provide a more balanced analysis, in which the downsides are acknowledged and properly evaluated with a view to designing policy responses that address them. The profession may be better served by mea culpa than by further indignant defenses of globalization.

Despite the high rate of failure of its lending programs acknowledged in internal World Bank assessments, the World Bank administrative budget that supports the high salaries of its economists and other high-level staff just keeps growing. The World Bank (IBRD/IDA) administrative budget was approved at $3.5 billion for FY25, a sizable rise from the $3.1 billion authorized for FY 2024, with no convincing reason at all.

The IMF and the Art of Worsening Financial Crises

The International Monetary Fund, whose address is 700 19th St NW, is the World Bank’s sister agency. It has a full-time staff of 3,100, supported by a budget of $1.5 billion. The IMF’s economists are paid even higher than those at the World Bank, and they evoke more fear, hatred, and contempt than the Bank.

The IMF has an equally controversial history. It has a record of coming in to supposedly assist developing economies in crisis, only to make things worse. Its greatest debacle and scandal was its performance during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, when the so-called “tiger economies “of the East and Southeast Asia were destabilized by the massive inflows and outflows of foreign portfolio investment.

The fund was heavily criticized on three counts. First, it had encouraged the governments of the region to eliminate capital controls, thus provoking uncontrolled capital flows. Second, it assembled multi-billion dollar “rescue packages” that went to rescue not the people suffering from the crisis but to compensate the foreign financial speculators that had lost millions in dubious speculative ventures, thus encouraging “moral hazard,” or irresponsible investing. Third, its measures to stabilize the damaged economies intensified the crisis, since instead of encouraging government spending to counteract the collapse of private sector, it told the governments to radically cut spending, leading to a “procyclical” negative synergy that ended in deep recession.

So long as the IMF is there, the big international banks will assume that they will be bailed out for making irresponsible loans.

In just a few weeks, 1 million people in Thailand and 22 million in Indonesia fell below the poverty line. The only country that contained the crisis was Malaysia, which refused to follow the fund’s dictates and imposed capital and currency controls

So disastrous were the IMF’s interventions that George Schultz, President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Treasury, called for its abolition for encouraging moral hazard, and prominent economists like Jagdish Bhagwati and Jeffrey Sachs accused it of provoking global macroeconomic instability. Indeed, a rare conservative-liberal alliance in the U.S. Congress came within a hair’s breath of denying the IMF a $14.5 billion replenishment.

Eventually, the fund was forced to admit that the “thrust of fiscal policy… turned out to be substantially different… because the original assumptions for economic growth, capital flows, and exchange rates… were proved drastically wrong.” But things were never the same again. The IMF was so reviled for its performance that Asian governments developed IMF-phobia, swearing never again to ask the IMF for rescue even in the most dire circumstances. For instance, after paying off what Thailand owed the IMF, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared the country “liberated” from the fund in 2004.

Instead of learning from its debacle during the Asian Financial Crisis, the IMF stumbled into another fiasco more than a decade later, during the Global Financial Crisis. It allowed itself to be hijacked by Germany, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank to provide billions of public money to rescue German financial institutions and investors that had engaged in an orgy of irresponsible lending to Greece to the tune of 25 billion euros. To get the so-called rescue funds, the Greek government, like the Asian governments previously, was forced to adopt severe austerity measures that drove unemployment up to 28% and condemned the Greek economy to permanent stagnation, only to turn the money it was ostensibly receiving over to the German banks.

Not surprisingly, so long as the IMF is there, the big international banks will assume that they will be bailed out for making irresponsible loans.

The U.S. and the Bretton Woods Twins: Fiction and Fact

There is a fiction that the IMF and World Bank are multilateral institutions that are owned by their many member governments. The reality is that the United States controls both institutions, with a 17.4% share of total quotas at the fund and 15.8% share of voting power at the bank. These shares give the U.S. government a veto power over any policy change. But the truth is that U.S. power is not limited to its being able to veto policy decisions it does not like. No country would dare oppose a move by the United States to radically cut the administrative budgets (by, say, 75% initially) and the number of personnel in the two organizations (to 600 personnel each, as in the case of USAID) if it wanted to do so. All it needs to do to get its way is to threaten to withhold its contributions to the two organizations. I can guarantee that immediately the interest rate at which the bank borrows in international capital markets would leap upward, paralyzing its lending operations.

The IMF and the World Bank are monuments to misguided economic thinking and policies that have brought much misery to the peoples of the Global South. They are institutions that no longer serve any purpose except to perpetuate and enlarge themselves. If Elon Musk and Donald Trump are really serious about radically downsizing bloated bureaucracies, they could not have better targets than the Bretton Woods twins.